Oct 8, 2026 · 24 min · 13 segments
Growing an audience on your Instagram or other socials is often focused on how to get the most views, or how to go as viral as possible. And getting views is great, but what we reaaally love is…
But as always, the caveat is when we're talking about following, it's not about growing an audience of numbers.
This is about growing your inner circle community who love everything that you do.
Because obviously, if you listened to last week's episode, we established in that episode that sometimes people can grow a massive following, and it's not necessarily bringing them the sales and opportunities to match that following.
I think we all know that, right? You know, we, we know it, we say it, but sometimes we don't necessarily remember to feel it.
What we really wanna be doing is growing our community in a way that's actually gonna get us closer to our business and life goals.
And that brings me very nicely onto the main point of today, which is that growing your community doesn't have to come from your posts going viral.
In fact, I think actually the majority of the time, it's kind of better if it doesn't come from going viral.
And I know that lots of us say this anyway, right? Like, lots of us say, "Oh, you know, it's not about going viral." It becomes, like, a little bit of a buzz phrase, doesn't it, where we say, "Oh yeah, I don't mind if I go viral.
I just want people to see our posts." But even if you're not trying to go viral, I would still bet that you are really focusing on how many views your posts are getting, even if you say that you don't wanna go viral.
I bet that you're looking at your posts, you know, the next day after you've posted them and thinking, "Oh, that one hasn't gone very well," if it hasn't got a certain number of views.
Or if it has got more than the usual views, you're thinking, "Ooh, that one's done well." So even if you're not trying to go viral, I bet those kind of things are crossing your mind, because it is only natural.
Of course we're thinking those things, you know? That's one of the numbers that is, you know, first available to us, and it's one of the s- first indicators of whether someone's interested in our content.
But just because someone has looked at it doesn't mean that they've taken any other kind of action from it, and that is why I don't necessarily think that views are the be-all and end-all.
I know friends or clients who have gone viral, and it's gotten them some incredible opportunities and, you know, they've made sales, they've had brand collabs, they've been invited onto podcasts, they've had people in their DMs who are really excited about working with them.
But I've also got just as many, if not more, examples of people who've gone viral, and it's for something that isn't really that aligned to their business.
And then they either Don't get any followers from it anyway, or they do get a load more followers, but they're people who aren't really aligned, and they're looking for something completely different from you.
It's like, you know, if you go viral because you post, like, a really cute video of your cat, and then you get loads of cat lovers following you, and actually what you really wanna talk about is email marketing.
The other thing is, if you get a big influx of new followers, or if you get a huge influx of new people to your email list from ads, for example, those people still need to warm up to you.
We still need to make sure that those people are actually gonna be kind of coming closer to you into your inner circle rather than just becoming, like, a number on your metrics.
And sometimes people, you know, get that thrill of those numbers going up, and then they're a little bit disappointed when it doesn't actually result in anything tangible for their business.
But as always, the caveat is when we're talking about following, it's not about growing an audience of numbers.
This is about growing your inner circle community who love everything that you do.
Because obviously, if you listened to last week's episode, we established in that episode that sometimes people can grow a massive following, and it's not necessarily bringing them the sales and opportunities to match that following.
I think we all know that, right? You know, we, we know it, we say it, but sometimes we don't necessarily remember to feel it.
What we really wanna be doing is growing our community in a way that's actually gonna get us closer to our business and life goals.
And that brings me very nicely onto the main point of today, which is that growing your community doesn't have to come from your posts going viral.
In fact, I think actually the majority of the time, it's kind of better if it doesn't come from going viral.
And I know that lots of us say this anyway, right? Like, lots of us say, "Oh, you know, it's not about going viral." It becomes, like, a little bit of a buzz phrase, doesn't it, where we say, "Oh yeah, I don't mind if I go viral.
I just want people to see our posts." But even if you're not trying to go viral, I would still bet that you are really focusing on how many views your posts are getting, even if you say that you don't wanna go viral.
I bet that you're looking at your posts, you know, the next day after you've posted them and thinking, "Oh, that one hasn't gone very well," if it hasn't got a certain number of views.
Or if it has got more than the usual views, you're thinking, "Ooh, that one's done well." So even if you're not trying to go viral, I bet those kind of things are crossing your mind, because it is only natural.
Of course we're thinking those things, you know? That's one of the numbers that is, you know, first available to us, and it's one of the s- first indicators of whether someone's interested in our content.
But just because someone has looked at it doesn't mean that they've taken any other kind of action from it, and that is why I don't necessarily think that views are the be-all and end-all.
I know friends or clients who have gone viral, and it's gotten them some incredible opportunities and, you know, they've made sales, they've had brand collabs, they've been invited onto podcasts, they've had people in their DMs who are really excited about working with them.
But I've also got just as many, if not more, examples of people who've gone viral, and it's for something that isn't really that aligned to their business.
And then they either Don't get any followers from it anyway, or they do get a load more followers, but they're people who aren't really aligned, and they're looking for something completely different from you.
It's like, you know, if you go viral because you post, like, a really cute video of your cat, and then you get loads of cat lovers following you, and actually what you really wanna talk about is email marketing.
The other thing is, if you get a big influx of new followers, or if you get a huge influx of new people to your email list from ads, for example, those people still need to warm up to you.
We still need to make sure that those people are actually gonna be kind of coming closer to you into your inner circle rather than just becoming, like, a number on your metrics.
And sometimes people, you know, get that thrill of those numbers going up, and then they're a little bit disappointed when it doesn't actually result in anything tangible for their business.
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