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Is your follower count lying to you? Sharran reveals why social media followers are officially dead and why that’s actually great news. In this episode, he breaks down how algorithms have shifted from social media to interest media, meaning your audience is no longer the people who follow you–it’s whoever the algorithm decides will care about your content.
Sharran shares the real metrics that matter now (spoiler: it’s not likes) and explains why saves and shares are the new currency of reach. You’ll learn how to engineer viral growth by asking one simple question before hitting publish: “Why would someone share this?”
This episode will completely change how you think about social media, virality, and growth in the creator economy.
“No post goes viral without massive shares.”
– Sharran Srivatsaa
Timestamps:
01:07 – Real examples: 16K followers, 2.3M views
02:04 – Why your followers aren’t your audience anymore
04:09 – The only metrics that matter: saves and shares
05:21 – The one question that drives virality
06:22 – The psychology behind shareability
08:05 – Why “interest media” is here to stay
10:02 – The new rule of content creation
Resources:
– The Next Billion by Sharran Srivatsaa
– Board Member: ARC Multifamily Real Estate Investing
– Board Member: The Real Brokerage
Connect with Sharran:
– X
– YouTube
– Threads
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey, this is Sharran Srivatsaa. Welcome back to the Business School Podcast. And in this episode, I’m gonna tell you about the craziest thing ever, which is social media followers are kind of dead, maybe officially dead now, apart from YouTube. Subscribers, which have some meaning and attachment to your profile followers, are kind of dead.
[00:00:14] And it’s actually maybe a good thing for you, for me, for anyone else. So if you are in the content game, either you’re listening, watching, or consuming, it doesn’t matter. There’s something in here for you. So I’m gonna break it all down step by step, starting right now.
[00:00:33] One thing is for certain, just because it’s tried and true doesn’t mean it’s working right now. So the big question is this. Where can you learn what is working right now? The strategies, the tactics, the psychology, and the exact how-to. How to grow your business, how to blow up your personal brand, and supercharge your personal growth.
[00:00:55] That is the question. This podcast will give you the answer. My name is Sharran Srivatsaa, and Welcome to Business School.
[00:01:08] So lemme give you a crazy stat. Only 2% of your followers actually see your posts. Here’s even funnier. My mom, my mom. Doesn’t even see my own posts. And I wanna give you a real example for you to wrap your head around. So I have about 16,000-ish followers or subscribers on YouTube. Uh, YouTube is a brand new platform for me.
[00:01:30] I don’t know anything about it. I’m just starting it out right now. And my last video got 2.3 million views. Think about that for a second. If followers are alive, then how would my video with 16,000 subscribers get 2.3 million views? Virality would not exist if your followers and subscriber accounts are alive.
[00:01:47] Now, I’ll give you the opposite. I have, I don’t know, over 400,000 followers on Instagram, but my last post only got 45-ish thousand views. Think about that. Less than 10%. Why? My point is it can go either way, and that is exactly what you need to know because the, your followers are not your audience anymore.
[00:02:07] Uh, I’ll tell you, I’ll give you an example of how this all worked. For the folks that have grown up in this world in the past, all these follower counts mattered because social media worked like an email subscriber list, because you. Transform your IRL, your in real life relationships, and get those people online.
[00:02:25] You would go friend somebody on Facebook. Your post would then get shown to your followers first because the algorithm knows that those are the people that follow you. Therefore, they actually know you. And if they engage with it, it would then kind of spread from there. Well, that’s not how it works anymore.
[00:02:40] Right? Today, the algorithm automatically chooses who sees your content based on what. The algorithm thinks you’re interested in not your connection. That’s why my mom doesn’t see my posts. It’s not social media anymore. It is interest media, right? There’s nothing social about social media anymore. It is interest media only.
[00:03:01] What you’re interested in, would you see? So whoever likes your stuff, whoever likes the type of stuff you put out, is gonna get more of your stuff. If you. Post a video about blueberries, it will be shown to more people that like blueberries. If you post a video about the Anaheim Ducks, which you should, by the way, you’ll get more people that look at your video by the Anaheim Ducks, because the point is, if there are people out there that are interested in the Anaheim Ducks, they’re probably not your followers, but if you 0.1 good video about the Anaheim Ducks, the algorithm knows that that video should be shown to the people that like the Anaheim Ducks.
[00:03:33] That makes sense because that allows them one big important thing to keep ’em on the platform. The problem is this, your followers are no longer your audience and the algorithm’s audience. The algorithm’s interest. The algorithm’s. You know, cognitive brain is your audience. You are actually making content directly for the algorithm.
[00:03:52] You’re telling the algorithm what your content is, and the clearer you can make your content. For the algorithm, the easier it is for the algorithm to understand what your content is, the easier it’s gonna be able to serve it up to everyone that it knows, likes your stuff. So this brings us to the, like, Sean, what, what actually matters in this world?
[00:04:12] Well, the only metrics that matter are right now are these, and first, I’ll tell you what does not matter. What does that matter? Is celebrating like. Hey, I hit 100K followers. Or you refresh your page every three minutes, and you’re like, Cool, I got five more likes. Or you obsess over vanity metrics that have zero correlation with reach.
[00:04:30] Our entire job of what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to maximize reach. The algorithm is optimizing, meaning driving for something completely. Saves and shares. What does that mean? When someone saves your post? They’re actually telling the algorithm that it’s, Hey, this is pretty cool. This is valuable enough for me to reference later.
[00:04:49] There’s a good chance they won’t even reference it, but it created that level of value. They’re like, this is pretty good. I should probably save it. But someone shares your post, they’re putting it in front of a new audience. Organically. They’re saying, listen, I think. This post is a good post. I think my audience would like it.
