Build audience before product.
But how do you do it?
Here’s how I’ve built an audience across channels and grown my startups from 0 to $2 million revenues.
Involves a mix of marketing & writing. 🧵
(1/11)
When building audience on any channel, make personal connections.
Share your personal experiences, stories & learnings vs. company or product updates.
People connect with people, not with lifeless entities or brands.
(2/11)
Channels:
• Blog
• Newsletter
• Social media
• Slack channels
• Community websites
• LinkedIn & Facebook groups
(3/11)
Golden rule: Don’t always share updates or links to your product/content.
Instead:
• Talk about the problem
• Critique existing solutions
• Talk about how you’ll solve the problem
• Share product building process & experience
• Share launch plan, stats & learnings
(4/11)
How to grow a newsletter
• Define a clear goal for your newsletter ⇒ what value will your subscribers get?
• Be yourself & write like a person would.
• Submit to newsletter directories.
• Publish & distribute your newsletter like a blog.
(5.1/11)
• Share your newsletter on social media. Not as links, but handcrafted posts.
• Launch your newsletter as a product.
• Make a personal connection with your subscribers:
⇒ Send them a welcome email
⇒ Provide them an easy way to reach out to you.
(5.2/11)
How to grow a blog
• Focus on SEO from day 1
• Keep a mix of keyword focused & expert content
• Write less, distribute more
• Distribution channels: Social media, Newsletter, Reddit
Pro-tip: SEO optimise your newsletter issues & publish them as blogs
(6/11)
How to build a Twitter audience
• Be yourself & bring out your own personality.
• Share personal experiences, stories, opinions.
• People should support you, not your company or product.
(7.1/11)
• People love specifics. Share your secrets – what frameworks you use, what channels worked for you, how you make money & how much.
• Engage with popular accounts. Reply to their tweets sharing your opinions.
(7.2/11)
• Write consistently. Both your audience & the Twitter algorithm will appreciate this.
• Bookmark tweets you like. Use the underlying idea and share your unique opinion/experience around it.
(7.3/11)
• Analyse tweets that work, both your own & those of others. Don’t try to find a template but see what idea or emotion worked.
(7.4/11)
How to build a LinkedIn audience
• Be yourself & bring out your own personality.
• People connect with people. Company, brand or product accounts don’t work.
• Focus on sharing personal experiences & stories vs. company updates
(8.1/11)
• Share your achievements. People love to celebrate with you.
• Share your failures & learnings.
• Make connections. Interact on other people’s posts. Chat over DMs.
• Write consistently. Both your connections & the LinkedIn algorithm will appreciate this.
(8.2/11)
How to build an audience on community websites
• Contribute first, market later. Moderators can easily mark you spam.
• Follow the community guidelines. Ex. Sharing your own blog posts rarely (1 out of 10 times) on HackerNews or Reddit.
(9.1/11)
• Tailor your existing content to the theme of the community. Ex. On some subreddits, users love analysis & breakdowns while on others, personal stories work best.
• Help others & ask for help. Community websites thrive on members who are keen to help each other out.
(9.2/11)
How to use Slack Channels, LinkedIn & Facebook groups
• Key is to find the right set of groups or channels.
• Contribute to the group. Help others and even reach out to the admins.
(10.1/11)
• Follow the guidelines. Usually there are specific days or threads where you can market your own content.
• Make connections with people and take the conversations outside of the groups. Connect over email, chat or social media.
(10.2/11)
Follow @hrishiptweets
