← The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
650: The Lie About Social Media Growth (And What Actually Works in 2026)
00:10:42
Most founders are still treating social media as a vanity channel — a place for likes, views, and followers. And here's the tough truth: if your social media isn't converting into customers, subscribers, or owned audience, you're building on rented land. And that's incredibly risky.
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A
Hey, founder fam. I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with Omnisend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e commerce founders. We've been recommending Omnisend to founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling to seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results. Did you know on average, OMNISEND customers make $68 for every one, one dollar they spend, which is an insanely good return on investment. And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code. Founder50. Just head to omnisend.com forward/founder without the
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e to get started.
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A
All right, now let's jump back into the show.
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Hey, founder fam. Welcome back to another solo episode. Nathan here. And today I want to talk about something I'm seeing. A lot of e commerce founders get wrong in 2020 ads. How are you thinking about social media? Right. Most founders, you guys are still treating social media as a vanity channel, a place for likes and views and followers. And don't get me wrong, the first time somebody hears about your brand, oftentimes now they don't go to your website first, they go to your Instagram. However, I'm going to be tough on you here. If your social media isn't converting into customers so subscribers or owned audience, you're essentially building on rented land. And that's super risky in today's landscape because algorithms change, platforms evolve. I've lost a lot of money just relying on some of these platforms back in the day. So if you build your email list and your customer database, that's an asset you actually own. Like, I was talking to a founder today, a member in our community, and he's been building his business for a couple of years, but he has these platforms, you know, Facebook ads, social media channels, but he doesn't have a large email list. And I've talked about this in other solo episodes before, but I just want to double down on it. In this episode, I want to break down why social media should not just be about organic reach anymore and how founders really should be measuring performance properly and why tools like manychat and having strong calls to action are so essential for e commerce brands in 2026. Hear the stories, learn the prov methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chan. Let's go. Because I want to do an episode because I really Believe in many chat performance and what it can do for ecom brands. So one of the most common things I see founders doing is obsessing over views. Now there's just been a new Instagram update where you can literally tag products as an affiliate, all sorts of things, which allows you now like kind of like TikTok shop style. Especially on Instagram, you can really see the performance of your social channels. So this is really, really cool. Literally like from recording this, it's pretty fresh, guys. We are recording early April. Instagram have literally just come out and said you can now use affiliate links to tag products in your reels and earn commission when people shop your content. So if you're working with creators, you can get them now to really tag your product. You can see how they are performing and all of that good stuff. But at the end of the day, one of the most common things that I see is founders obsessing over likes or follows. And while those metrics can be helpful, they don't necessarily translate into revenue. And now more than ever, right, we can really track how like a viral reel can actually make you sales, because you can have a viral reel that gets no sales. Like this is coming from a guy that has close to 4 million followers on Instagram. You can have millions of follows, thousands of follows, and still get really low conversions. And I've seen it, right? There's been a lot of things that we've seen over the years from E Com founders, even through founder, all sorts of things, right? Where in 2026, the question you should be asking as a founder right now is not how many views did this get? It should be how many leads, how many conversations did I start, how many clicks did I drive, how many email subscribers, or how many customers and purchases did I get from this content? Which I know is a different way of thinking about social. But I want you to stick with me here because here's what you need to take away. Social media is rented land, but your email list is an asset. So this is the point where I just want to double down, right? Like the whole goal of your social media channels is to really build out off them, use them at your disposal. But your email list, your customer base is your own asset. So how many stories do you hear of, like people losing their social channel? Even one of our instructors, Camille Moore, she got her TikTok deleted at well over 200,000 followers, millions of views. Why? And after speaking with people at TikTok, she's not even sure. So this is a big example of like you got to be really careful guys. And this is the principle that's come more and more important over time. When you build purely on social platforms, if you don't have a focus of moving those people onto owned assets like your email list driving more customer conversions. When you purely build on social platforms, you don't control the algorithm, your reach platform, policy changes or even account stability. And we've seen brands lose accounts overnight, we've seen reach drop suddenly. Like one of my other friends, I can't share his name but he couldn't share why. And even like had like people high up in Instagram and they couldn't, they're like they've never seen this before but like his engagement just dropped and, and they couldn't explain like he, he like this super connected guy, he worked his way to the top and they even said I've never seen anything like this. This is what you got to do. And it took him a year to build it back. But the thing is when someone joins your email list, that relationship moves from a platform controlled environment to a really own channel by you and that changes everything. So I can't stress this enough guys. Your email list is how you nurture your audience, drive repeat purchases and it will truly help you build out a long term customer relationship, not just hope that the algorithm shows your post. So another shift I strongly believe founders also need to make is intentional CTAs on social content. Not every post should just be value with no direction. Your content should guide the viewer somewhere, whether it's join the wait list, download a free guide, comment a keyword and think of like your social media content as a funnel, right? You're gonna have top of funnel content which is kind of broader to bring people in can be fun. It could be memes, it could be words, it can be viral type stuff that is highly conversational, highly shareable. Then you can have middle of funnel content which is more kind of light hearted, product related, right? Or around speaking around the problem that you're solving. And then you can have bottom of funnel content which is like pure call to action, case studies, UGC before and afters product benefits, all of that good stuff. Just remember if someone is engaging with your content, that is the moment of highest intent. And if you don't capture them, then you're relying on them to randomly find you again. Which you know might not happen in today's fast moving feeds. So really what we are a massive fan of are tools like manychat. They are incredibly powerful for e commerce founders so instead of letting engagement sit passively in comments or DMs, ManyChat allows you to automate your conversations and really glide your users into your funnel. I never forget the founder of ManyChat. He literally sat down with me like five years ago and he was like, Nathan, this is going to be massive. You need to get on this DM stuff. And the conversational stuff, he's like, this is going to be massive. So as an example, when someone comments a keyword, they receive an automated dm. When they follow you, they get an automated dm. When someone engaged with the story, they get a link to your offer. When someone asks for info, they get guided to an email opt in or you know, you give them a coupon code. So in a where, you know, attention spans are short, reducing friction is key. So if someone is already engaging with your content, making it one click to join your list or access a special offer, it just really drastically increases conversion potential. So how should founders really think about measuring social performance in 2026? These are the measures and these are the metrics that I'd encourage you to look at, not just your vanity stuff. Okay, so email subscribers and the amount of people that have opted in for a special coupon code or disc from social website clicks and conversion rate DM conversations started lead magnet opt ins customer acquisition from social channels. So not just views, likes and followers. And I've seen it happen firsthand. A highly engaged audience that converts will always outperform a large passive audience every single time. So guys, here's the core takeaway. The money is in your owned assets, your email list and your customer database. And your whole goal is not to build on rented land. It's to use that rented land and try and move as many of the people that follow you move them onto your email list and turn them into customers. This is what real businesses do. Likes don't build businesses. Social media is not just a reach channel, it should be a conversion channel. So if someone's watching your content, engaging with your staff, you know that's a signal of interest. Your job as a founder is, is to drive the click, drive the next step, drive the purchase, drive the email opt in. Because in 2026, the brands that win aren't the ones that just get views. They're the ones that turn real attention into relationships and relationships into customers. As always, guys, if you're enjoying these episodes, shoot me a DM on Instagram. Athan Chan would love to hear from you. Thank you for listening and I'll see you in the next one.