I posted something last month that got eleven likes. I spent about two hours on it. By any metric, that's a failure.
I'm not sure it is, though.
There's a version of content creation that's entirely about optimization — you study what performs, you make more of that, you adjust based on data. And that works. It produces engagement. It grows accounts. It's a real strategy that real people use successfully.
But there's another version, which is: you make the thing you want to make and you put it out and you don't really know what's going to happen. Sometimes it lands. Sometimes it doesn't. You keep making things anyway.
The content culture conversation at content culture has been exploring this — the difference between posting as strategy and posting as practice. There's a related thread at creativity and brand about creativity and brand that connects here.
The thing about posting into the void is that the void is not actually empty. Eleven people saw that post. Eleven people read it. Some of them probably thought about it for a minute. That's not nothing. That's eleven people who had a moment with something I made.
The community work at community has been thinking about this in terms of creative output — the difference between reach and resonance. You can have huge reach and zero resonance. You can have tiny reach and deep resonance. The metrics don't tell you which one you have.
The cultural commentary at cultural commentary is relevant here: the obsession with engagement metrics is itself a cultural phenomenon worth examining. We've decided that likes equal value. That's a choice, not a fact.
Post the thing. See what happens. If nothing happens, post the next thing. The practice is the point.