"We do not own our audiences on social media. We rent them. And the landlord can change the locks whenever they want."
By Harrison Songolo (Xkaii), Founder of Th3Circle
Social media sells creators the same lie over and over again: build a following, and that following is yours.
We see the numbers, 100,000 followers, 500,000, a million, and we believe those people are waiting to hear from us. They are not. They are waiting for an algorithm to decide whether they ever see us again.
We do not own our audiences on social media. We rent them. And the landlord can change the locks whenever they want.
That journey of realization for me began with the release of my song "Breakout" at the end of 2023. At the time, I thought it would be my signature song, the one that would define me as an indie rock and alt-pop artist. This song is about staying true to my beliefs, even when the world told me to give up. I wrote it while the world felt particularly broken around me. Social issues, personal challenges, all of it feeding into the music.
Yet, I was set up to believe that it would bring change. Here's why.
At the time of the song's release, I had close to a million followers across my social platforms. I still do. I had amassed 650,000 followers on TikTok alone. I had posted every single day for the past seven years.
I assumed my followers had seen the song and simply didn't care. My covers of other artists' songs had garnered tens of thousands of views, with fans commenting that my voice makes them cry or that they start their mornings with my page. So I posted "Breakout."
1,000 views. Hmm... I posted another edit. 300 views. I tried again with a new rendition of the hook. 5,000 views, the best-performing version, and it took months to get there. All of this with close to a million followers.
Then I looked at where the views were actually coming from. While the song was getting views, almost none of them were from my followers. Only 0.03% of the views came from the people who had chosen to follow me. Fewer than 300 people saw the song I had poured my life into.
The illusion was broken.
Meanwhile, my fans commented on my covers of other songs, saying things like, "Where have you been? I haven't seen you in months," or "I thought you stopped posting," when I had posted every single day for the past seven years. These numbers were vanity metrics that I had accumulated while building my social media profiles; but they did not accurately represent the individuals who were genuinely fans of my musical content.
I am not the only creator who has learned this lesson. Studies have shown that the average organic reach on platforms like Facebook and Instagram has fallen below 5%, meaning that for every 100 people who follow a creator, fewer than five will ever see what they post.
The agreement that I thought I made with social media platforms was that I would produce the content, build a following, and then reach out to that following to build my career as a musical artist. The real agreement is that I produce the content, I attract the viewers, and the platform decides whether my own followers ever see any of it.
"That is not an audience. That is 'a locked room' I find myself standing in front of."
If I attempted to message every single follower on any of my platforms, I would be promptly shut out of my accounts for being labeled a spammer.
I cannot email my own followers. I cannot text them. I cannot export a list of the people who chose to hear from me. The platform holds every relationship I built, and it will never hand them over, because doing so would give creators too much power and not enough reason to keep posting.
That is not an audience. That is "a locked room" I find myself standing in front of.
A few months ago, my grandfather passed away in Rhode Island, where I grew up after moving from Zambia when I was young. I could not afford to travel to attend his funeral. I had nearly a million followers and could not put together enough for a plane ticket to say goodbye.
My income from TikTok's Creator Rewards Program collapsed after a platform update. My payouts barely covered rent. I went from $3,000 to $4,000 a month to $50.
Something broke in me. Not into pieces, but open. The old deal was never coming back. I needed to build something new.
I learned how to code over the following months, and I eventually created a platform called Th3Circle. At first, I built the website just for myself, a place to share my music directly with the fans who actually cared — but I soon realized that every other independent creator I knew was dealing with the same frustrations with social media. So I decided to open it up to others.
The premise is simple: creators should own a direct line to their fans.
An email list. A fan page. Something no platform can throttle or take away. Use social media for what it is actually good at: discovery. Let new people find you there, but do not make it your home.
Instead, direct those who find you to something you control. Once you have something to share, send it to everyone. Not some of them. Not whoever the algorithm selects. Everyone. A whole-list blast. A direct message to one fan. No intermediary deciding who sees it.
Currently, I also mix audio for other artists, edit videos, and substitute teach in my local school district. All of this keeps me fed financially. However, it keeps me further from my true vocation of making my music, for my community of fans. This sacrifice is the hidden cost of being an independent artist in today's industry. Every independent artist is forced to become a full-time promoter for the very platforms that refuse to show their music to their own fans.
Since I opened up Th3Circle to my music fans in early March, nearly 400 people have joined my email list. That is a fraction of my TikTok following. But I can reach every single one of those people whenever I want. No algorithm filters them out. And no platform can ever take that away from me.
If you are an independent musician or creator reading this, do not stop using social media; but use it for discovery only. And stop measuring your career by a number you do not control.
Ask yourself this: if every social media platform disappeared tonight, how many of your followers could you reach tomorrow?
That number is your real audience. Everything else is rented.
Harrison Songolo (Xkaii) is a musician from San Francisco, born in Zambia and raised in Rhode Island. He is the founder of Th3Circle, a platform that allows creators to connect directly with their fans without the use of algorithms.
