19 Aug 2025 · 7 min
George Kao argues that influencers who exploit people's self-doubt act like cults, while creators who build trust through challenging ideas and encouraging self-reliance end up with more engaged audiences. He recommends speaking to what people secretly want and removing false barriers to entry.
How do we grow our social media following and engagement with our content, but to do it authentically? I want to talk about that and I really do look forward to seeing your comments below as well. But I want to share a few thoughts. One is the typical way that you might learn to grow a social media following or to get more engagement on your content is in my opinion, basically cult building, right? Because you're supposed to show up as a confident expert guru and tell people, do this, don't do that, and if you do this, you're going to get these marvelous results. And the reason why that works, I'll tell you why that works, is because it seems to me that many of us have lost our inner authority these days. And I think the reason why so much of our inner power is being eroded. Well, it's because there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot of information. You go on social media, you know, you just overwhelmed with information, content, and there's a lot of obligations in society today. And so by trying to have a good life often means you got to try to fit in, right? Please other people, make sure people like you, then you'll have more status, you'll have more opportunities, you'll have less drama in your life, etc. And because when we're seeking knowledge, it's so confusing that we just look at social media and see what's popular and oh, everyone seems to believe this, so that must be true, even if sometimes it doesn't feel quite right to us, we go along with something anyway. So because of this and other reasons, I think a lot of us have, have continually lost our inner power, inner authority in society these days. And therefore social media influencers can get successful by filling that hole of you can trust me, I know what to do, I know I've done it. And here's what you should do. And believe me, follow me, do what I say, including buy what I tell you to buy. And guess what, it works. This is how a lot of people have built their social media following and it doesn't feel right to me. I don't know about you, but I have personally been part of several cults, religious cult, business, cult, multi level marketing, sometimes it's like that. And I'll tell you, I don't want to build a cult, I don't want to build a cult following. I know there's a definition, technical definition of a cult, I want to set that aside for now, but I don't want to erode my audience's sovereignty. But instead I want to support it. So how do we grow our social media following and engagement while still encouraging the inner authority of our audience? That's a question. And before you go on, you may want to reflect on this and think about what makes sense to you. And if you want to comment below and share any thoughts with me, I'd be grateful because I'm learning about this myself and I'm sure I can learn from you as well. But I'll share a couple of quick thoughts before this video gets too long. Okay, ready? Now pause the video if you need to self reflect first and come up with your own answers. I don't want to bias you with my answers, but anyway, let me, let me continue on here. The key, as you have noticed what I've just done and what I try to do in my other videos and I'll just say that I have the tendency like because I've been part of cults, I'm susceptible to it and therefore I'm also susceptible to cult building. And I wish more influencers were aware of this. I wish more content creators were aware of that dynamic within themselves and to try to resist it and to find a healthier way, build an audience anyway. One essentially what I think needs to happen is we need to encourage our audience to self reflect. Self reflect with a capital S. To connect more with their inner divine or higher authority, to find their own answers. I mean this is what the best coaches do, right? To help the client find and connect with their own ability to generate answers. Because if they generate the answers, they build that muscle of being more self reliant and that's a good thing. So how do we do that? How do we encourage self reliance and how does that grow our audience? Okay, couple quick ideas and this video is getting a bit long here. Talk about what's against the grain. That's one, one, one technique. Because you have noticed certain things in your field that maybe, maybe a lot of people believe but doesn't sit right with you. If you can find those things and talk about that, it helps your audience to wake up a little bit more to think outside the box, to reflect whether or not what they've already believed for a while is true or not. And maybe there's a different way. Okay, that's one way. Another one is to speak to their hidden yearnings. Because as people lose their inner power, they suppress their deep desires, a vision for a better life they had, but they said okay, maybe it's not possible and they suppress that, speak to that, give language to that it helps them to reconnect again to their inner power and to their inner potential, their highest potential. Another idea is to relieve them of an unnecessary burden. Maybe they've been trying to solve a problem or to reach a goal or to have an experience in life thinking that they have to do this and they have to do that first. They have to. And maybe there's no longer necessary. Maybe you understand why that's not necessary. Speak to that and it wakes them up, has them self reflect and reconnects them with more of their power. Anyway, this is just a few ideas. This video is getting a bit long, but I, I hope to encourage you to, to think about that. And by the way, how does that incur, how does that grow your following and create more engagement with your content? Well, because people will be grateful when they reconnect with that power and that energy again. They'll be grateful and they're more likely to talk to their friends about you because you help them to grow their power. So I hope this is helpful. I look forward to seeing if you want to comment below and I'm looking forward to learning from, from what you might say as well. So thank you so much and I wish you well.
"Be of good cheer. Think not of today's failures, but of tomorrow's successes...”
