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Let’s say you have 90K followers across platforms. How many are actually engaged? Who’s opening and reading your newsletter, watching your videos, and replying to your posts?
The gap between follower count and genuine connection has never been wider, and more creators are prioritizing community depth over reach.
Last year, our editor, Francis, wrote about liquefying your content capital — turning platform reach into owned assets, like email lists and direct relationships. It’s still one of my favorites to revisit. Today’s piece picks up some of those threads, exploring how creators can transform passive followers into engaged, self-sustaining communities.
— Natalia Pérez-González, Assistant Editor
Final call to future-proof your brand
⏰The clock’s ticking.⏰
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For 3 days, we’re going deep with the creators and operators who are building brands that last. No chasing algorithms. No riding trends. Just real frameworks that, you know, work.
You’ll learn how to grow a community, generate recurring revenue, and stand out in a world drowning in content.
Do yourself and your brand a favor and register now before it’s too late.
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The death of the follower
"I built this FYP brick by brick," I’ll often quote to myself, scrolling through my TikTok at ungodly hours.
Monet McMichael’s latest GRWM vlog pops up — watch twice, scroll. A think piece on why the Biebers should finally divorce — scroll. Hype clips from the Kendrick concert — love, scroll. Another concert clip with Blue Ivy — love her, scroll. And then, like clockwork, the platform’s same (slightly condescending) “maybe you should take a break” video pops up, asking if I’m staying up scrolling instead of going to sleep — scroll.
I don’t follow any of these people. I don’t remember the last time I even checked my follower tab, because TikTok’s curated servings, as always, are perfect. I’m a passive scroller, uninvested. There’s no need to be otherwise. The algorithm anticipates my needs before I do.
In a recent episode of The Colin and Samir Show, the hosts sat down with Patreon CEO Jack Conte to talk about a growing, platform-wide shift that’s reshaping how creators think about their audiences: follower counts no longer guarantee access. The use of a follower, as we know it, is dead.
“You almost can’t reach your followers anymore. You make a post, and one to five percent of your audience sees it. I think that’s bad for creative people. I think it’s bad for creators. You can’t build a community or a business if you can’t reach the people who chose to follow you in the first place.”
It’s what many are calling a reach crisis — a moment when creators have more followers than ever, but also less access to them than ever.
@colinandsamir Does the follow matter anymore? @@jackconte1, CEO of Patreon, on the show today talking about the Death of the Follower. Episode live on YouTube
Even when your content is performing, it often feels like it's disappearing into the void. It looks great on the surface — views, likes, impressions — but engagement feels increasingly hollow. The numbers confirm what creators are feeling: Instagram reach dropped by 12% this year alone, for example, and many platforms continue rewarding virality over connection, and visibility over value.
The creators thriving in this environment aren't necessarily the ones chasing bigger reach numbers. They're the ones liquifying their content capital, and converting passive followers into active, engaged community members.
Hyperniche communities are in the lead
If there’s anyone who understands community building, it’s the people in hyperniche, micro-communities. When someone actively seeks out a community around vintage synthesizers or urban foraging, for example, they're not just looking for content — they're looking for connection with people who share their specific obsessions and interests.
According to Discord's Vice President of Sales, Adam Bauer, 90% of Discord servers are micro-groups comprising just five to 20 people. Despite Discord's 200 million monthly active users, "the core experience remains geared toward intimacy" — what Bauer describes as "basically a virtual living room where friends hang out."
This shift represents a significant change in how platforms approach engagement and, in turn, how creators approach their platforms. "The biggest change we're seeing is that community is the product," Bauer explained at Adweek’s Social Media Week panel. "It's not about follower counts anymore."
Take the quilting corner of TikTok, or BookTok's romance novel subsections, or the growing community of people teaching themselves permaculture. These aren't massive audiences, but they're deeply invested ones.
A quilting creator with 10K followers who genuinely engage will outperform a lifestyle creator with 100K passive scrollers every single time, in terms of community health and business sustainability.
The community conversion funnel
Social media still excels at discovery, but building a genuine community requires intention: earning enough trust that people will follow you across platforms, subscribe to your newsletter, or show up to your events.
Converting followers into community members requires moving people through three distinct stages. Each stage has its own psychology and tactics, and each can take months to years to navigate. The payoff, however, is depth over reach — an enduring community.
Stage 1: Passive follower → occasional participant
Someone finds you through the algorithm — maybe even hits follow — but you’re still just another post in the scroll. To change that, make every interaction feel personal, not performative. Your content shouldn’t aim for maximum reach, but maximum depth.
Sophie Miller of Pretty Little Marketer treats every comment on her posts like a warm lead. She personally replies, tracks tags as conversion signals, and registers a “you need to see this” comment as an endorsement of trust.
When Colin Rocker announced his layoff, newborn in his arms, it wasn’t meant for virality. Just an honest post that resonated with his broader audience — leading to several employers, recruiters, and tech leaders reaching out and offering support. Even now, Colin’s most vulnerable posts, where he mixes his expert advice with a personal story, still perform best across his platforms.
Tactics that work:
Share messy decision points, not just polished wins
Track beyond vanity metrics, especially shares, saves, and tags
Solve the silent problems your audience faces
Stage 2: Occasional participant → regular community member
They pop in sometimes, but you're not yet a regular part of their routine. To change that, build rituals and create reasons to return.
Jade Walters posts weekly job roundups across platforms, often tied to recruiting cycles. Her round-ups on TikTok are each saved more than 10K times — proving it’s useful content people plan to come back to. Beyond being consistent, she's become a value-add to her audience's weekly media diet.
Tactics that work:
Create recurring formats or rituals (weekly posts, seasonal guides)
Align content with your audience's life cycles
Measure saves and bookmarks — they signal long-term value
Prioritize usefulness over virality
Stage 3: Regular member → community advocate/contributor
They show up for you consistently, but not for each other. To turn them into true advocates, you need to share ownership and create spaces for them to interact, network, and segment independently.
Colin Rocker's For the Firsts meetups are full of people who don't know him — and that's his goal. His community self-organizes and gathers around other shared interests, a hallmark of a thriving ecosystem.
Tactics that work:
Give members roles and responsibilities
Measure how well the community runs without you
Create spaces for member-to-member support
Step back so others can step up
Build communal systems that multiply value
The most successful creator communities run on reciprocity, not extraction. Take Melanie Ehrenkranz (Laid Off newsletter) and Grace Ling (Design Buddies) — both have created community systems that sustain themselves financially while genuinely serving their members.
Melanie built her newsletter around mutual aid rather than traditional monetization. Through her thoughtful "Coffee on Me” sponsorships:
Sponsors give readers money instead of asking for it, transforming brand partnerships from extraction to community support
She builds community loyalty through genuine care
Designed by Laura Calle Puerta; printed initially in our June 3, 2025 issue.
Grace's Design Buddies operates on a different but equally powerful principle — reciprocal expertise. In their Discord community:
Members are encouraged to provide feedback on others' work before seeking feedback for themselves
Junior members become senior mentors over time, creating a continuous knowledge loop
Each member’s growth strengthens the entire network
Ultimately, building audience loyalty means becoming less central to the value exchange, not more. When your community creates value for itself, you've built something that scales beyond your personal capacity — and survives algorithm changes, platform shifts, and market disruption.
I’m passively scrolling again. A Taryn and Tiffani video pops up on my FYP — an iconic comedic duo. I hadn’t seen them on my feed in a while. I click on Taryn’s page, watch a handful of her latest videos — follow. Didn’t realize she and Tiffani had a podcast! Subscribed immediately. I need some humor in my podcast rotation.
