Reach vs. Followers

Are you a content creator? Do you remember the early days? The day you created your Instagram/TikTok account, or the day you decided to make your existing profile public by posting your first piece of public content. How many times did you open the app just to see your follower count grow? That was the dopamine hit — the number going up.

But the first few weeks don’t count. Because those are “pity followers”: your schoolmates, university friends, and family, up to your third-cousin circle (if they don’t already hate you). Then the real growth begins. Better content, better engagement, more followers.

Now the game is changing. Follower count is no longer the biggest factor. The algorithm is favoring reach and engagement more and more. “The Kumar Method” was the most recent example. If the early engagement is good, your content can reach millions of views within the first two days of creating a profile.

The relationship between follower count and reach is becoming weaker and weaker. In fact, follower reach seems to shrink as you gain more followers. Follower reach is the percentage of your followers who actually see your content. This is an interesting stat.

This means TikTok couldn’t care less about your follower count. YouTube still celebrates follower count, and on Instagram, anything can happen. But algorithms are increasingly shifting toward engagement to drive reach.

This is how it works now.

Followers are becoming the testing crowd for the new videos you post. If your post performs very well within your follower base during the first 48 hours, that early engagement can create strong reach, and the content can be opened up to your non-follower audience much more rapidly. This means more engagement and much more reach.

So, if you have a “pity follower” base that doesn’t engage with your content, then there is little point in having those followers.

This is the best new thing for content creators.

Build a niche follower base around you. Build an audience that can resonate with your message, and be consistent with that message.

Just having a hook in the first three seconds isn’t enough to get early engagement. (When everybody is using the same hook idea, it stops being a hook.)

So don’t just dance for everybody. Dance for your audience.

That’s when your followers will engage with you more, your posts will reach more non-followers, and more people who resonate with you will gather around you.

Welcome to the creator economy.