Most creators build their businesses on sand. If you’ve built your audience on social media, whether it’s on TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram, guess what?
It can disappear overnight like a fart in the wind, and this happens all the time.
All it takes is a slight tweak or change to the algorithm of whatever platform you’re using and, BOOM…
Your reach drops, engagement goes down, and things start drying up fast.
Big Tech’s Algorithms Are Malicious, Out of Control & Are NOT Your Ally
It isn’t just the frauds and scammers that get clapped, either.
Just this week, Meta deleted Search Engine Roundtable’s 11,000+ member Facebook group.
No reason was given. Apparently they didn’t meet Meta’s guidelines. The page had been active for over a decade.
In 2023, Google reset the entire open web. It killed hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of independent websites over the course of a few weeks.
Only a tiny percentage of them ever recovered.
Don’t Trust Big Tech With Your Audience, They Will Burn You
What’s the lesson here? Simple: never trust Big Tech.
If you’ve been in this game as long as I have, you’ll already know that. But if you’re just starting out, get it tattooed on your arm or something.
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about Google, Meta, or TikTok—they will come for your audience and, most of the time, it’s when things are going great.
The overall lack of public explanation of how these systems are built and run indicates that companies do not have oversight over how their own systems work. In light of the enormous effects that they have on human rights, public health, public safety, democracy, and our understanding of reality, this is nothing short of reckless.
Get Your Social Media Followers Onto Your Email List
If you only do one thing in 2025, make it this: get as many of your social media followers onto your email list as possible.
Once you have someone’s email, they are under your control, not Big Tech’s.
The key to migrating social followers from X, Instagram and TikTok is lead magnets. Learn how to create good ones or, if you have the cash, leverage tools like Manychat to speed up the process.
All you have to do is keep them happy, provide lots of value, and they’ll stick around.
That’s why brands like Milk Road sold for seven figures after just 18 months.
It wasn’t because they had loads of followers on X or Instagram; it was because they had 250,000 newsletter subscribers.
Brian Dean is another example: he sold Backlinko for seven figures to Semrush, and 90%+ of the deal was his massive email list.
Do you see what I’m getting at here? There’s a reason old-school marketing people say “The money’s in the list.”
Don’t have an email list? Get one set up. Do it today. Make it priority number one.
I use ConvertKit (now called Kit) because it’s cost-effective (there’s a free tier for up to 10,000 subscribers), it comes with landing pages and sequences, and even the ability to sell digital products.
Squarespace is also a good option if you want a website, email functionality, and the ability to sell digital products and paid newsletter courses.
I’ve covered all the other “best email platforms” for creators in another post, comparing and contrasting them. Kit and Squarespace are my go-to platforms for most projects though.
But if you want to NOT get burned by algorithms, the only way to do it is to not play Big Tech’s game.
Use their platforms to find your audience and then do everything you can to move as many of your followers onto platforms you own, like an email list or a self-hosted community.
And if you’d like to learn the exact process of how to do this, join my CR8TR Newsletter, it’s where I share all the good stuff.
