Why Your Number of Followers Doesn’t Matter

It’s not an indication of your success.

I’ve seen a lot of small businesses with 10x the following I have, but their owners didn’t make 1/2 of what I made in a year (and I only ever make a very modest income, because it’s all I need).

If you’re struggling with the comparison game, I challenge you to challenge it.

Here are 15 other metrics more important than your number of followers:

1. The amount of time you spend not working

2. The amount of time you spend with your family

3. The amount of revenue your business brings in every year

4. The number of people you have genuinely helped this week

5. The number of lives you’ve made better

6. The hours of sleep you got last night

7. The number of days you take off of work every year (beyond weekends)

8. The amount of shares your social media posts got instead

9. The number of new customers you’ve acquired in recent weeks

10. The number of clients you wish to have at any one time

11. The days you spent working on something that refreshes your soul

12. The amount of time you spend on your hobbies and interests

13. The number of new ideas you’ve implemented to make your life better

14. The numbers of bills you’ve been able to pay this month

15. The number of hours you’ve been able to serve your community in some way

If you’re judging a competitor’s success based on how many more followers they have than you, you’re missing at least 15 other significantly more valuable metrics to judge their success by.

I think if you can get your numbers up in the metrics above, your happiness will also increase.

Forget how many followers you have. It’s completely irrelevant.

For the naysayers, a clarification:

Yes, your number of followers matters insomuch that you need a following to be able to market to them. But what I’m arguing here is that your following on Instagram is not indicative of a qualified following that will be receptive to your marketing efforts, nor is it an indicator of the amount of customers a business might have. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that your number of followers “is not the sole or even primary indicator of a business’ success”, but that’s a lot more lame, and still leaves room for doubt about what I wish to communicate.

If your only goal is to grow your followers, you just need a couple hundred dollars and I can buy you 10,000 followers from overseas. But it’ll have been a monumental waste of your money that you won’t see any ROI on.

Many small businesses, especially in the beginning, focus too much on getting their number of followers up, when they should be working on getting their number of customers up.

Know the difference.