Social Media Followers Help People Find You. Subscribers Help People Stay.

The problem with chasing social media followers and why email subscribers are the real engine behind sustainable growth

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

Why am I posting constantly and still not selling books?

It’s one of the most common questions writers ask me. You’re posting, sharing, liking, commenting, trying to be a good internet citizen. Maybe your follower count is even creeping upward. And yet book sales remain… stubbornly unimpressed. At some point, you start wondering if you’re missing something obvious

Subscribers are incredibly valuable. Maybe even more valuable than followers.

Now, before anyone throws a phone across the room, let me clarify:

Followers absolutely matter, but they do a different job than subscribers. Once you see the difference, your book marketing suddenly makes a lot more sense.

💥 Gratitude to my exclusive advertising sponsor, the always-free Booklinker, and the paid tool, GeniusLink. I love both💥 (affiliate link).

The Problem With Chasing Followers Alone

For years, the internet has trained us to chase follower counts. Twitter followers. Instagram followers. Facebook page likes. Every platform told us the same thing: bigger numbers meant more success. “How many followers do they have?” was the common refrain.

We still engage in that same behavior now. What does chasing follower counts do for us? How does it change our writing lives? Our mental health? I’m honestly sharing the thoughts I struggle with, even given that social media is a big part of what I do for a living.

Ten thousand followers sounds impressive. Fifty thousand followers sounds like a career. Publishers and agents used to ask: How many followers do you have? Now they’ve gotten savvy, and they also ask for engagement, reach, and subscribers.

5 Social Media Metrics That Matter More Than Your Follower Count

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Followers don’t necessarily see our work. Yeah, I know. Sucks.

Algorithms decide what shows up in people’s feeds, and most posts only reach a small portion of followers. For example, recent benchmarks show Instagram posts reaching around 3–7% of followers on average, meaning the vast majority of followers never see a given post.

Social platforms filter what appears in feeds based on engagement signals, timing, and whatever mysterious calculations are on the menu that day. Even if someone follows you, the platform might show them only a small percentage of your posts.

Who hasn’t experienced this: You post something thoughtful, funny, or genuinely useful… and twelve people see it. Meanwhile, a cat knocking over a plant gets a million views. Pets always do well because they bring us joy.

Just look at the face.

Pip, bringing us joy, or silently judging us

What Subscribers Do

Subscribers operate on a completely different system. When someone subscribes to your newsletter, they’ve made a deliberate choice. They didn’t just scroll past your post or stumble across you in a feed. They raised their hand and said, “Yes, I want to hear from you.”

That message then goes directly to their inbox. There’s no algorithm deciding whether your writing deserves oxygen that day.

And the numbers show the difference. According to Mailchimp’s benchmark data, the average email open rate across industries is about 35.6%. That means if you have 1,000 subscribers, roughly 350 people may open your email.

Social media works very differently. Organic reach on most platforms is often a small fraction of your followers, sometimes under 10%, depending on the platform and engagement levels. So you can have the same audience size on two platforms and see dramatically different visibility.

Why? Different levels of access.

Rented Land vs Your Own Home

The analogy that finally made this click for me is simple, and you’ve probably heard but didn’t take to heart: Followers are rented land. Subscribers are your home. I knew this in theory, but I didn’t understand the value or the difference between followers and subscribers in my bones until I started here on Substack.

When you build an audience on social media, you’re building it on property owned by someone else, at the mercy of twitchy platform gods. Platforms change rules. Algorithms shift. Entire networks lose relevance. We’ve all seen it happen, especially if you, like me, are a Twitter refugee.

But when someone subscribes to our newsletter, that relationship belongs to us. They invited our writing into their inbox. That kind of intentional attention is rare online right now, and incredibly valuable.

Why We Can't Focus Anymore: The Hidden Cost Of Our Attention Economy

Why Writers and Creators Need Both

Here’s where the balance comes in. Followers help people discover us. Subscribers help them stay.

Social media is excellent for visibility. It helps people find our work, come across our posts, and learn that we exist. But newsletters are where relationships deepen.

Readers slow down and stop to read. They come back next week. If social media is the busy street outside our bookstore, a newsletter is the quiet reading room inside, with cozy, overstuffed armchairs and a friendly, warm kitty.

Both matter. Different levels of comfort and noise. One brings people in the door. The other gives them a reason to stay.

The Part That Took Me Too Long to Realize

I’ve been telling writers for years that social media alone doesn’t sell books by itself. I know from writing and selling my own eight books that social media creates visibility, discovery, and indexing, yet deeper reader relationships usually happen in places we may not even be aware of.

Newsletters. Communities. Spaces where readers actually pause long enough to read something longer than a caption. And yet, like most people online, I still caught myself watching follower numbers as if they were the ultimate scoreboard. I know I’m not alone.

Because the internet trained us to think that way. The longer I do this work (and I’m on year fifteen now), the more I notice something. Subscribers are readers who choose us. Followers are often passing by, who may or may not wander in at some point.

Do you know how to check your subscribers and followers here on Substack? They kinda hide it. Instructions below:

➡️ Go to your Publication Dashboard on the left side of the web app. Click Stats. Set to 30 days, 90 days, or all time. See the total in the center of the circle, below. Scroll down to see where they originated.

The majority of my subs come from importing from Booksweeps subscriber surge giveaways. I share all about it here ⬇️

What Are Book Giveaway Subscriber Surges and Are They Worth It for Growth?

I started on Substack in 2023 with 1,800 subscribers, collected over a decade. As of today, I have 12,189 subscribers, most of whom I imported via Booksweeps. All are opt-in and GDPR compliant.

But how many followers do I have? This screen doesn’t show me.

⬇️ Same screen, just click one over on the toolbar for Audience.

Total followers are 14,372, higher than my subscribers. This is normal. Most people will have more followers than subscribers.

Why? Less commitment. A follower isn’t a subscriber, but a subscriber is a follower. I know, it’s weird.

If you want to see more info, just click all the buttons on the toolbar. Nothing will disappear, I promise. Now that you know how to check, what do you see? Please share with us!*

*Note: I use Substack on the web. Much of what I discuss is only available for viewing or editing in the web dashboard. If you only use the mobile app, you won’t see the same degree of detail. In fact, there’s no ‘dashboard’ setting on mobile (several other options, though).

If you’re not on Substack, these concepts apply to Mailchimp or whatever newsletter provider you use.

TL;DR - What This Means

If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this:

Followers help people find you. Subscribers help people stay.

So here’s your practical takeaway:

• Keep using social media. It’s still one of the best ways for new readers to discover our work. Choose platforms that Google/AI Search indexes.

• Don’t build your entire platform on socials only. Social platforms change the rules, just like cats knock things off tables, frequently, without explanation, giving zero f*cks.

• Give readers somewhere deeper to go. A newsletter, community, or space where they can actually read what you write.

• Occasionally remind followers they can subscribe if they want more than the occasional post, or perhaps, how they can support us. Many simply don’t realize it’s an option.

A Small Ask

Want More Substack Tips?

If you’re figuring out Substack as you go (aren’t we all), you might like my free section, Substack Tips. I share what’s working, what’s not, and little tips I wish someone had told me sooner.

If these posts save you even one frustrating afternoon, please toss a coin in the BadRedhead Media tip jar. Completely optional, any amount welcome and appreciated. Genuinely appreciated. 🙏

Thanks for reading and being part of this little corner of the writing world. I’m really glad you’re here.

📕📘📗 I’ve also written three books just for writers if you want to go deeper:

https://badredheadmediallc.substack.com/about 🌻