73: Instagram Followers Don't Pay Your Bills: What I Should've Been Watching Instead

Have you ever posted something, checked back an hour later, and felt your stomach drop? You poured real energy into it. And the response was...crickets. If you've been using your follower count, your likes, or your email list growth as proof that you're good at this, I want you to know you are so not alone. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I get more vulnerable than usual. I share what happened when I finally got on a call with my business coach and therapist, Ash McDonald, what she said that stopped me cold, and why I'd been white-knuckling the completely wrong numbers for months while ignoring the one that actually tells you the truth about your business.

Check out the full show notes for this episode CLICK HERE.

Things I cover inside this episode:

• Why follower count and likes are the easiest numbers to track, not the most important ones
• The question Ash McDonald asked me that I couldn't answer (and why that was the real wake-up call)
• How I'd been avoiding my revenue check-ins and what that avoidance was actually costing me
• Why someone else's massive launch triggered a spiral, and what was really going on underneath it
• The difference between vanity metrics and the numbers that tell you if your business is actually healthy
• Why leadership isn't about having it all together, it's about being relatable
• What I'm doing differently now, including restarting monthly check-ins with my husband Rob

Resources & Links mentioned in the episode:

• Ash McDonald, therapist and business strategist (therpist/biz coach referenced throughout the episode that I love & have worked with a number of times).
• Ash McDonald's podcast (how Em originally found her and built trust before hiring her).
• EP 13: Em's episode with her husband Rob (referenced as one of her most-listened episodes).

Connect with me:
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🫶🏼 Join my 321 Create Newsletter for weekly content tips 
🫶🏼 Check out The Content Coven Membership