[00:05:06] I want to associate this post with my audience. I’m voting for this post to get more views, and that’s why I’m going to share it. SA saves and shares. Push your content to people who have never heard of you, and that’s where exponential reach comes in overall. So here’s the magic. The magic question that you can make your post to go viral.
[00:05:26] What is that? That’s what we wanna know. When I am, and my team are making a post right now, we start with one question. Why would someone share this? That is the only question that matters. Why would someone share this? Now, here’s the interesting part. If I don’t know, the algorithm won’t know either. If I don’t know, the people watching it won’t know either.
[00:05:46] And if they don’t share it, they’re voting against its virality. They’re saying, telling the algorithm, Hey, don’t show this to others. They’re saying they’re not interested in it. Please. If you’re not paying attention to any of this, please pay attention to this. No post goes viral without massive shares.
[00:06:02] If you look at a post that you think went viral, just look at the number of shares. No post goes viral without massive shares. Therefore, if you put a formula to this hyper focusing, entirely optimizing, but being relentless about the shareability, gives your post the best chance of going viral. By the way, this is why.
[00:06:25] You want to ask why would someone share this question? Changes everything because it forces you, number one, it forces you to think beyond your existing audience, right? Because you know the algorithm’s gonna show to other people. It makes you focus on instant delight. It makes you focus on entertainment.
[00:06:39] It makes you focus on the dopamine head of value. It makes you focus on not saying, Hey, look at me. I’m amazing. It makes you focus on saying, Hey, here’s a piece of content. That’s amazing. That’s why the you and I look at. Random pieces of content, and we actually believe these random pieces of content. We don’t even know who these people are.
[00:06:56] And second, it shifts your mindset. I hope like mine from Will my followers like this to will this resonate with somebody that has never heard of me? Will this connect with somebody that does not know who I am? That is the interesting part here. If your post will not connect with someone that does not know who you are or has never heard of you, it is never going viral.
[00:07:17] If your post is just about your children and you’re like, Hey, look at me. You know, my kids and I ate a burger today, there is a not a, not a good chance there is. There is no chance that will ever go viral. Now you may say, well, Trump, I didn’t post it to make it go viral. Then you post it in your stories because it just disappears the next day.
[00:07:36] But think about virality. The content that is optimized for likes just dies with your followers. The content that you design with other audiences in mind, the content that is optimized for shares, is gonna spread way beyond your followers. I mean, I mean like, think about it. Isn’t that what virality is?
[00:07:54] Reaching people that you don’t even know. That’s if you have 16,000 followers. What is going viral? Getting 160,000 views. It’s you, it’s not the same. 16,000. That’s the big answer. And so I, I will tell you this, I, I actually like this. I think this, this quote kind of shifts from social media to interest media.
[00:08:11] I don’t think it’s temporary. I think it’s here to stay, and I think it’s here to stay for several reasons. I’ll tell you the main reason. The main reason is, is that of economics, the platforms. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever, LinkedIn, uh, they want you to stay on the platform longer, and that’s all the platforms and the algorithms care about.
[00:08:32] They don’t care about you having 500,000 followers and getting 5,000 views. They care about you having 5,000 followers and getting 500,000 views. They want people to create content that everybody likes. They just want you to stay on the platform. They don’t care what you do on the platform. The more you vote to look at stuff, the more.
[00:08:50] It learns about you, the more ads it can serve you, and the more people stay on the platform, they want posts to go viral. And when you go viral with something, what do you do? What do you do? You wanna go back and post more things like that. If every post that you made didn’t, if none of it went, went viral, then you’ll stop posting.
[00:09:05] Right? It’ll stop consuming. Right. And that, and if you were starting to get shown posts that are not interesting to you outside of, like your friends, the people that you follow are not always posting good content. Like my mom, who I follow, doesn’t post any good content. My dad, who I follow, doesn’t post any good content.
[00:09:22] I have several friends who just post terrible content. If social media only showed me their content, I would not wanna be on social media anymore. I want to be, I wanna be shown stuff that I like, stuff that I’m interested in. Which means you should be focused on keeping users, random people who don’t know you, interested in your posts.
[00:09:40] The creators, the folks right now that are growing the fastest, are not the ones with the most followers. They’re the ones creating content and ideas that people cannot help but share. They’re asking this big question before they post. They’re saying, Hey, why would someone care to share this before they hit publish?
[00:09:56] And the platforms change the rules, and we are. A slave to these platforms. So I’m sharing this with you because it’s time to step up. You know exactly what the rules are. Knowing the rules is the first kind of step into actually doing something about it, because I really believe that you can start a new TikTok account tomorrow.
[00:10:15] You can make a good piece of content, and it will go viral for you, having two followers. And that is good because interest media is significantly better than social media shares. Are greater than followers and there’s nothing, nothing. No post ever goes viral without massive shares, and that’s what I want you to know.
[00:10:33] We are dead, semi-officially dead with followers. We are officially in interest media, and the only question you should be asking is this. Why would someone share this? Because no post goes viral without massive shares. Hey, I hope you, this was interesting to you. If it was, can you do me a favor? Can you screenshot this and tag me that way?
[00:10:51] I know you like this, and I can make more like this for you. So do me a favor, take a picture or screenshot this and tag me that way. I know you like this, and I can make more like this for you.
[00:11:06] Hey, this is Sharran. I have an awesome free gift for you just for listening to the podcast. As you may know, I’ve got a chance to build $2 billion companies the hard way. So if you like this episode, you’ll love getting the exact playbooks from those wins. It’s on my Substack, called My Next Billion. It has the exact frameworks I wish someone had given me when I was figuring it all out. Now you get the real lessons from the trenches as I go for a three-peat and build the next billion. So everything’s free at mynextbillion.com. Please check it out at mynextbillion.com.