The Technique to Grow an Audience I See Almost Nobody Using
Your follower count doesn’t matter as much as you think.
I’ve held around 6 Twitter Spaces around building an audience.
For those who don’t know, Twitter Spaces is a live audio event like a Clubhouse or a Zoom call where only the assigned speakers by the host can talk.
We have people from 100 followers to 20,000 followers who attend this and learn and contribute about how to build an audience.
I’ve noticed a trend of most people referring to their audience as followers.
But as somebody who’s built an audience across platforms and has made money from Twitter and other online platforms, I can assure you that you’ve got it all wrong if you think building an audience is followers.
What if you have 10,000 followers and nobody buys your $1.99 or $99 product? What will you do with those followers?
Followers are people who hit the follow button.
An audience supports you, engages with you, and has a relationship with you.
And you don’t need to have a crazy following to build anything. You just need 5 people who engage with you, and then with network effects, their audience will discover you. That's the power of social networking.
When I had 2000ish Twitter followers, I built a business on that platform that gave me more money in total than my follower count.
And the ‘business’ was random.
It was just me recognising a problem from my writer friends and trying to solve it. But this isn’t about my business or what it is, it’s not a self-promo. It’s to give you a flavour of how things can be when you play the game the right way.
And by the right way, I mean the human way.
Human stories get us together.
My most-liked Tweet is the one I least expected to blow up:
See, humans connect with each other on the simple things in life.
What should you talk about, you must be thinking?
Think of it this way. What are the three things your dad told you growing up that help you cut through adulthood? What was your biggest failure and how did you overcome that?
What's your experience is yours to share. Nobody can take it away from you. People may be told similar things from their parents, but maybe a few things impacted you more than others.
Connect to people on a deeper level.
Use your stories to do so.
I was public about having my surgery. Not for sympathy, but because when I was in bed for six weeks my mental state was on a downward spiral. I was jealous of everybody who could even walk or stand because I couldn’t. It hurt.
I wanted to bring the message across to be grateful for the simple things which are a luxury for me. They connected with me because they took a second to pause and think.
It also gave me 4.8 million views.
Slide into DMs. Build connections. Comment on people’s stuff, support them.
Use your expertise to help others.
What is networking without building connections?
What is personal branding without being more you?
What are followers who don’t root for you?
Your virality will get you lots of views. It’ll even lead a lot of people to hit the follow button. But it won’t make people connect to you on a deeper level, as they should.
Is your motivation for creating just the numbers? Because numbers never end.
A friend, who I don’t know in real life and lives on the opposite side of the globe, checked in with me every week post my surgery. He didn’t have to. There was nothing he got out of it. He didn’t upsell me into buying anything.
He just did because he wanted to.
At the time of typing this, his son is in the hospital and I’m unable to reach him for three days. I don’t even have his number, because we’ve only communicated via DMs.
I don’t have to worry. I’ll probably never even meet him.
But I’m human, and I do. And that’s the connection you should strive to achieve.
People who I call ‘friends’ didn’t check up on me. Gym buddies who live 5 minutes away didn’t text me, leave alone meet me. But this person did. And for that, I’ll always hold him highly in my heart.
I know it’s easy to compare yourself and keep money and follower goals. Do that. Set milestones that motivate you to show up.
But while you do that, don’t forget that building an audience differs from having followers. Building an audience is being a part of a community, it's a two-way relationship.
No amount of any number will make you feel as happy as the human sending you kindness from their screen, who has absolutely nothing to gain from you.
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