There is a very popular thesis among content creators: “numbers don’t matter”.
It’s almost a motivational mantra repeated like someone trying to drive away a ghost.
The idea is beautiful, poetic… and completely disconnected from reality.
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Because, yes: numbers matter, a LOT.
It’s curious how this speech resembles that embarrassment of admitting the importance of money. Money plays a huge role in our lives, but many people act as if it were forbidden to say it out loud.
Creators should not make this mistake with their metrics. They cannot treat likes, comments and views as if they were a futile vanity, when in fact they are the basic thermometer of a business that is based on attention and performance.
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And no, numbers are not everything. Respect from the public, creative consistency, professional attitude, quality of the brands you associate with… All of this builds authority. This differentiates a serious creator from someone who just posts for the sake of posting.
But assuming that numbers don’t matter is like a high-performance athlete saying he doesn’t care about the clock.
Another common (and equally problematic) thesis:
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“I care about originality, not engagement.”
As if one thing canceled out the other.
Creativity is the engine.
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Engagement is the steering wheel.
You don’t drive with just one of them.
Numbers aren’t an ego massage — they’re concrete proof that your content is working. Especially if you sell this range. When a brand hires my work, of course they may like my character, the script or the humor. But she hires because she wants attention.
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And attention is the most expensive asset in the current economy.
Now let’s go to the point that many avoid:
Purchased numbers. Yes, they exist. Yes, they are increasingly brazen. It has that “fake bag smell”. Anyone who knows the market at all knows how to distinguish what is organic from what is artificially inflated. If you depend on bots to appear relevant, the metrics may rise, but credibility falls.
And since we’re talking about fantasies, let’s go to the biggest collective delirium of the creator economy:
“The algorithm doesn’t like me.”
The algorithm is not a villain from a Mexican soap opera. Don’t wake up in a bad mood to boycott your post. It simply responds to human signals.
Low interaction?
Disinterested public?
Repetitive content?
That’s what the algorithm is telling you — and that’s exactly why numbers are allies, not enemies.
Creators have access to data that no one else sees: reach, retention, drops in performance, spikes, virality, ratio of posts vs. organic. Ignoring these signs is like driving at night with the headlights off. Through the metrics you see trends before of them turn crises.
“But analyzing too many numbers takes away the spontaneity.”
Only if you are analyzing it wrong.
Data doesn’t kill creativity. Data lights the way for it to reach more people. Numbers are not cages; they are compasses.
In the end, it’s simple: anyone who creates content professionally needs to treat numbers as part of their job. No taboo, no paranoia, no romanticizing one’s own blindness.
Ignoring metrics is not artistic depth. It’s a lack of strategy.
The creator economy is huge, competitive and fast-moving. And in this scenario, you might not even like numbers. But they continue, silently, to say a lot about you.
