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The Brand Brief / The Metric That Matters
The creator with 2 million followers who couldn’t close a brand deal. The one with 40,000 who couldn’t stop.
Follower count vs average reel views — brands are still measuring the wrong number. Here is what is actually happening in the algorithm, why it makes follower count a lagging indicator, and what to look at instead.
Follower count vs average reel views is the most important comparison in influencer marketing that most brands are not making. I have been a long-standing advocate of skipping past followers as the primary measure of creator success — because the irony of today’s platforms is that a creator with two million followers can have essentially the same average view count per reel as one with forty thousand. The platform pushes content to audiences it believes will engage with it. It does not ask whether those people follow the creator. And that changes everything about how brands should be evaluating who they work with.
The reason this matters so much for brand deals is that what a brand is buying when they partner with a creator is reach — real people who will see and engage with the content. Follower count is a historical indicator of how many people chose to subscribe to the creator at some point in the past. Average reel views is a current indicator of how many people are actually watching right now. Those are two very different things, and in 2026, the gap between them is wider than it has ever been.
A creator can accumulate two million followers over a long career on a platform. Data from the Influencer Marketing Hub shows that engagement rates decline sharply as follower counts grow beyond the micro tier — confirming that follower count and performance have been decoupling for years. that used to distribute content to followers preferentially. The algorithm then shifts — as all algorithms do — and that same creator now reaches only a fraction of their following organically per post. Meanwhile, a creator who built their audience in the current algorithmic environment, where content reaches interested audiences regardless of whether they follow, may have forty thousand followers and hundreds of thousands of views per reel. The brand looking at follower count sees a clear winner. The brand looking at average reel count sees the opposite.
The metric I lead with — and why
Average Reel Count
Average reel count is the mean number of views a creator’s recent reels receive over a trailing period — I use ninety days, and I exclude viral outliers so the number reflects typical performance rather than peak performance. It is the number one metric I use when I am evaluating a creator for a brand deal, and it is second only to content quality as a predictor of campaign results.
The reason it works is that it reflects how the algorithm is treating the creator’s content right now, in current conditions, with their current audience behavior. A brand’s sponsored post will live in the same algorithmic environment as those ninety days of organic content. If the algorithm is treating the creator’s content well — pushing it broadly, showing it to interested audiences beyond the follower base — the sponsored post will benefit from that same momentum. If the algorithm is suppressing the creator’s reach, no follower count makes up for it.
Creator performance is only as good as the last reel. Follower count is what the creator was. Average reel views is what they are right now.
What happens when I put both creators in the room
When I sit with a brand and show them a forty-thousand-follower creator next to a two-million-follower creator with similar average reel performance, the first reaction is almost always the same: disbelief. The numbers feel wrong. The brand’s instinct — and a reasonable one based on years of thinking about audience size — is that more followers means more reach. The algorithm has made that assumption unreliable, and until brands internalize it, they will keep paying a premium for follower counts that do not translate to the reach they are actually expecting.
Same views. 50x the follower gap.
A creator with 40,000 followers and a creator with 2,000,000 followers can generate identical average reel view counts in the current algorithmic environment. The platform distributes to interest, not to follower lists. The brand paying a premium for the larger account may be buying a number that has no relationship to the reach they actually receive. (Searchlight Social, on follower count vs average reel performance.)
Content quality is the filter that sits above all of this. Average reel count tells you how the algorithm is treating the creator right now. Content quality tells you whether that treatment is likely to continue and whether the brand’s product will be represented in a way the audience trusts. A creator with strong average reel views and weak content quality is a short-term play. A creator with strong average reel views and great content quality is a long-term investment — regardless of what the follower count says.
The brands that understand this build better rosters, close better deals, and get better results from their influencer marketing management relationships, and get better campaign results. And they do it at lower cost, because the smaller creator with the better numbers is almost always priced below the larger creator whose performance has not kept pace with their following. That arbitrage is available to every brand willing to look at the right metric. Most are still looking at the wrong one.
Frequently asked questions
Is follower count still relevant for brand deals in 2026?
It is relevant as a signal but not as a predictor. Follower count tells you something about a creator’s history but very little about their current reach. The algorithm now pushes content to audiences based on interest, not follower relationships — which means a creator with two million followers can have the same average view count per reel as one with forty thousand. Brands that filter primarily on follower count are measuring a lagging indicator while the real performance is happening in a metric they are not looking at.
What metric should brands use instead of follower count?
Average reel count — the average number of views per reel over the last 90 days — is the number one metric for predicting what a brand campaign will actually reach. It reflects how the algorithm is treating the creator’s content right now, not historically. Paired with content quality, it gives a brand the clearest available picture of what they are actually buying. Follower count can be reviewed as context, but average reel performance should drive the decision.
What is average reel count and why does it matter?
Average reel count is the mean number of views a creator’s recent reels receive — typically calculated over the last 30 to 90 days — excluding outlier viral posts. It matters because it reflects the creator’s actual current reach under normal content conditions, which is what a brand’s sponsored post will experience. A creator with occasional viral spikes and weak average performance will disappoint in a campaign. A creator with consistently strong average views will reliably deliver.
How does the algorithm affect a creator’s reach regardless of follower count?
Modern platform algorithms distribute content based on interest signals, not follower relationships. A piece of content that resonates with its initial audience gets pushed to similar audiences who do not follow the creator at all. This means a creator with forty thousand followers whose content consistently performs well can reach hundreds of thousands of people per reel — significantly more than a creator with two million followers whose content the algorithm has learned to show less broadly.
Can a creator with 40,000 followers outperform one with 2 million?
Yes, and it happens regularly. The platform does not distribute based on who follows whom — it distributes based on what the algorithm predicts will perform with a given audience segment. A creator with forty thousand followers and strong average reel views may reach more people per post than a creator with two million followers whose average performance is weak. For brands, this means the better investment is often the smaller creator with the better numbers, not the larger creator with the bigger bio.
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