Losing Followers? Good.

As comedians we've learned to recognize the importance and benefits of communicating through social media as a tool for engagement and two-way communication. Social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube are allowing us to share our talents, opinions, promote our work and build an audience. 

It’s no secret that having a lot of followers can create some great opportunities for you because producers will find you more marketable. It’s a global popularity contest and it often feels like a never ending battle between what is authentic and what is just popular. There are people out there whose whole existence is based on trying to crack social media algorithms and they will even try to sell you their “program” to help you build an audience because they know how to crack the code to your ultimate popularity. 

Now, if you are someone who is focused on building an organic audience and not just buying a bunch of bot accounts, you will often feel like you are not doing enough because no matter how much you post you can’t seem to get those numbers up. And not only that, it seems like the more you post the more followers you lose. It’s a vicious cycle, but I’m here to tell you that losing followers is actually a good thing, especially if you are still building yourself as a comedian and trying to find your voice. 

Climbing the Cringe Mountain

Have you ever seen an interview with a celebrity and they feature a video from their earlier work (a movie, a TV show or a reality series they were in years ago) and they immediately feel embarrassed by whatever is being shown? It’s a completely normal reaction because we will always see ourselves through a different, and more mature lens. People grow and change, what was once part of our personality we now consider cringeworthy, it’s a normal progression in life and the same goes for the life of your social media accounts. When you change you will lose followers simply because your content is either no longer relevant to them, or your vibe is no longer matching theirs, but with that same logic, you will get an influx of new followers who will very much welcome this new you. 

Putting yourself out there can be intimidating to start with. I know so many comedians who are so funny on stage but they are so afraid to be judged if they post their clips online. And not just stand up comedy, even some POV videos or sketches, they over-analyze so much because they are afraid of putting out something that will haunt them years later. No matter how much you want to avoid it, you have to understand that climbing the cringe mountain is absolutely necessary for developing yourself as an artist. How the heck will you know what works and what doesn’t if you are afraid to show your work? Will everyone like it? Absolutely not, and that is OK. You can’t expect to be everyone’s cup of tea. Climbing the cringe mountain just means that sure, you might create something now that 10 years from now you will look down on, but the only way you were able to last those 10 years is because you started to climb in the first place. What I’m basically saying is that you will always outgrow yourself, onstage and offstage, and your content will reflect that.

Going from a consumer to a creator

We all spend a lot of time just scrolling through our social media, sometimes for educational purposes but mostly for entertainment. There’s literally no video out there that is not attracting haters and I find that comedians have an especially hard time not responding to them because it’s in our nature to clap back and be witty. This engagement can create a lot of negative momentum and make you not want to create new content in fear of having to spend all that energy to once again defend your work.

We are also very much aware of those “hate watching” followers. These can be former friends and lovers, coworkers and acquaintances and even total strangers that are just lurking around our socials trying to catch us in some hot water. They never like your content, God forbid they post an uplifting comment, they just wanna see if you gonna fail. They will even report your posts and reels cause that’s just how they roll. The reality is, there’s nothing courageous about being someone that judges people and criticizes their work, so that should not be your problem. Sure, you can go the safer route of someone who is just copy-pasting whatever everyone else is doing hoping that that will drive your numbers up but at the end of the day that is not sustainable. 

When you are not coming from an authentic place, and materialize ideas that are sizzling in you and instead you are just parroting what everyone else is doing, that will never last. No matter how many followers you initially get you will eventually lose them because you will not be able to maintain the character that is not yours.

This is why I think it’s so important to always be yourself and create an emotional connection with those that are supporting you, and not feed into the negativity that will only lead to starting and stopping your content creation. That doesn’t mean that you should ignore any self-improvement, but you also don’t wanna lose yourself in the sea of bland content creators and chase some invisible popularity monster. The only thing that matters is being better than you were yesterday and keep moving that needle forward. With time you will feel more comfortable with the way you express yourself and none of that criticism will matter. The moment you start seeing people imitating you and/or get irritated by you is when you’ll know that you got their attention, and that’s your green light to continue climbing. Post that video, upload that reel, write that sentence, develop your ideas. Sometimes those haters are just followers without a vision. Let them grow on their own, and let them go, they are not your people. Focus on creating a space for those that are.

Let me know in the comments section what has been the best social media practice that elevated your mindset and your content creation game.