Lately, I’ve been wondering A LOT about why I, a Content Creator, care so much about social media followers. I’m going to pour on the transparency a little thick here.

After an unplanned hiatus, I figured out why I wanted to show up every week. I came back to the content with the purpose behind it. I knew why I wanted to write, narrate, and publish my stories.

Unlimited Content in the Palm of Your Hand

At the doctor’s office earlier this week, I sat down in a waiting area with my trusty iPhone cradled in my left hand. Extra smoothly, I unlocked the screen with my thumb while looking at the five other waiting patients around the small room. Two of them looked about 20-something, two were over 40, and one was an elderly woman. Only one of them was not hanging their head down looking at their phone – the elderly woman. She was the only one to meet my eye contact, and I nodded and smiled at her signaling that I was one of the good young males that would probably drop my groceries on the ground to open a door for her.

My next glance was at a Safari browser window where I went back to reading an article I probably hadn’t touched in days. I think the topic of the moment is combating dry mouth and keeping lubricated vocal cords.

Five out of the six of us in that room couldn’t wait to turn on our screens after we sat. Connection to the whole world in your hand. Entertainment on tap. Always ready to serve.

These days, there’s no shortage of content consumers and no shortage of enticing content. But I’m most curious about the creators of that content and how they gauge the value of their content for the consumers. What are the magic numbers, if any, of likes, followers, subscribers? As a case study, we use me and my storytelling site, mikewriting.com.

I Bailed

After the first year of my site, I got very discouraged and bailed. One year (which is probably laughable to any blogger reading this) and I told myself it’s not working – I didn’t realize back then that content creation is the long game. I was getting a steady flow of 800+ views per month with half as many unique views and low bounce rates. The site wasn’t doing badly. The podcast would barely break 100 downloads in a month.

Readers and listeners were sitting at the table. But there was something in the amount of attention I felt was lacking. My email list wasn’t growing. Twitter followership was doing ok. My Instagram and Facebook page followers were mostly friends and family. I convinced myself that I needed to be seeing an amount of growth and attention that reflected my hard work. I wasn’t happy with these results.

I just stopped. No announcement. No broadcast email. I just quit for almost a year.

Back at it Again with the Narrated Blogging

Eventually, I fired out regular posts again. Here are the reasons why:

1. To not go out like that. I wanted to fail by failing, not by quitting…That sounds right in my head, so I’m rolling with it.
2. To build an audience. I started a book (that started the whole world crying). Well, I started two books, but one is a memoir. But I don’t think a life story of someone in their late 30s would have much traction. So the memoir is getting written very slowly. Mikewriting.com is a big part of creating an audience that wants to hear my stories
3. To know more about building websites. I want the mileage and the knowledge in web design and web development so I can freelance for small businesses
4. To improve my voice acting skills. The #1 way to improve voice acting is to read scripts. Voice acting is fun work that I’d love to do professionally from home.

Coming back to this site was more purpose-driven the next time around. I started enjoying writing again. Establishing why I was showing up for these posts help me ignore the numbers(stats).

It wasn’t just the list of reasons. I also started being more active in social media with other content. Before the break, I would drop into social media to post links to my stuff then bounce outta there. After I started publishing again, I would drop likes regularly and give relevant comments. In short, I started giving the kind of useful attention I was asking for. To be honest, it feels good showing love in social media. And plus it’s easy.

Now, I could tie my likes, followers, and subscribers to something. There were targets in mind now. The quest for followers was no longer arbitrary. It had become means to an end. Means to attention. Attention means time, and time is the most valuable thing someone can give you especially in the creator space (I just sounded so podcast interview right there, didn’t I?).

Logical Approach to Google Analytics Detox

I was ridiculous with checking the site’s statistics. It’s even uncomfortable thinking about how often I checked Google Analytics and Twitter stats.

In my rationalizing, I tried to ‘unstress’ about my readership by making up a formula that gave me an idea of how much attention I should expect the site to get.

(A) First, I take the total number of followers on all social media sites where you share links to your content (Twitter, FB, IG, G+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and email list).

(B) Next, calculate the total number of monthly non-unique pageviews by subtracting unique pageviews from total pageviews. Non-unique pageviews represent returning visitors.

(C) Then, take the difference of non-unique pageviews and total followers – subtract the smaller number from the larger number to get a positive number.

(D) Finally, multiply this positive number by the total number of posts published each month.

(X) Now, you have the approximate number of pageviews you can expect in one month.

As an example, I use stats for mikewriting.com for the month of September 2018. Click here to see pdf of September 2018 pageviews.

Formula: B – A = C or B – A = C,  then C * D = X

Where

If the table looks weird, rotate your mobile device to landscape mode.

I can expect 380 loyal readers to visit my site each month that I publish 4 times. Pretty humbling figure from this perspective. Only 369 people know my site exists, and some of those followers are the same person on multiple platforms. Every pageview after 380 is a bonus.

As loose as the logic here is, it gave me a realist perspective. If you’re a blogger, try it out. See what that magic number looks like. Or don’t.

I don’t use the formula today. However when I did, it was just to chill me the hell out. I’m about bringing the content every week no matter how many are tuning in.   

Conclusion

Something I want to say about online content creating: it’s you that has to be happy with the product. I get how cheesy that sounds. If you want to be a source of something on the internet, focus on putting out your best. You’ll enjoy the process, the work a lot more. This internet thing is a marathon not checkers. What? What??  

When I bailed back in 2017(see the gap in podcast episodes), I was measuring the value of my content against numbers that didn’t tell me anything other than that my page visits were on par with the size of my audience. The value of my content is in how it affects the people that consume it. I should sleep like a baby because I believe I put out quality content for that small audience. It’s putting out quality content that I choose to be obsessed with now.

When it comes to likes, comments, followers, subscribers, sure they’re significant in social media. But it’s consistent, quality content that gets you quality consumers. No matter how slowly your audience grows, create for those readers not the numbers.

…he said to himself in the mirror.