Thread by @jessievbreugel

Your Audience Is the New Currency.

What I recently learned from @bzaidi and @APompliano (continuous thread)

It's easier than ever to create quality content and share this with the world with an ever-expanding collection of digital tools:

Create great content and distribute it.

Understand how each platform works.

Decide which 1 platform best suits your needs and go all-in.

Yes, one platform.

Focus is required.

Building an audience is building a business in reverse.

First, you find the customers, then you figure out what’s the product you can sell to them.

How can you help them solve their problems?

Disclaimer:

Building an audience is not for everybody.

@APompliano's best advice: “Don’t even start”

You have to have a passion for it and be able to keep doing it for a long time.

Think in years, not months.

The real secret?

It’s hard, unsexy work.

If you’re still interested in building an audience, let’s get specific now.

Pick a niche.

Find something you can teach to others, coming from your experience and skills.

Pick something you’re naturally curious about.

Focus on 1 platform at a time.

Don’t expect yourself to start at the level @garyvee is currently at everywhere

@APompliano: “You’ve gotta learn the walk, before you run”

Before we get real specific, one more secret.

It’s all about consistency. Boring right?

Figure out what’s most natural to you.

You like to write? Use email

You spend a lot of time on Twitter? Start tweeting

You’re into editing and like to record? YouTube is your thing.

Don’t make it too hard.

Just start.

The sooner, the better.

Focus on 1 platform until you’ve reached a ‘critical’ amount of followers.

This is a goal you can set for yourself, but think big.

Only then think of moving to another platform.

Think of smart ways to get your existing followers to follow you on your new platform as well.

This shouldn’t be too hard.

If your content is valuable, your followers will (yes) follow you.

Make it as easy as possible for them to follow you on the other platform

Just remember this:

Play the long game. Focus on building a robust audience.

Show up every day.

Now, we get real specific.

If Twitter is your preferred platform, the following 5 steps will help you grow your following 10x.

1️⃣ Tweet so much it’s uncomfortable (10-20 tweets a day).

Put your great content out there and provide value to your followers.

Even if only 1 person is seeing, be grateful for that person.

Practice patience.

2️⃣ Out of ideas?

Go to news sites, read relevant blogs on Medium, or discussions on Quora or Reddit.

Get inspired and see what people are currently talking about.

3️⃣ Reply to people with a big audience and get exposure.

@APompliano: Attach yourself to their rocket ship if they go viral 🚀

4️⃣ Follow cool, relevant people and engage with them in a genuine manner.

Respond to their recent tweets and start a conversation.

5️⃣ The most important one: Be authentic, be yourself.

Nobody is waiting for you to mimic someone else.

Trust the uniqueness that’s already within you.

1️⃣ Consistency rules everything - show up every day

2️⃣ Put out quality content - nobody likes to read 💩

3️⃣ Engage with others and be supportive - build one another up

That's all for now.

Hopefully, this is as useful to you as it was to me.

Based on future learnings, the thread will be updated.