You shouldn’t obsess over your number of followers - it’s a vanity metric. Here’s a story about my experience on Soundcloud - where I royally fucked it up and spent a year doing all the wrong things.

<center>https://i.imgur.com/VXNhVrR.jpg?1</center>
<center><sub>Me after I realize I fucked up.</sub></center>

<h3>My Soundcloud Profile: Pretty Impressive on the Surface</h3>

https://i.imgur.com/i3wqwsW.png

Look at that. GAZE UPON MY SOUNDCLOUD PROFILE. Glance at that follower count, you know how it is, 2,200+ followers, and less than 200 following… Wow, it sure is good to be me.

But what, what’s this? Here is a look at the playcount on my latest single via soundcloud:

https://i.imgur.com/4jypNZE.png

WTF!

At this point I need to protect my ego and mention something: the single was an exclusive on LBRY for the first week, where it **went out to 35,000 active subscribers via email** - so this particular upload is just a fraction of the overall plays the track has gotten.

Nonetheless - it’s no good to have 2,000+ followers and get less than 70 plays in three days. That’s a sign of **bad social media strategy**.

I’m sharing this story to help other musicians avoid wasting time and energy. There are many good things to do with our time, and we have to pay close attention to what **not to do** to avoid distractions. It’s a tough hustle being a weirdo musician.

<h3>Where I Went Wrong with Soundcloud</h3>

Early on in my soundcloud hustle, I learned a simple trick. One easy trick, in fact, to gain hundreds of new followers!

<center>https://i.imgur.com/SkLwNFt.jpg</center>

This is it - my ticket to the top! 

The tactic was simple: Follow ~100 new accounts per day (the most you can do before you trigger a spam filter), and then unfollow a week or two later.

That’s right, I did the follow/unfollow bullshit. It pains me to admit it. The numbers were going up, and it seemed to be working - after all, I *was* getting some good playcounts:

https://i.imgur.com/i3RVIqs.png

1,000+ plays to me is a great result. At this young stage of my career, that feels exciting. It makes me feel like all the work was worth it.

However, I was woefully confused as to **why** people were listening to my music. I thought the follow/unfollow game was working. My follower count kept going up, and my songs were well-received… 

**Then it all went wrong.**

I started reaching out to larger soundcloud accounts. The reception from established members of the SC community was… not so good.

https://i.imgur.com/QBq84lU.png
<sub>This is a standard response from a mid-level soundcloud artist.</sub>

At first, I had a hard time understanding why my approach wasn’t working. The “cold call” strategy of messaging new users had been fine when I was reaching out to newbies, but as soon as I tried to climb up the popularity ladder, I was getting pure rejection.

<h3>Bringing it all together: Comparing my Soundcloud approach to my Steem approach</h3>

Meanwhile, I was having great success on Steemit. I’d recently crossed the 1,000 user threshold, and was earning enough to survive a low-income existence in Raleigh primarily through my steem income.

<center>https://i.imgur.com/ObwL4yO.png</center>
<center><sub>THIS I can be proud of.</sub></center>

On steem, all my influencer outreach was paying off. I got invited to be one of the first members of @sndbox, an incredible steem incubator. I was able to get involved in conversations with some of my favorite steem authors - the founders of Curie, Minnow Support Project, and more, many of whom had taken months to get in touch with.

<center>https://i.imgur.com/YDsteQD.png?1</center>
<center><sub>Check out sndbox btw: https://www.sndbox.co/</sub></center>

What was the difference between these two platforms? I couldn’t tell at first… then… it hit me!

**On Steem, I was purely focused on doing good work. I was creating value, making a difference, and not looking at the vanity metrics.**

While on soundcloud my main motivation was *more followers*, on steemit I was focused on *making a difference.* I was happy to watch my follower count go up with time, but I didn’t focus on it.

Amazingly, the less I worried about followers, the more success I had. By now, my Steemit audience grows naturally as I keep posting content. I honestly don’t think about or keep track of it.

<h3>Conclusion: The More Progress You Make With Bad Tactics, The Further You Are From Real Success</h3>

<center>https://i.imgur.com/bFNlgku.png</center>
<center><sub>The Steem Ecosystem.<sub></center>

Influencers in any ecosystem are happy to help a hard working newbie. If you have 100 followers and are pumping out good content every day, people notice (eventually) and help to boost you up.

Influencers are **allergic** to fakers. When they see somebody with 1,000 followers & terrible content, the opposite happens: they become suspicious. **It is harder to get support with more followers.** By the time you have good vanity metrics, you are expected to have your own audience.

I fucked this up on Soundcloud, and it’s going to be a long road to rectify it. Luckily, I did a better job on steem. 

**What about you?** What do you use to measure your success on social media platforms? 

https://steemitimages.com/DQmYuuW18gWNZPLC1A53SoZ6CHMYTPL4rraFh4gcJ5DYDKf/follow_heymattsokol.gif

<center>https://i.imgur.com/hgkeIwR.jpg?3</center>