Ep. 3170 - Q&A: “Do followers still matter in the age of algorithms?”
Side Hustle School
Chris Guillebeau / Onward Project
4.8 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If algorithms decide who sees your content, do follower counts still matter? Today we dig into how “algorithmic feeds” really work and why a loyal subscriber base still gives side hustlers a competitive edge.
Side Hustle School features a new episode EVERY DAY, featuring detailed case studies of people who earn extra money without quitting their job. This year, the show includes free guided lessons and listener Q&A several days each week.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | business owners are built differently and there's nothing more satisfying than your business keeping up with you. |
| 0:05.8 | But of course, sometimes your growth outpaces what you can handle, especially when it comes to shipping. |
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| 0:51.8 | So you can fast forward through editing images, designing presentations, generating code, debugging code, summarizing meeting notes, finding files, managing your schedule, responding to Chuck's long emails. |
| 1:03.7 | Chuck doesn't actually send long emails. |
| 1:06.4 | But the point is, leaving all the time in the world for the things you actually want to do. |
| 1:11.2 | And no offense, Chuck. |
| 1:12.4 | Get a new Dell AIPC at Dell.com slash AI-PC. |
| 1:18.6 | How those ahead, stay ahead. |
| 1:26.4 | Lemonada. So one of the biggest changes that we have seen in the world of social media, broadly speaking, in the past five, ten years, is that followers matter a lot less because algorithms are deciding |
| 1:47.9 | who gets to see various content. Like you log into your Instagram. This is true on YouTube. |
| 1:53.6 | Definitely true on TikTok. It's been led by TikTok in many ways this change. Many other platforms |
| 1:58.4 | as well. This is kind of like the mainstream way, is that you've got |
| 2:01.9 | this for you page, you've got reels and other short form video that are delivered to you based |
| 2:06.9 | on what the platform thinks you want to see. And so this whole, this changes everything for creators |
... |
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