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

If things aren't going well, the person who needs to know that is me. Not going well meaning, like, I'm not making money, I'm losing money hand over fist, whatever. Like, what is going on in your financials? I need to know first so that I can actually make a plan to do something about it. Welcome to the Creative Bodega Podcast. I'm Em Connors, Instagram content strategist, one of 43 Canva Verified Experts worldwide, and a mom of two who is not on Instagram for fun. I'm there to market my business, grow my email list, and get the heck off my phone, and that's exactly what I teach. You can expect simple content strategy, visual systems, and Instagram-to-email tactics that actually work without taking over your life. Let's get into it. Welcome back to the Creative Bodega Podcast. Today's episode is a little different. I don't think you're gonna be taking notes of things you can implement right away. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong, but this is a much more vulnerable podcast than usual, so prepare yourselves. I really think it's gonna hit a lot of you pretty hard, though, to be honest, because I- I'm- I guarantee there's so much I'm about to say that you can relate to. And m- maybe you think that I'm different than you because, I don't know, maybe 'cause I have more followers or whatever, but I think you're gonna be shocked at how similar we are despite my possibly being ahead of you numbers wise, you know? Like, whatever, followers, email subscribers, members of my community, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So let's, let's rewind a little bit. A few weeks ago, I had a session with a woman that I know. Her name is Ash McDonald. She's phenomenal. She is a therapist/business strategist. I've worked with her on and off for, like, two years. She's pretty amazing because she knows business, 'cause she's an entrepreneur, as well as some incredible mindset therapy stuff. So she's sort of this, like, unicorn in my opinion, and I love her for it. So I found her because of her podcast, and somebody recommended it to me when I was probably struggling with something and I was talking in my stories, and they were like, "Oh, you should go listen too." So I binged the you-know-what out of her podcast, okay? And this is before I even had a podcast, and it actually really encouraged me to make one because I got so into hers and found so much value in it, and I trusted her so much when I hired her. Like, she didn't even have to do anything. I was like, "Just tell me where to send the money, like, I'm ready," because she had built up so much expertise in my mind in her podcast, and I would, at that moment, would've given anything to have her eyes on me and my business. So here's what happened. And you all probably know there was a very big creator, Jessie Geneholm, who had this phenomenal launch, like a once in a lifetime, $1.2 million launch, and the whole thing went viral, okay? The whole damn thing, the launch, her, the term that she was using to sell her product, all of it. It was, it was unlike anything I've ever seen, and it, it's an anomaly, to be really honest. So this made me feel really... Really down, to be honest. Really like, why her? Right? Like, why, why, why is she getting all this validation? Why, why not me, right? Okay, so here I am sitting here with 125,000 followers on Instagram, which sounds so good, right? Like, so many people are like, "Em, I'm trying to crack 1,000. I'm try..." Listen, more power to you. We all, we all started at zero. I started at zero, and on paper, 125,000 followers sounds phenomenal, right? And but I will go to post something these days, my friends, and I will get, like, 50 likes. And again, m- maybe that sounds like a lot to you, but when you look at how many followers I have, you're like, "What in the actual F is going on?" Right? 125,000 followers and you get 50 likes on something, that's just not enough, in my opinion. It's not enough reach, and, and all that I hear in my head is, "You suck at making content." I sit there looking at that number feeling like a fraud. Like, who do I think I am teaching people how to grow their accounts and make content sustainable and fun again and convert their audience through authenticity, and I can't even get my post seen. Okay? This actually makes my stomach hurt just saying it out loud, and it's like something I don't even wanna admit 'cause I'm afraid people are gonna be like, "Oh my God, you are a fraud," and stop following me. But To make it so much worse, and, and this has probably been going on for, well, almost two years, honestly, when I initially worked with Ashley, is when the algorithm really changed, and my reach just got demolished, okay? And it really hasn't turned around since. It's been an uphill battle. So Jessie Jean comes along, and she has this massive launch, made over a million dollars in, like, two weeks. I don't even know. And I spiraled. I honestly spiraled. I went to my stories, and I was like, "I'm at a loss. I honestly feel really more lost than I have since I started my business five and a half years ago," and I don't even have the words. Like, I don't even know what to say about it, okay? And I explained my following. I just cracked 125,000 followers. I was at 124 for 10 months, my friends. My email list growth has really stalled, and, and here's the thing, like, every month it's, it's, it's an even swap. I lose as many as I gain. That's quite literally what's happening. So yes, there are fresh eyes, and I am getting rid of dead weight. But it just doesn't feel great. You know what I mean? Like, to me, that growth equals validation that you're good. You're good. You know what you're doing. You're, you're a good girl. You know what I mean? But I went to my stories, and I just was like, "I kind of feel sick. I don't know what to do. I'm very frustrated." And my community came out in droves with the kindest things. They were saying the nicest things. A lot of people were like, "Thank you for being honest about this. Thank you for saying it out loud. I feel the same way." But in my head, I'm still like, "Ugh, what am I missing? Am I too old? I'm 45 years old. Am I not staying on the cutting edge of what's cool in content? Am I behind? What do I need to learn? What do I need to do? Is everyone just better at content than me at this stage?" It-- So a spiral. It's a complete fucking spiral, to be honest. So I get on this call with Ashley, and I tell her all of this. I had to fill out an intake form, and