Is paid engagement the only way to grow on social media?

I mentioned paid engagement in an email last week.

And apparently this ruffled a few feathers.

One reader replied:

***

Thank you for this email. But I'm somewhat disturbed inside.  

I see paid engagement to be false or not representative of true engagement. It means that if those being paid were NOT paid, then they would not engage with you.  

It smacks hard and implies that your content may not be as valuable to your readers as it is.

***

First things first:

The “value” of my content is for you to decide, dear reader.

And has little to do with how many impressions I get.

In fact, this is the frustrating paradox so many creators deal with on a daily basis…

You publish content you know to be valuable…

But it doesn’t perform as well as it should.

Meanwhile, your favorite guru posts some meaningless platitude and goes viral.

Sound familiar?

This is because there are two distinct keys to the growth puzzle:

1) Content
2) Distribution

Killer content with poor distribution is like the tree that falls in the forest.

It doesn’t make a sound.

So…

Back to the original question:

Is paid engagement the only way to grow on social media?

Of course not.

I gained 3,500+ followers without it.

I know other creators who’ve built much bigger audiences than me without paid engagement.

Now, it does take a bit more elbow grease…

(connecting, engaging, building relationships in the DMs, etc etc)

But it can absolutely be done.

The point of my email wasn’t to present paid engagement as the be all, end all.

It’s not.

Instead, it was to shine a light on what happens behind the scenes.

Only you can decide where your ethical boundaries lie.

And whether you’re curious about it or not…

Inside my new community, I’ll be revealing everything I’m learning about how to grow an engaged organic audience…

Convert them into email subscribers…

And ultimately, into happy customers & high-ticket clients.

(Both free and paid.)

So if you’re an ambitious creator who’s looking to build a business…

Not just an audience…

And you’re looking for a simple step-by-step roadmap to follow…

Then stay tuned for more on how to grab one of the first available spots.

Jim Hamilton