How to (Effectively) Grow Your Social Media Profile Starting With 0 Followers and 0 Views
‘Effectiveness’ is the keyword because it does not make sense to keep refreshing our analytics page
Everyone starts from 0. When I first started, I suffered from 0 subscribers, 0 likes and comments, low double-digit viewership on the social media platforms of my choice (Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube).
Though discouraging, I proceeded to post daily and walk away. It was clear to me that social media network is key to the little guy behind the laptop. I just needed time for my content to work its magic.
There is no question that social media presents the ultimate attention leverage of our times. We are where people are.
Now for the context. I work as a pre-sales professional in the technology space, where 10 working hours per day is to be expected. I also engage actively in side-hustles such as copywriting, project management, and running my own ventures.
That means I have ample content from my daily life to promote my personal and professional profile without blowing the trumpet excessively. This article shows how. And with results.
Author’s Note: There is a difference between promoting ourselves and excessively promotion. Chances are, we can tell when people are over-promoting themselves. The result? Swipe left. We are better off without it.Working Towards Valuable Personal and Professional Promotion (and branding)
“Promote, promote, promote. I wake up every day thinking about how to promote my name. Because no one will promote me better than me.”
I concur with the second half of Grant’s statement. No one promotes ourselves better than we do. Word-of-mouth referral is a 1st World consideration. We must work on ourselves first. Take, for instance, the Food & Beverage business.
It is easier for patrons to talk about our 1-star Michelin restaurant because we have dedicated food masters, deep market penetration, and established branding. That said, we do not start our journey with the glittering star.
We start from a barren plot, a field of weeds, also known as Ground Zero.
How do we advance our personal and professional profiles at Ground Zero? It is the same question I get (repeatedly) from my friends and colleagues.
How do I get 5-digit followers on Linkedin? How do I get 1,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel?
Let me share my experience and journey with you, so you can accelerate your journey by reducing the learning duration by 10 times (or so).
What Are You Working On? What Are Your Thoughts?
In the knowledge economy, 2 things matter. What we are working on, and what are our thoughts. Combined, they can shed light on those challenging issues confronting our followers, subscribers, listeners with our solutions.
People do not want to know that you have the same problems as they do. They want to know how we solve the exact problems they have so they can.
I will start with what you are working on. I thought it was easy to enumerate our work and tasks. I am wrong. People struggle.
This is how I articulate the work that I do:
- List down all the things you are working on in your day job.
- Write down all the different tasks you engage in your side-hustles.
- I mean, all. Do not overthink it. Take this opportunity to do mental diarrhea.
- When you are done, ask yourself what value do I bring to others (clients, prospects, subscribers, followers) when I am doing this?
Author’s Tip: You will need a quiet environment for this exercise because you have to reflect on your thoughts. An estimate of 30–45 minutes will be required for this exercise.What is the purpose of doing this exercise? What are the results we can expect?
Sharing My Experience and Journey
“Work and you’ll get what you need; work harder and you’ll get what you want.”
Let me start with my side-hustles. I write. I pump out a crazy number of words daily because I enjoy it. And because I am a copywriter from 6–9.
As a result of what I do, I market my writing on social media a lot. Twitter and Linkedin are the platforms of my choice. This is one result of showcasing what I do online.
This is how I do it:
- I write articles in genres that I am familiar with.
- The genre of my choice is entrepreneurship, business, and startups.
- I have my writing published on various platforms.
- Then, I distribute it on Twitter and Linkedin.
- I also use my content articles to elaborate my thought processes, especially when consulted for my opinions. Oh, I have actually written about this 2 months ago. This is the article…
That is it. Then, I start paying attention to the direct messages coming into my Twitter and Linkedin accounts. Good things happen after good work is done.
That is about showcasing what I do. Now I focus on sharing with others what I think.
Video content is brilliant for knowledge sharing. I learn a lot about business from corporate leaders (Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, Elon Musk) via YouTube. From there, I evolved to project my thoughts on YouTube as well.
This is one example.
This is what I do:
- I routinely share my thoughts on my livestream program.
- Occasionally, I hop onto other programs.
- I pay attention to comments from the audience.
- Then, I take note of the timestamp when it happened.
- From there, I grab the recording source file and create YouTube shorts.
- I upload it to YouTube.
- I clip the YouTube shorts on my Linkedin posts and articles, with more details of my thoughts.
Every person out there interested in my content, knowledge, and thoughts wants to connect with me further. From there, I get to open more doors and increase my network.
Author’s Note: If you create content, find ways to spread your best content from one platform to the other. It is way easier for your content to find an audience on your behalf. Leverage the network effect for 10x impact and results.Summary
When it comes to promoting our personal and professional profile, showcasing what we do is the better way to go.
Beyond that, we can capture our thoughts on videos and push it far as possible to find our audience on our behalf. Content assets travel further and faster than we can.
Most importantly, you will be pleasantly surprised by the results you get in the future.
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