honestly, I sent it, and I was, like, laughing, 'cause I was so negative, and I was so like, "I su- I suck, and this happened, and I'm frustrated, and I'm... I just don't know what to do," whatever. So the comparison, the spiral, whatever, 50 likes on something, all of it. And she asked me a question that just honestly made me shut up. She said, "Well, how's business? H-how's, how's your revenue? How are sales?" And I sat there and I, I had to tell her, "I don't know." Oh my God, you guys, you're probably listening, it's like, "What is wrong with this girl?" But I'm not even kidding. I said, "I, I don't know." My husband Rob, bless his heart, handles all the financials of my business. I don't enjoy it. I, I don't like looking at numbers. I'm not a math girly. I don't like analyzing that. It's funny, I like looking at the numbers of my subscriber list. I like looking at the analytics of my content every month. I don't like looking at the revenue or the financials or the sales. So I said, "I don't know." We used to meet every month. We have a standing calendar alert on our calendars for a meeting to go over my numbers. We haven't done it in 2026. Like, we quite literally stopped, and we never started again. The meeting comes, and the meeting goes, and we don't do anything about it. We don't even talk about it. And if he's not coming to me with bad news, my feeling is no news is good news. Okay? And she said to me, with so much love, "Em, this is really bad." And I'm like, "Yeah, I had a feeling you were gonna say that." And she said, "Here's why." And she explained to me That if things aren't going well, the person who needs to know that is me. Meaning not going well, meaning like I'm not, I'm not making money, I'm losing money hand over fist, whatever, like what is going on in your financials? I need to know first so that I can actually make a plan to do something about it. And usually when someone's revenue starts dropping, the real cause, she said, happened 90 to 120 days before that, before you even notice it. So if you're not paying attention, you're kind of always behind, and that was like a real whatever the term is, you guys. My brain isn't working. I don't know. It was a real mind you-know-what. So again, when someone's revenue is dropping, the real cause of that happened 90 to 120 days before they even notice it. But also, and this is the part that really got me, she pointed out that I have so much data on my followers, on my email list, on my content. I know those numbers inside and out, but I have zero data... Well, that's not true. The data's there. My husband has it. I'm not paying attention to the data on the thing that actually matters, which is my revenue. And she said, "Every time you get a new follower, you don't make money, Em. Every time you get a new email subscriber, you don't make money, Em." Those numbers, meaning followers and email subscribers, can go up and down and up and down, and it doesn't actually tell you anything about whether your business is healthy. But here I am using those numbers, the ones that don't matter, as my proof that I'm failing, and ignoring the one number that would've told me the actual truth, okay? And that's when it clicked for me why I'm so triggered by that other creator's launch. It wasn't about the money. I don't need $1.2 million, and in fact, I don't know if I would ever wanna have a launch that big. My nervous system would go into overtime, and it would feel like a one-off anomaly, because it kind of is. I'd rather slow and steady, and we are fine financially. It was the validation. She put together this offer. She priced it well. People showed up, and they bought it hand over fist, and that was proof that she is good at what she does to me. And I was refusing to look at my own proof. I have proof. I've been doing this for almost, almost six years. But I wasn't looking at it, so I had nothing to actually hold onto except for this feeling that I was somehow so far behind. I've made $1.2 million. I've made over that, but over five and a half years. And if you've listened to this podcast a while or if you've hung out with me for a while, you might remember an episode that I did with my husband, and I will link it in the show notes, 'cause it's one of my most listened to podcasts. And in that episode, I mentioned we used to do a what do I have to make every month kind of check-in. Like, what do I have to make every month check-in. Like, what do I have to do? Do I have to launch? Do we need a big-ass chunk of money? Like... And we admitted on that episode that we stopped doing that. What I didn't really get into back then is why we stopped. So about two years ago, when I went through a really dark time mentally, and without going into all of that, it was really scary. I was burnt out. I was overwhelmed. I was literally tying all my self-worth and identity into my followers, the number of followers I had and the, and the engagement that I was getting or not getting And it gave both my husband and I, honestly, some kind of PTSD around money conversations. I, I mean, I It was a dark time. I'm just gonna I was not myself. I cried more than I've ever cried in my life, and he was really shaken up by it. And so he just kind of stopped talking to me about money, 'cause he didn't like to see me like that, and, um, I didn't wanna feel like that, so, like, the easiest thing to do was, like, to honestly stop talking about it. And the way that I coped was just by not asking about the numbers, and if Rob wasn't bringing numbers to me or an issue to me, I told myself that that meant everything was fine. So no news meant good news. And truth bomb here, that's not actually a system. It's avoidance, full-on avoidance, and it had been quietly running in the back of my business for almost two years now. While I was out here white-knuckling my follower count and my email list numbers and my metrics or vanity numbers, likes and shares and all that, those were the thing that would tell me if I was okay, if I was good, not what I'm actually making. There are so many creators that you can find out there that have so many less followers than me and so many less email subscribers who make more money than I do. These things don't actually matter. And Ashley said something else that's been sitting with me. She said that leadership isn't about having it all together, because I was telling her that, like, it's really, like, all of this is happening, right? In my head, behind the scenes, I'm bashing myself, I'm not good at this, whatever, and then I'm supposed to go