Follow Unfollow: Everything That’s Wrong With Business Today

A trend on Instagram as a way to maximize followers is to find accounts similar to yours, with hashtags similar to yours, and follow them.  Typically, the person sees you have followed him or her, looks at your account, likes it, and follows you back. Now you have gained a new follower. Sometimes you wait a day, sometimes weeks, but you don’t really care about those people you followed and you don’t want them filling up your newsfeed, so you go into your account and you unfollow them. Follow unfollow.

What’s the Point?

I had heard about this practice in passing, but I didn’t really pay attention, and I didn’t really care. It was not a method I had any intention of utilizing, and I wasn’t public at the time, so it didn’t affect me.

Then it did.

I went public on Instagram to grow my readership on my site. The workshop I took on how to make money blogging advised finding likeminded accounts and following them, engaging with them, basically making friends. After a while, if the person doesn’t follow you back, you can unfollow them.

The issue with Instagram is that you can only follow 7,500 people. Instagram is a newsfeed, and as a community it would be impossible to follow the pictures of more than that. In my opinion it is impossible to follow anywhere close to that, but maybe that’s just me.

Still, many people aim to make money specifically from Instagram, and companies will do business with you after you gain a certain number of followers. So these follow unfollow people are looking to make huge gains in followers, fast. This is a business to them; they sit and follow accounts, get followed back, unfollow, then repeat the cycle.

Heartbroken

The first time it happened to me, I was heartbroken. I was followed by someone I thought was really cool. She was all about self love, self care, promoting positive body images, etc. She followed me. I followed her back. I commented on a few of her posts; I was happy. Yay! I was really growing a community on Instagram! I had a whole 56 followers! (39 of those were my own personal friends who had always been following me.)

So when I saw my number of followers drop, I was surprised. Who would unfollow me? I just went public? Did I offend someone??

I checked, and I saw that this woman had unfollowed me. The body positive self love woman made me feel loved and appreciated and then dropped me like a bad habit. Follow unfollow.

No. Just No.

Well I wasn’t having it. I left comments on her feed, under a particularly “inspirational” picture, and let her know how I felt. Hurt, used, discarded.

She messaged me right away, apologized profusely, explained that it was “just business,” and followed me again.

She said that it was just how she engaged with people, got them to notice her. She had to unfollow people, she explained, and it was always random, so she could follow more people and engage with them. It absolutely was not personal.

I Am A Person

But here’s the thing about that. I am a person. You did it to me. It is personal.

It is always personal. What you do, you do to people. When you do things to people, you have to consider their feelings.

Or you will not last. You will be found out. You will falter, and fade away.

When we compromise our ideals, our souls, in the interest of making money, we lose.

I wrote a piece a while back on moral capitalism, and it reminds me of this exact situation. In the world of blogging and social media, there are thousands, perhaps millions, of people competing for attention, for readers, for clickers. Look at me! They all say. And we look, and we follow you, and we think you are collaborating with us, building a community that includes us.

But you just want us to make you money. You don’t care about us, about the people who make you money. You care about the money. And you can tell yourself that you can do so much more good if you can reach that many more people, but in the end, you have sold your soul, and tried to sell mine, for money.

You Are Not The Rock, But You Should Try To Be

Because in the end, it has to be all about people. Costco understands that. Starbucks understands that. Patagonia gets it.

No one is trying to get in the way of your profit. But it has got to be about people first. You serve the people. The people reward you with their time, their attention, and their money.

No one understands that better than The People’s Champion. Dwayne The Rock Johnson has one hundred million followers on Instagram. One hundred million. He follows fewer than two hundred accounts.

I guarantee you he did not go in and follow unfollow one hundred million people. I am willing to bet everything in my bank account right now that he did not even do that once. He didn’t have to. He made a real, authentic name for himself and people are interested in what he is doing. He created word of mouth. He took hits in the wrestling ring, he wore a fanny pack, and he played a giant scorpion man in a cheese spinoff movie.

He worked his ass off and never gave up. He is real, he is humble, and he is kind.

Beyonce has even more followers. She follows: no one.

Just Be Real

I am not saying that you won’t get rich off the backs of people with no regard for their feelings or well being. Many many corporations and public personalities do it.

What I am saying is that in the end, you are selling your soul, and you are taking a huge risk that you can survive in a highly competitive game with a ton of people doing exactly what you are doing. And when you lose, and you probably will, you will have gained little money, a lot of animosity from those you trampled, and a dark spot on your soul. Because you will be found out.

We must value every single person who reads our essays. Value every single person who follows accounts on social media. And value every single connection made in the writing world. The first thing we have to be thinking when we make a new online friend is “how can I add value to this person’s life or business.”

Regulated Capitalism

I do expect to make money with my writing. I am a skilled writer. I bring value to people with my writing. I am a good editor. I can help people improve their own writing.

I do believe that capitalism is an efficient system for progress, innovation, and economic success.

But it must be reigned in; it must be regulated; it must be moral.

People have to come first. We who are in the business of sales – whether it is coffee, big box products, advertising, marketing, entertainment, self help, education, information, even ourselves – must remember that our consumers are the foundation of all of our success.

femme unfiltered

I have been writing since I learned how to string words together with my pencil. Writing and storytelling come naturally to me. I enjoy talking. I enjoy listening and observing people. Writing the way I do, to share stories, is a natural byproduct of my personality. Fortunately for me, people seem to respond to my writing. Essays I write resonate with people. Friends and strangers alike tell me a particular piece helped them, made them look at something or think of something in a new way. I started writing for myself. I continued writing for others. Win/win.

In the end, the people will decide. I will grow an Instagram following authentically, or not at all. If you follow me, and I like your newsfeed, I will follow you back. If I find you have unfollowed me, I will return the favor. I will not be played.

I am in the business of growing communities, communities of people who will support each other, who will grow together, who are strong or want to be strong, and want to lift each other up.

A space does not exist within those communities, among these people, for predators, for fast fixes and easy money. We support each other, and we speak up for each other.

As Dwayne Johnson famously says, you must stay humble and hungry.

It is wonderful to be hungry, but you can’t have one without the other.