What if you never grew again on social media?

Imagine a world where your account never grew past its current state. What would that look like?

• No new followers

• No new views

• No new engagements

• 
  

Your account was down and to the left. What would that feel like? Well, if you’re starting from 0 followers, probably nothing. It would just feel like nothing. But if you were starting from 1 million followers, that would be demoralizing. So what’s the difference between the 1 million follower account and the 0 follower account? Time and effort. The person who spent countless hours and resources building something of value would be devastated to see all their hard work ruined. But the 0 follower account would feel nothing because they have nothing. 

0 followers means nothing because there has been 0 investment made. No time, no money, no equipment, no staff. Nothing=0. So why do so many people get bent of shape over not growing their social network when they haven’t put in the time or the effort? 

As business owners, we want to see things happen fast. I have been into this social media business for about 4 months full-time, and I expected to see way more growth in that time. As a matter of fact, I’ve lost some followers on Instagram. So what gives? 

The problem is  not that I’m not trying, it’s that I haven’t put in enough time and effort yet. At least in comparison to what I want to see happen. 

Building a business, let alone a social media following, is not easy. It takes so much time and so much effort. And nowadays most people would say that social media is valuable for business growth, and yet they don’t put in what it takes to do it well.

All I’m saying is that instead of being sad that we aren’t seeing the change we want due to failed expectations, we must re-align our expectations with reality. 

Ask yourself “have I really been doing what it takes to grow my audience?” Lots of us, myself included, have been trying to do the bare minimum, to just scrape by, in hopes of seeing wild success. That’s just not how life works.

So what do we do about it? We make a change. Even if it’s just a small one. If social media growth is something that is important to you, then make it important. Professional athletes don’t play at the highest level because they just wandered there, and they certainly don’t do it if they just “feel like it”. No, those freaks of nature got there because they showed up everyday (plus some luck), and they still show up. Whether they want to or not. 

I recently heard Michael Phelps talk about how when he was training for the Olympics, he would train 3 times a day, 2 swims and 1 lift, and he would consume around 10,000 calories. Do you think that Michael Phelps wanted to train 3 times a day and eat 10,000 calories every single day? Absolutely not. I actually don’t think anyone would choose that life lol. He was focused on winning the gold medal, and he ended up winning lots of gold medals. But he was focused. I’m positive there were lots of other things he could’ve done or wanted to do with his time, but he decided that winning the gold was the most important thing he could do. So Phelps did what it took to get there.

Building an audience is the same. What’s your 3 training sessions look like? How are you going to metaphorically consume 10,000 calories everyday to get to the gold? I’m not advocating for you to “hustle” your way through life, I’m simply saying that it takes sacrifice to get what you want. So what is it you want? And what do you think it’s going to take for you to get there?

I’d love for you to share with me what your pain points are and how you think you could realistically navigate through them in the comments. And if you want to talk through it with someone, feel free to ask! I’m all ears :)