When Growth Machine was a bit over a year old, someone mocked me by pointing out that my company must be a joke because we only had a couple hundred Twitter followers. 

But the company was profitably doing over $100k per month, and we hadn't focused on Twitter because we had too much other stuff going on.

What that guy didn't understand is there's a big difference between "followers" and "buyers."

Newcomers to social media and influencer marketing naively assume that if they can build a big following, those followers will buy from them. But that's not always the case.

For example, most personal trainers are marketing on the wrong platform.

Instagram, and now TikTok, are the default places fitness buffs will go to share and follow accounts from other fitness buffs. And to get their softcore porn fix.

But that's not necessarily where the buyers are. If you're a personal trainer trying to attract clients who will pay $100+ per hour for your services, do you suppose those people are sitting at their desk following fitness accounts on Instagram?

No. They're probably on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Instead of optimizing for followers, it's better to optimize for buyers. As a personal trainer you'd have a much healthier business with a few hundred Twitter followers who work at FAANG companies than if you had thousands of teens and college students following you on Instagram.

The great thing about this realization is that the competition is typically much, much lower where the buyers are. Most people focus on getting followers so they compete where everyone else is seeking followers. But there are blue oceans of untapped revenue in the areas where people will actually buy.

So if you're going to use social media, try to find an unintuitive channel to promote yourself.

And don't assume that just because someone has tons of followers means they're making tons of money.