Followers don’t show up in person. Pay attention to who would.

A number beside your name measures reach, not backup. Reach is genuinely useful for some things and completely useless at two in the morning when something goes wrong and you need an actual person in an actual car. Those are two separate lists, and the long one is not the important one.

Work out who is on your short list, honestly, and whether you have done anything for them lately. Grow it by being on other people’s: answer, turn up, remember the thing they were nervous about. Reach comes and goes, and the short list is what holds.