speak to the coven and speak in my stories and be the leader. And to me, the leader is having it all together and knowing what to do and knowing why it's not working and all this. And it's like, and then I, I spiral even more, 'cause I'm like, "Who am I to even be doing this?" But she said, "Em, leadership isn't about knowing everything. It's about relatability." Okay? It's about being able to look someone in the eye and actually understand where they're at. And the thing I was feeling, the comparison, am I behind, am I too old, the 45 likes on 125,000 followers, my people are experiencing that too, and that is the content, not some polished version of me who has it all figured out. So here's my actual takeaway for you. I think this applies whether you have 200 followers or 200,000, in my opinion. Comparison is the thief of joy. And I know, I know you've heard that a million times. So have I, but oh my God, how true is that? And it's so much sneakier than just scrolling and feeling bad about someone else's vacation photos. For me, it showed up as obsessing over follower counts and likes. And numbers that when I really thought about it have nothing to do with whether my business was actually doing well. Those were just numbers that I had access to, so those became the numbers that I was judging myself by. So I want you to sit and ask yourself, what's the number that you're white-knuckling? The one you check obsessively, the one that spikes your anxiety and your self-doubt like me, that you use as proof of whether you are good and you're doing it right. And then ask yourself, is that actually the number that matters? Or is it just the number that's the easiest to see and the easiest to track and what I want to focus on? Because for me, the number that mattered, the revenue, the members coming in, where they're coming from, I'd been avoiding these for almost two years. And the number I couldn't stop looking at, the likes, told me literally nothing. So if you're spiraling right now comparing your behind-the-scenes to someone else's highlight reel, or worse, their highlight reel that you don't even have the full story on, I want you to know that you are so not alone. Because I have 125,000 followers, and I have a breakdown over 45 likes, okay? The stuff does not just go away because your numbers get bigger. I hate to tell you that. What helps is figuring out what actually matters for your business and paying attention to that. And to me, that's my actual revenue. And I'm so good. Like, I have this beautiful, consistent, recurring revenue And so even when it's scary, and especially when it's scary, you need to figure out what numbers matter for your business and do everything in your power to let go and remind yourself every time you start to spiral over the numbers that don't, what does actually matter. So I went right to my husband after my call with Ashley, and I said, "We gotta start our monthly check-ins." I don't know what the numbers are gonna show me yet, to be really honest. He said, he's like, "Em," like, "you're good. Like, I, I haven't noticed anything crazy, no dips or..." And honestly, it's, it is nerve-wracking for me. I really gotta get over myself, but not knowing was or is costing me more than knowing ever could. So I have to promise myself that no matter what he tells me, it's okay. We're okay. We are gonna handle it. I'm gonna work it out. And yeah, if you're someone who's been avoiding your own numbers, like whatever those are for your business, maybe this is your sign that you need to start looking. You know, the other thing she said to me two years ago was like, "What do you need to make? What do you need to make every month?" And I didn't know at the time. I was chasing an invisible number and always telling myself it wasn't enough. When I actually sat down with my husband and heard what number I needed to make so that we were comfortable and we could save and go on vacations and all that, I was kind of like, "Oh, that's it?" Not that's it, but like, it felt like a very doable number to me, and it instantly relaxed my nervous system So I'm gonna not panic about my numbers. I just need to know them, and you can't fix what you're not willing to see, right? And you can't feel good about something you're refusing to even look at. If you want space to talk through this stuff, the mindset spirals, the comparison, the why am I like this moments alongside the actual content strategy, this is such a huge part of what we do inside The Content Coven. I cannot even explain to you in words the value being surrounded by women who know exactly what I am talking about. They know exactly where I'm coming from, and they are filled with real-life experiences and advice that no stupid Claude or ChatGPT could ever give you. It's not just the templates and the trainings inside, of which there are many, and it's wonderful. It's a group of women who just get it because we are all in this together. All right. That's what I've got for you. Again, this is not like a, you know, write this all down and go do this and that, which is normally what my podcasts are, and I love that about my podcasts, but it's more like a deep breath, and I am a real human, and I don't know everything. But I love what I do, and I don't wanna stop doing it, and I won't stop doing it, but I need to be a little more honest with myself, and be braver, and look at the numbers, and go from there. So thank you for letting me be a little extra vulnerable with you all. I appreciate you more than you know. And hey, listen, I haven't said this in a minute. If you like the podcast, do me a solid and go rate it and review it. It would mean the world to me, or even share this episode in your stories or with someone who you think it'll be like a sigh of relief to in your world. All right, you guys, so much love to you all. We've got this collectively. I will see you on the next episode Thanks so much for hanging out with me on the Creative Bodega Podcast. If you loved this episode, please be sure to share it with a fellow solopreneur who could use a little content creation inspiration. And hey, don't forget to check out the show notes for any resources I mentioned on the episode to help you create content that feels easy and actually gets you results. If you want even more Canva and content tips, head over to my website, thecreativebodega.com, or find me on Instagram under the same name. Until next time, keep creating, keep showing up, and most importantly, try and have a little fun with your content. I'll see you on the next episode