Why (and how) to build an audience | #15

Why (and how) to build an audience

No. 15 — read time 4 minutes
Welcome to The Soloist, a weekly newsletter where I provide actionable ideas to help you become a healthy, wealthy, sovereign entrepreneur.

3 months ago, I left the world of startups for good.

I didn’t have much of a plan but I told my wife I wanted to start writing. To make sure I wasn’t writing into the void, I’d need to figure out how to build an audience—fast.

In those 3 months, I went from having a dormant Twitter account with roughly 1,200 followers to over 13,000 followers (11x growth). In 90 days.

My content has been viewed 12.5 million times.

Along the way, I’ve become friends with some of the largest creators on social media. Accounts that command hundreds of thousands of followers.

And this newsletter has grown from 50 subscribers in December to 1,100+ of you today.

That’s pretty cool, and I’m grateful for each and every one of you.

But the thing is, it wasn’t an accident.

I engineered this from the start.

I had no idea how long it would take but I was willing to give this a year before throwing the towel in.

A year to figure out how to build an audience.

With layoffs in tech rampant and a recession looming, having an audience is an asset everyone should consider adding.

To be clear, you can absolutely diversify your income without an audience. But it’s a multiplier on your efforts.

Unfortunately, too many people play it safe and are scared to start.

Fear is the killer of dreams

It’s not just fear in an amorphous sense.

• Fear of not knowing what to write about

• Fear of being laughed at by colleagues and friends

• Fear of failing

• Fear of failing in public (double ouch)

These are all valid concerns, but they can be solved. Here’s how…

Step 1: Understand The Spotlight Effect

The Spotlight Effect is a psychological phenomenon where you believe you’re being noticed more than you really are.

You believe the moment you start writing online, everyone you’ve ever known will start seeing it and think “hey, what’re they doing?!”.

As someone who’s been trying to share my thoughts and build an audience the last few months, I guarantee you that’s not how it works.

Sure, some people notice and may message you. Those messages will mostly be positive.

But social media algorithms by design don’t show your content to all your followers.

And those who do see it are busy worrying about their own lives.

But you do need to start.

Because you’re not writing to your friends. You’re writing to build an audience that cares about your ideas.

And starting knowing that it might be bad (but no one will notice) is freeing.

Step 2: Have Bad Ideas To Have Good Ideas

The next thing that keeps you from building an audience is thinking that you need to be an expert creator on Day 1.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, the mistake most make is looking at top creators and think that’s how they must have been in their early days.

Here’s an example of my favorite creator today...

But here's an example of his writing when he was starting out...

This is a bit picking on Justin because he was focused on growing LinkedIn in 2021 but you can tell the writing wasn't as confident as it is now.

But by now, he's been writing consecutively for 4+ years.

Remember: the best way to get good is to start bad.

Julian Shapiro wrote about how famous musicians and authors come up with good ideas consistently. They start by giving themselves permission to have bad ideas.

Step 3: Learn From Experts To Speed Up Time

So you’ve convinced yourself that you want to share your ideas online.

You’re comfortable looking like an amateur at first (because you are).

You’re willing to give yourself permission to have bad ideas knowing that the creativity for good ideas will start flowing.

Now what?

You this point.

1) Take your time to experiment and see how it goes.

You’ll learn but it will be slow, but if you stick it out long enough you’ll amass enough learnings to put it all together.

Or..

2) You could do what I did and pay to speed up your learnings.

Back in December when I left my role as VP of Strategy to forge my own path, I knew I needed help.

After much research, I landed on a course called, Create Publish Profit.

It’s led by a master educator who has figured out how to build a large, loyal following on Twitter.

Some of the largest accounts went through his course.

The course was life changing for me which is why I asked to be an affiliate.

Here’s what you get:

• A 30-day curriculum with built-in accountability

• Templates and frameworks to speed up content creation

• Engagement from top creators to get more eyeballs on your content

• Live Training Sessions (1 hour on Zoom M-F that are also recorded)

• A team of ghostwriters who will help rewrite your content (for free)

• Learn how to monetize your account even if you have a small following

• Build real connections with like-minded peers who are all taking audience building seriously

The next cohort starts April 5th and it only runs a few times a year.

If you want to speed up your learning and build a personal brand, there’s no better course.

Join using my affiliate code here.

Bonus:

One of the keys to my success has been my ability to build high-powered networks in a very short amount of time.

If you use my affiliate code, you’ll get a FREE copy of my “building a high powered network” course.

Additionally, you’ll get access to an exclusive 30-day group chat (free) with me during the cohort where I answer any questions you have and help you out.

See you there,

Tom

P.P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

1. If you save a lot of bookmarks on Twitter (like me), try dewey. —
   the easiest way to organize Twitter bookmarks (I'm one of the makers).

2. If you're looking for coaching on business or audience growth book a slot here. 5 spots left.

This week’s newsletter is brought to you by Beehiiv.

Beehiiv is the only email service provider with a built-in referral program. Explode the growth of your newsletter by using the most powerful persuasion tool out there, word of mouth.

Start growing your newsletter faster here.

If you enjoyed today's newsletter, please share it with your friends and family!

If this email was forwarded to you, consider subscribing to receive them in future.