Not long ago one of my customers was speculating about why it is someone like me has but a pittance of a social media follower count vs many who learn from me, maybe even bow at my righteous email altar, and yet have 10x the size audience I do.
There are obvious and not-so-obvious reasons for this.
The obvious is, I’m not a social guy as it is.
I had my fun on social about 8 years ago in my old elBenbo’s Lair Facebook group, got burned out on the attention and chaos and drama, and realized that is not my game at all. Nor do I play today’s game of chasing clout or trend-of-the-day topics. Social media algorithms tend not to like those such as me.
But there is another reason that is maybe not so obvious.
And that is this:
In a day and age where everyone’s a celebrity but nobody’s got talent, I’m more of a 4 quarters vs 100 pennies kinda guy than ever before. I also have simple tastes and who enjoy my privacy above all else while writing emails and books and newsletters (and the occasional pulp horror novel) from my oceanside lair, while investing my profits in companies I think are cool.
No lifestyle pics or selfies.
No world traveler exploits.
No rockstar lifestyle full of booze, drugs, and indiscriminate hookups.
I’m too crotchety for that shyt.
Instead, I prefer my day be to wake up, write, play with Willis rest of the day, and refuse to travel at all. That’s probably the polar opposite life of what probably 99% of these guys on social media want, and that the algorithms reward due to their inherent engagement from the proles who are impressed with it. I neither sell to or cater to the proles, the clout-chasers, or the people pursuing the lifestyle instead of pursuing the excellence first which, ironically, is required to get the lifestyle.
The result is much fewer, but far-and-away better, customers.
As for these people who learn from me with 10x sized audiences?
Some of them are extremely good at building audiences. Or so it seems, at least. Although I suspect there are quite a few bots amongst those followers, but be that as it may. And a scant few (I can probably count them on one hand) of those guys are also wise enough to put as many of those people in their audiences on an email list, which is the way to go.
That way they own their business, not Elon or Zuck or Google.
That is what I want for all my boys & ghouls at the end of the day:
To stand on their own two feet, no matter what happens, with an asset (email list) they own.
But alas…
An awful lot of them are hopelessly 100% reliant on social media and don’t have a business as much as they merely have an audience on a platform they have zero control over and that could boot them at any time, taking their audiences from them. That is why it works only until it doesn’t. It’s especially bad for the ones I know of who are completely financially overextended, terrified their audiences will find out they aren’t what they say they, and will be revealed as buck naked when the tide goes out in the coming months and years.
A lot of the things people are impressed by on social media are a fugazi.
As elusive and as much a facade as the algorithms they rely upon.
And it’s all a big bubble that’s already hissing air.
All of which is why I wouldn’t give a trough of horse pucky for the futures of most of these guys who have to constantly churn out content, chase algorithms, and 100% depend on platforms they have zero control over, while refusing to grow and write daily emails to and develop a relationship with an email list like I tell them to do.
Most won’t though.
And even when they do, it’ll be too late.
Not unlike March 2020 when the lockdowns hit.
Suddenly everyone was asking me how to grow an email list at that time.
No.
The time to do that is BEFORE you need it, not when.
And so it is now.
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Ben Settle
