The Power of One
Do you ever do something in your business and think: "This is it. This is the thing that's going to change everything!"?
The course launch that will sell out in a day.
The Reel that will go viral and catapult you to Insta stardom.
The blog that will be spotted and lead to a book deal.
The podcast appearance that will open the newsletter subscriber floodgates.
I'm not ashamed to say I have done this, and still do sometimes (I have a great imagination, and I often think my content is really great and deserving of selling out/Insta stardom/book deals/everyone subscribing!).
I think it’s actually common, because the examples of such meteoric successes are often the ones held up as examples of great content marketing.
But you know what, they may be examples of great content marketing, but that doesn’t mean that all good content marketing will have its name up in lights.
Measure what matters
In my experience, the fraction of content creators who experience epic, visible success is TINY. And, quite likely, you have heard about this success because they are selling something related to it.
Because “success” like that is fleeting and is usually not a marker for true business success.
When last did you pay your gas bill with a bunch of subscribers? Or deposited a fat wad of Facebook likes into your bank account?
Exactly.
So while it might be validation that people (and algorithms) like a piece of content you created, virality is more about our ego than our business.
Not everything that matters can be measured
Of course social media metrics can (should?!) be used as performance indicators.
If you want to sell to more people, then more people need to know about you, so measuring social media growth makes sense.
But don’t cling to those metrics simply because they allow you to put a neat number next to your efforts.
Instead, think about your audience, their questions, needs and journey with you. There are many elements in that that are harder or even impossible to quantify, but may be even more important to your bottom line.
In praise of small, slow and sustainable
When people have content that goes viral or experience stratospheric growth in their business, good for them! But please, let's not normalise their stories and hold them up as some impossible ideal.
Even if you follow their “steps to success” to the letter, you’re unlikely to have the same outcome.
Extraordinary stories are called that because they are out of the ordinary. But ordinary success is still success, isn’t it?!
Instead, why not focusing on a more realistic and sustainable of growing: one by one.
Find one client and treat them really well. Then the next one will come, and the next.
Find one subscriber or follower, give them really great, valuable content. The rest will come, one by one by one.
A great book that goes into this concept in more eloquent detail is Company of One by Paul Jarvis. I cannot recommend this book enough for anyone who wants to revel in the joy of being small but successful.
Never think that unless your audience growth is stratospheric, you're not doing it right. Keep shuffling: baby steps still move your forward.
A version of this post first appeared in my weekly newsletter.