The Real Reason Most People Struggle on Social Media (And How I Finally Cracked It)
If you’re struggling to grow on social media, I don’t think it’s because you’re bad at content.
More often than not, it’s because you’re playing the game with a strategy that no longer works.
I’ve spent years watching creators burn themselves out—posting constantly, chasing trends, jumping platforms, hoping one viral hit will change everything. I’ve also watched people with smaller audiences quietly build real businesses, real income, and real leverage.
The difference isn’t talent.
It’s understanding how social media actually works today.
At some point, I realized that every platform I was using followed the same core rules. Once I understood those rules, growth stopped feeling random and started feeling predictable. Not easy—but predictable.
What follows are the five biggest, non-obvious lessons that changed how I approach content, growth, and monetization. These aren’t hacks. They’re mindset shifts. And once you see them, it’s very hard to unsee them.
1. Social Media Isn’t Social Anymore—It’s Just Media
This is the single biggest mental shift you can make.
Social media used to be social. Platforms were designed to connect you with people you already knew and to show your content primarily to followers. That era is gone.
Today, social platforms behave much more like media companies.
Think about how you use YouTube. You don’t open it to “check in” with friends. You open it to watch something interesting. TikTok brought that same consumption model to short-form video, and every other platform followed. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even X now prioritize content discovery over follower relationships.
That shift changes everything.
The platforms don’t care who follows you.
They care who watches.
Their business model is simple: keep viewers on the platform as long as possible so more ads can be shown. The algorithm’s job is to match viewers with videos they’re most likely to enjoy.
Your job, as a creator, is to make that match obvious.
This is why follower count matters less than it ever has. It’s also why posting “for your followers” is outdated advice. Your content is being judged independently, video by video, and shown to people who have never heard of you.
Once you understand that social media is media, not social, the game becomes much clearer: growth comes from audience matching, not audience size.
2. The Algorithm Only Wants One Thing: Better Matches
When people talk about algorithms, they often make them sound mysterious or malicious. In reality, they’re surprisingly simple.
The algorithm wants to answer two questions:
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What is this content about?
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Who is most likely to enjoy it?
That’s it.
If the algorithm can confidently answer those questions, your content gets pushed. If it can’t, your content dies quietly.
This is where most creators go wrong. They jump between topics, styles, and audiences, assuming variety helps. In reality, variety usually creates confusion.
The algorithm learns primarily through:
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What you say in your video (transcriptions)
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What you write in captions
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Who engages positively with your content
When you consistently talk about the same topic, using similar language, and attract the same type of viewer, the algorithm learns faster. It builds a clear profile of your content and starts matching it with lookalike audiences.
Precision beats creativity here.
If you look at your last 20 posts and they’re all over the place, the algorithm doesn’t know who to send you to. But if those posts clearly target the same pain points for the same type of person, distribution becomes much easier.
The fastest growth I’ve seen—both personally and with others—comes from staying painfully focused on one topic long enough for the algorithm to stop guessing.
3. Consistency Isn’t About Frequency—It’s About Focus
Most people hear “consistency” and think it means posting every day.
That’s not what matters.
Consistency means:
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Same topic
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Same audience
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Same problems
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Same language
Over and over again.
If you like sports, tech, design, and finance, that’s fine—but don’t put all of that on one channel and expect the algorithm to figure it out. Pick one. Build depth before breadth.
When you stay focused, the algorithm can:
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Diagnose your niche accurately
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Identify your ideal viewers
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Create stronger lookalike audiences
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Push your content with more confidence
A good rule of thumb is this: after 30–50 focused videos, the platform should clearly “understand” you. If you haven’t given it that many reps on a single topic, you probably haven’t given it enough signal.
And here’s the important part: if your focus is tight and you’re still not getting traction, the problem isn’t the algorithm—it’s the content quality. That’s actually good news, because quality is fixable.
4. Virality Is a Trap If You Want to Make Money
Everyone wants to go viral.
