Does an upcoming page ever bring its own followers, or only the ones you send it?
I put an upcoming page up four weeks ahead of a launch, exactly like every guide says, so it could gather followers instead of me scrambling on launch morning. Six days later it has one follower and I'm fairly sure I know who that is.
So one of two things is true. Either the page is invisible unless you already know the product exists, which means it isn't doing distribution work at all, it's a landing pad for traffic you have to send yourself. Or people don't follow an upcoming page without a reason, and the reason has to come from somewhere else entirely.
What I want from anyone who has shipped more than once: did your upcoming page ever produce followers on its own, or did every single one come from a thread, a newsletter, or a specific person? If it's the second, putting the page up early is still fine, it's just not the step people think it is. Real numbers welcome, zero included.
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only the ones you send it, in my experience. I've watched my own follower count on here for weeks, dead flat through normal launch-day comments, and the one time it actually moved was right after I left a comment on a brand-new forum thread that started getting traction, not after being listed anywhere passive. an upcoming page has the same problem a forum thread does: existing isn't enough, something has to actively point at it while people are looking. the four-week head start buys you time to build the reason yourself, it doesn't create one on its own.
@galdayan The detail that stings is that it moved after a comment on a brand new thread, not a busy one. So timing beats reach, and being early in something about to get read is worth more than being fortieth in something that already was. I've been doing the exact opposite all week, going straight to the top three launches where nobody scrolls that far. Switching to new threads for a few days to see if it holds.
Numbers, including the zero. Product page sat at 1 follower for weeks before launch, and that one was me checking something. Not a single follower arrived on its own.
Launch day it went 1 to 26 in about four hours, then stopped dead. Now 27, two days later.
The part that answers your question properly: I spent two weeks commenting daily before that, and it moved followers from 1 to 1. Zero. Meanwhile a comment left in someone else's active thread gets 12 to 35 views, and threads I start myself get 1 or 2. Someone else here ran the same comparison independently and got the same shape, his own thread 2 views, his comments in other people's 12 plus.
So your second option, and worse than you're framing it. The page isn't a distribution step at all, and neither is authoring. The follow happens as a side effect of someone reading you somewhere they were already standing. Four weeks early or four days early doesn't change anything, because the page was never going to be the thing that found them.
@venkat_a2 My own thread gets 1 or 2 views and a comment in someone else's gets 12 to 35 is the number that should be at the top of every launch guide. It means authoring is mostly a vanity activity and I've done a lot of it this week. What I can't tell is whether that flips once you've got a few hundred followers, or whether threads are structurally dead here regardless. If it's structural then post daily in the forums is advice pointing people at the wrong surface entirely.
One follower in six days is data, just not the data the guides promised. It tells you the page has no discovery surface of its own — nobody browses upcoming, so it's a landing page for traffic you were already going to send. Which means it doesn't replace the scramble on launch morning, it just gives the scramble somewhere to point.
The version I've been assuming is true, and I'd rather be corrected: the page converts attention you generate elsewhere into a reminder you don't have to send by hand. That's worth having and it's a much smaller claim than "gather followers."
Since you're four weeks in — has that one follower been worth anything measurable, or is the real question whether PH emails them on the day? I'm a week out from my first launch and trying to decide if putting a page up now is worth the hour.
@ark_y_k Straight answer, it's been worth nothing measurable. Still one follower, and I've no idea whether that person turns up on the day. The only thing the page actually buys you is that PH emails your followers on launch morning, so it's a list you still have to go and fill yourself. Put it up anyway, it's twenty minutes, just don't let it sit in the plan as a step that produces anything. A week out I'd spend that hour in other people's threads.
Zero included, as asked. I have an upcoming page live right now and its followers are 8, every one of them traceable to a person or a thread. None arrived on their own. The mechanism you are describing is real and I think the framing is even slightly generous to the page. A follow is a promise to care later, and nobody makes that promise about a product they encountered for the first time on a page whose entire content is a promise to exist. There is no reason yet. The reason has to be manufactured elsewhere, and the page is where it gets banked. Which does not make it useless, it makes it a receipt rather than a channel. Putting it up early is still right, because the cost is twenty minutes and the alternative is scrambling on launch morning. It just should not appear in anyone's distribution plan as a line item that produces anything.
@rabnoor_s Receipt rather than a channel is the line I'm stealing. Eight traceable to people beats my one, so the manufacturing part clearly works when you actually do it. Where I'd push back is the twenty minute cost. The real cost is that having the page up makes you feel like you've done launch prep, and that feeling is what stops you doing the part that works.