The Silent Majority: Why the Best Audiences Don't Talk Back

Engagement’s a trap. Or maybe it’s a myth. All I know is - it’s real, but it’s also not reality, and if you’re confused, you’re onto a truth that will set you (and whatever you’re creating) free.

Mike Cessario is the CEO/Founder of Liquid Death and, no matter how dumb you feel like the company is (or how amused you are by a CEO who wears Deicide shirts), he knows a thing or two about reaching an audience and inspiring action.

If you’re obsessed with comments, likes, and engagement rates, I need you to see this:

Marketing extraordinaire Jack Appleby put that idea in my inbox this week (he was probably wearing a Taking Back Sunday shirt). It came on the same day I happened to be listening to Bob Pittman (MTV, Nickelodeon, basically the creator of my entire childhood education, and current CEO of iHeartMedia) get interviewed by Rick Rubin (who… same pitch). Bob was talking about the Spotify vs. radio stats and - just read this too:

Recap for a minute with me.

On social media: Everybody is consuming (>90%). Very few people are creating (<10%).

On radio/legacy media: Everybody is consuming (>99%). Very few people are creating (<1%).

And radio is a way, way, WAY bigger pie that’s just way, way, WAY harder to get onto.

But the numbers here - notice the numbers and the themes with me, and how deep, passive loyalty beats scattered active engagement no matter where you’re creating:

Passive consumption is actually active loyalty.

Or at least it can be. This is the companionship economy. It’s how we find, maintain, and hang onto parasocial relationships.

If you’re a creator, you are definitionally not like most other people and you have to remember that. Just because when you listen to something you feel disengaged or focused on other details doesn’t mean most people think like you think. Most people are absorbed when they’re in these activities, and they’re absorbed without so much as clicking a thumbs up.

This reframe changes everything about how we should think about building an audience. Because once you know what pie you have access to, as a creator, you can start focusing on the passive audience who is likely MORE receptive (not less! weird right?!) than the active audience.

Read this too, on the commercial break as a killer -

If you want to build an audience in a way that will actually work, you have to rewire your brain around these relationships. You have to listen to people like Appleby, and Pittman, and candidly - Matt Reustle (try HERE).

Because the places everybody wants to go and the reasons they want to go there - they’re full of people chasing short cuts. The long game is in relationship building. The way to win is to not get distracted by what doesn’t matter.

There’s a difference I am finally grasping between playing in traffic and building in traffic. I used to think “you play in traffic and sometimes you get hit by a car.” It was sort of a broad-canvassing approach where you at least admit the chance of something happening (and getting hit is “good” in that weird analogy).

But playing isn’t building. Playing doesn’t feel aware of the cars around you, just of the chances. Building feels like I have a stated purpose on the road - maybe a flag or some cones or something - and I’m there to help reinvent a traffic pattern. In the building case, I’m active, and even if the passing cars are passive, I’m far more aware of their patterns. This is altering my mental approach.

Views, to a lesser degree impressions, etc., they REALLY matter. The passive eyeballs are watching. The active commenters will be there too, but they have a totally different agenda than the people who are just watching.

And, you build that relationship with them by showing up. Over and over. Again and again. With consistency. With confidence.

This is a wonderful insight for my creative pursuits. I’ve very much over-indexed to quality engagement over noisy engagement on Cultish Creative and my YouTube projects. I’ve wanted the right people to be there so the quality meets my (high) standards first, and know, from experience, the passive people will show up and stick around once they’ve found it.

I’ve felt it slowly working. Sometimes it’s because I’ve landed a client. Other times its an introduction to a new guest, or a follow-up from a prior that catches me off guard in the best of ways. But almost always, these show up out of nowhere. Why was I so over-indexed on things coming from out of somewhere before?!

This is why. Parasocial relationships form out of passive habits. We pick where we show up, then keep showing up, and give them time to grow.

Here's your new math: 90% watch silently, 9% engage lightly, 1% comment loudly.

So many of us have been optimizing for the 1% while ignoring the 90% who actually support our work (literally, because they pay our bills, or figuratively, because they admire what we’re creating).

You have to go where your silent majority is. You have to know the crowd (always) watches the crowd, so focus on giving them something worth watching.

If you find your silent majority and keep them entertained, amazing things WILL happen.

The question isn't whether they're listening - it's whether you're brave enough to keep showing up when they don't applaud.

ps. can’t recommend this enough - shoutout to Jason for trading messages about this episode with me too

pss. If you don’t subscribe to Future Social, Jack Appleby’s letter, what are you even doing? https://futuresocial.beehiiv.com/