It's Official - Social Media Followers Don't Matter Anymore (Some of My Stats)
I’ve been posting videos on Substack for about four months now, in addition to the usual videos I post at my two YouTube channels.
This morning, for the first time, I actually went into my Substack to see how many views I was getting from my Substack videos.
This really was the first time. As I’ve said many times before, unlike most online brands, I don’t care about exactly how much engagement, views, or follows I get on my social media, because:
My social media is already extremely profitable as it is, regardless of these numbers.
One of the functions of my social media is to “keep my warm audience warm,” which means things like follower/views growth don’t really matter.
I’m an introvert who does not want to be famous or well-known. I only use social media to make money. I want to hit specific benchmarks in my financial life by getting the least amount of public exposure possible.
I’m not saying you should have the same goals. I’m just telling you what mine are, and admittedly, I’m weird.
So I’m looking at the views for my Substack videos… and I’m shocked.
My Substack videos are getting the same amount of views as my Unchained CEO YouTube channel.
What?!?
I look at how many Substack followers I have. It’s hardly any! Less than 1,000!
But wait a minute. I have over 12,000 followers on my Unchained CEO YouTube channel. And I post two videos a week over there every week, and I’ve been posting videos at that channel consistently for almost six years.
Yet I’ve only been at Substack for four months, have less than 10% of the followers, and I’m getting the same amount of views.
Wow.
My curiosity engaged, I look at my other YouTube channel, my Alpha Male 2.0 channel, and look at those view numbers. (Again, I rarely look at these numbers because I don’t really care.)
Again, surprise. My Alpha Male 2.0 YouTube channel gets almost double the amount of views as my Unchained CEO channel, even though it has less than half of the subscribers(!).
The Unchained CEO YouTube channel has over 12,000 subs. Alpha Male 2.0 has only 4,700, yet it gets almost double the amount of views.
And Substack is sitting there with the same views as UCEO and rapidly approaching my A2 channel… with under 1,000 subs.
And even with the small amount of views I’m getting from all of these platforms, I’m doing very well financially from my online sales.
A few conclusions we can draw from this:
Item one: As I’ve stated before, I think for purely video-based social media (YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitch, etc), the number of subscribers/followers someone has is now completely irrelevant. All that really matters is if people on those platforms enjoy your personality and niched content.
The algorithm has moved away from how many subs you have to the topics you talk about. Hell, the YouTube smartphone app now hides the number of subs when you watch a video; you have to click around to find them now.
Item two: With social media platforms that have some video but also feature non-video content (like Instagram, Twitter/X, Substack, etc), the number of subs/followers probably has some bearing on your views and exposure, but now it’s one of several factors instead of the be-all and end-all it was a few years ago.
I personally know a lot of people who have literally millions of followers on these platforms who aren’t making any money or making very little. And I know people who have less than 2,000 subs/followers making 7-figure incomes.
Item Three: There are always social media platforms in different stages:
Ones that are slowly fading in favor (Facebook)
Ones that are holding steady (Instagram, Reddit)
Ones that are tiny and niched and remain tiny and niched even though people think they’re bigger than they actually are (Rumble)
Ones that take off fast and then slow in their growth (TikTok)
Ones that take off fast and then quickly die (Clubhouse)
Ones that are taking off now after having beaten their competitors (the way Substack beat Medium)
If you have an online brand or want to build one, you need to (unfortunately) pay attention to these trends and constantly adjust your approach based on how these platforms change.
For example, the rise of TikTok completely changed how YouTube and Instagram feed you video information.
So stop focusing on how many followers you have and instead look at metrics like actual views and how much money you’re actually making from your social media. The number of subscribers/followers doesn’t really matter anymore and will start to matter less as time goes on.