You Do Not Need a Big Following to Make Real Money

Do you need a huge following to make serious money on social media?

No. Alex Hormozi has told the story of someone who takes home around a million a year in profit from an audience that gives her roughly 20 likes and 2 comments a post, with social as her main way of finding customers. The lever is not reach, it is depth. Niche down far enough to build genuine true fans, and a small, devoted audience will out-earn a big indifferent one every time.

The creator with 20 likes a post

The numbers sound impossible. Around 20 likes per post, a couple of comments, and yet a seven-figure personal profit, not revenue, actual money in the bank.

Hormozi kept her identity private, but he consulted with her and told the story himself, and he has little reason to invent it. What it proves is simple: engagement vanity metrics and income are not the same thing.

This is not a new idea

Back in 2008, Kevin Kelly wrote an essay called "1,000 True Fans," arguing that almost anyone can make a good living from just a thousand people who truly love what they do.

He wrote that when more than 90% of Facebook's traffic came from desktop and Instagram did not yet exist. If a thousand true fans could sustain a business then, imagine what a focused audience can do now.

The algorithm now rewards niche

Here is what has changed in your favour. The platforms increasingly push smaller, niche creators, because once the algorithm knows someone loves a topic, it feeds them everything it can find on it.

That means genuinely nerdy, specific content for your super fans is more profitable than ever. The wider you aim, the more you blend in. The narrower you aim, the more the algorithm and the right people notice.

Inside jokes build the club

The fastest way to deepen that connection is the inside joke, the kind only your true fans will get.

Getting the reference makes people feel part of the club, and that sense of belonging builds a real desire to support the brand behind it. It is the same instinct that makes people buy signed copies of books they have already read, wear Ferrari caps having never owned the car, and camp outside a shop for a new phone. Once someone becomes a true fan, they will happily buy almost anything you make, as long as it is good.

Meet Brian

Building that hyper-engaged, niched-down audience means producing a steady stream of content only your people would love, which is exactly what Brian, our AI Comedy Marketing Machine, is built to help with.

Brian helps you turn out sharp, funny, niche-specific posts and inside jokes fast, using the same frameworks our writers use, so you can build the club without burning out.

Take Brian for a spin and go deep instead of wide.