More followers doesn't matter -- but here's what does

More and more, social media platforms like Instagram are de-emphasizing follower counts for user accounts. Analytics are more about reach than how many people follow your page. And it's an intriguing shift in the content creation landscape.

For content creators, follower counts will always be important -- at least until platforms like TikTok stop incentivizing accounts to gain more followers by offering specific perks at following thresholds. But how many people follow you matters a lot less now than other factors.

Specifically, the future seems to be pointing toward how many accounts your content reaches post by post rather than how many people hit that follow or subscribe button. And that means creating content specifically catered toward the people who already follow you may no longer be enough to sustain you.

This means you're going to have to pay a lot more attention to things like trends -- across all social media, not just one platform in particular. In a way, you have to either figure out what the algorithm is going to recommend before it starts recommending that content -- or you're going to have to be able to respond to that shift immediately/.

Being simultaneously proactive and reactive is not an easy thing to do. But this is one of many reasons so many people underestimate just how much work goes into creating content that captures not just the attention of real people, but the faceless algorithm as well. Content creators and influencers are not always just "winging it." Sometimes we do and get lucky, but most of it is actually strategic, we promise.

It's no longer enough that you have an impressive follower count. You consistently have to create content that wins. How exactly you go about doing that is dependent on many factors, including your target audience and specific niche. But they keyisn't your following. It's creating content for the millions of followers you don't yet (and honestly may never) have.