Very few people stop to ask whether virality actually helps them.
There are two types of virality:
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Pure virality: going as broad as possible to get maximum views
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On-target virality: spreading deeply within a specific niche
Pure virality feels amazing. The dopamine hit is real. But it often attracts people who will never buy from you, never return, and never care about what you do next.
Worse, it can confuse the algorithm.
When a video pulls in wildly different audience segments, the platform struggles to decide where to send your next post. Your reach becomes inconsistent, and your audience becomes fragmented.
On-target virality is quieter, but far more powerful.
It’s when a large percentage of your people see your content—not everyone. This builds trust, familiarity, and relevance. Over time, you become a category favorite instead of a general entertainer.
This is why you’ll see creators with smaller followings running six- or seven-figure businesses, while massive influencers struggle to monetize. The riches really are in the niches.
When evaluating content ideas, I ask myself one question:
Will my core audience find this genuinely useful, interesting, or entertaining?
If the answer is no, I don’t make it—no matter how “viral” it could be.
5. You Don’t Need Every Platform—You Need the Right One
One of the most common pieces of advice in social media is “be everywhere.”
I think that’s terrible advice for most people.
Your audience isn’t everywhere. They’re concentrated.
People spend most of their time on one or two platforms. Your job is to figure out where your audience already is and show up there consistently.
Pick one hero platform.
Commit to it for six months.
Go deep instead of wide.
When you focus on one platform, you:
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Learn its culture
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Understand what formats work
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Engage more deeply in comments and DMs
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Become recognizable in your niche
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Compound results faster
Video matters almost everywhere now, so whichever platform you choose, make video a priority. But resist the urge to spread yourself thin unless you have a team to support it.
If you’re unsure where your audience lives, ask them—or look at where you go to learn and consume content in your space. That’s usually the answer.
6. Platforms Are Islands, Not Ecosystems
Another big misconception is that social platforms should all be tightly connected.
“Get them to follow you everywhere” sounds good in theory, but it ignores how platforms and users actually behave.
Each platform is its own island:
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Different algorithms
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Different consumption speeds
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Different user expectations
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Different incentives
Platforms don’t like sending users away, and users don’t love being forced to switch contexts. When you aggressively push people from one platform to another, engagement often drops—and sometimes your reach does too.
Instead of forcing cross-platform movement, I think in terms of world-building.
That means:
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Consistent branding
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Familiar voice
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Aligned visuals
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Similar themes
If someone discovers you on another platform naturally, it should feel cohesive—but not forced.
The only bridges I actively build are from platforms I don’t own to platforms I do own: email lists, communities, products. That’s where real leverage lives.
7. The Harsh Truth: Most Money Isn’t Made at the Media Layer
This realization hits almost everyone eventually.
You grind for months.
You finally monetize.
You check your earnings.
And it’s… disappointing.
The reason is structural.
There are three layers in the content ecosystem:
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Platform layer – Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
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Media layer – creators
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Offering layer – products, services, brands
Most of the money is captured at the platform layer and the offering layer. Creators generate attention, but capture relatively little value unless they control what comes next.
This isn’t a failure—it’s how the system is designed.
Media is the leverage.
Offers are the business.
If you rely solely on AdSense or brand deals, your income will almost always feel disconnected from your effort. The creators who win long-term use content to drive attention toward something they own or control.
That might be:
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Products
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Services
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Memberships
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Education
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Affiliates with real upside
Content gets you noticed. Ownership gets you paid.
Social media growth feels chaotic when you don’t understand the rules. Once you do, it becomes a system.
To recap:
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Social media is media now, not social
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Growth comes from audience matching, not followers
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Focus beats frequency
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On-target virality beats broad virality
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One platform done well beats five done poorly
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Platforms are islands—build owned bridges
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Money follows ownership, not views
None of this requires luck.
It requires discipline.
And if you’re willing to commit to clarity over chaos, the algorithm will eventually meet you halfway.
Still in business.
