Here’s the Plan to Help Each Other Build an Online Community

I’m committing to helping you once a week. Can you do the same?

Would you rather have more comments or claps on your articles? Let’s make it a graphic choice:

There’s no shame in saying you prefer money. You may not care if you get comments or claps, but you should. Because if you want money prioritize comments over claps. But I’m offering you something better than money: recognition.

Essential Concept: Audience Development > Growth

It doesn’t matter what platform you create on: audience development matters more than growth.

• Creators with 1,000 subscribers on YouTube can get more views on a video than someone with 1 million subscribers.
• On Medium, someone with 700 followers can make over $3,000 in a month, while someone with 10k followers barely makes $100.

Why is this? Two words: the algorithm.

Here’s a great article (not on Medium) about audience development being greater than growth. If you want a more recent and viral article saying the same thing, Google “1,000 true fans.”

Understand this, it is essential:

To get more views, you need more engagement, not more followers.

Do you have to respond to every comment? No. That quickly becomes impossible. Should you respond to some comments. Hell yeah. That’s vital. If you don’t respond to any comments, your view numbers will shrink.

Consider this article I recently wrote:

Hello to OUR new followers: Roz Warren, Jessica Wildfire, Ayodeji Awosika, and Shannon Ashley. Tim Denning sends his love, but not yet following us. Why do I say OUR instead of MY? Because my followers are your followers. Here’s why:

We Have the Power

1% of the people on Reddit banded together to take down a billion-dollar hedge fund. This handful of users forced a terrible stock (GameStop GME) to skyrocket, causing Melvin Capital to lose $70 billion in naked short sales.

Who is the biggest YouTuber right now? Arguably, MrBeast. Why is he able to buy out a car lot and give all the cars away for free? Because he involves the audience. The audience becomes the channel.

I wrote about building nets to catch readers here:

Do you know who is doing this well (and seeing increased success because of it?) Christopher Kokoski, Michael Burg, MD, Aimée Gramblin, Christopher Robin, J.J. Pryor, K.B. Hubbard. There are MANY others (I’m sorry if I missed you here).

What About Our “Brand”? Do We Need to Niche Down?

No, a niche isn’t necessary. For Medium, you can create a publication or submit to a publication that has a niche. For YouTube, you can create playlists on specific topics.

Does this mean you have to talk about everything? God no. But don’t be afraid to go outside of your box. Discuss whatever interests you. You’ll find out that you tend to revolve around similar topics more often. That’s finding your voice. That’s also why creating regular content is essential: you discover who you are.

For me, my “brand” is writing and being curious about life (pushing its boundaries, meditating, etc.) But I’ll also write about a guy eating 30,000 Big Macs or another guy that ran four hours without breathing through his mouth. (Neither article did very well, but I had fun writing them.)

Back to us — our brand

I want us to work together. I want to promote you, and I want you to promote other writers. Pay it forward, but different.

How Will We Do It?

Every Wednesday, I commit to writing an article that shares other people’s work. Eventually (soon), I’d like to incorporate my YouTube channel to echo whatever I share here. More exposure for others.

I want you to give me your work so we can all talk about it. If you want me to look at it and give my input on building engagement, I’ll share my input live so that everyone can improve. Share your article or whatever you want in the comment section here.

I want you to commit to once a week, sharing someone else’s work. If you want to help other people improve, great. Or, if you simply want to call out an author or creator and talk about something they’re talking about, great. (You don’t have to agree with other creators; by disagreeing, you can start a discussion. Community is key!)

There are NO Sucky Writers

I’ve said this many times, and I’ll continue to always say it:

There are no sucky writers.

If you submit your work to me, I’m not going to trash it. I’m going to look at it and see what I would do to increase its audience engagement. More importantly, I’m going to talk about it. I’m going to feature it. My audience is your audience.

Following that, I want your audience to be someone else’s audience.

To clarify the steps:

1) Comment here with your published article. I would like to talk about it and promote it.

2) I plan to do my official promoting every Wednesday, but may do more.

3) I’d like you to promote someone else’s work on your own. Write your article for any publication and talk about someone else within the article.

Comes down to this: you send me a piece of your work to promote/talk about. You also find someone else’s work that you promote.

I promote you, you promote someone else. Pay it forward, friends.

Update

I made the first Wednesday post, calling out other writers and giving my insights. I also made a YouTube video to go with it — including my messy hair!

One last ask of you

We are trying to put together a story project and need your contribution. We are making 100 different versions of the same story, written by 100 other writers. Will you join us?