How To Build An Audience With Zero Followers (What They Don’t Tell You)

My Social Media Story

00:00I have a lot of followers. I love starting these videos out with a bit of narcissism. On a serious note, I say this to frame the conversation we're about to have because, one, it's important that you learn how to gain followers from someone that's gained followers rather than someone who has zero followers.

00:17And, you know, theory and practice. You need both and you need results as well. And the thing here is, I didn't always have a large readership. And of course this is obvious, but human nature is human nature. And people see someone with a lot of followers or a lot of authority or just someone who we idolize on social media or the authors of the books that we read or just people on TV.

00:37And we assume that they've always been like that. That's who they are to us. We can't fill in the rest of the story because most people don't have the ability or haven't trained the ability to zoom out and actually see that other people are human.

00:49My first attempt at social media was as a photographer. I would post images on Instagram and just spam hashtags and hope and pray that I would someday gain 100,000 followers. And the reality of the situation was not like that. I posted my images.

01:05I use the hashtags. I did what people told me to do, and I gained no followers and I thought my images were at least decent compared to the other people that were growing on social media. So obviously there was a problem there. But as shiny object syndrome goes, I eventually became more interested in the editing side of things.

01:24I enjoyed editing the photos more than I enjoyed going out to take the photos. And so I spent my days binge watching YouTube videos on tutorials for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. And around this time is when I came across this guy on Instagram named Visuals of Julius.

01:46Keep in mind this is like five years ago, and he would post these surreal images, just eye candy, right? Something that you loved to look at. It would stop your scroll. It was pictures of galaxies and mountains and clouds that you would never see before.

01:58You knew that it was art. It wasn't a photo, but it was fairly realistic. I wanted to do what he did because clearly it was more like photo editing. And so my YouTube binges continued and I borrowed some Adderall from my roommate at the time, and I would just sit in my room with Photoshop open, just creating these images, putting stark images and my own images together, blending them.

02:23I would spend six, seven, 8 hours in my room forgetting to eat, obsessed with what I was creating. And so here's one of my favorites. I'll go over also more pictures in my story video, which will be a few videos from now, I think two or three.

02:40But this is when things started to get real. This is when I started to understand how to actually grow on social media. My beautiful images that I was now posting meant absolutely nothing on their own. I couldn't just post and hope that our Lord and Savior, the algorithm would save me.

02:58I had to get my content in front of people. I had to get my content shared by people with larger audiences than me. When you zoom out, this is the one and only principle for social media growth. Even if you're hosting X or Twitter spaces or a podcast where someone else is hosting you to share your spoken content.

03:15People, people, people, eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs. I see this all the time because I teach writing and therefore I teach social media because that's how you share your writing, that's how you get eyes on it, kind of. But you can't just post your writing.

03:26This is what I try to fucking hammer in people's heads. Is getting eyes on your content you're writing. This just pisses me off so much because people think they can neglect that aspect. There's writing and there's people you're writing will not get seen without people and people think they're so introverted that they can't get in front of people.

03:46You have to use the strategies that get your writing in front of people. I just wrote something in my notes because this came up earlier in my head when I was at the gym and it makes me so heated is that there are three, three things that you need for success, three things that you need for success, or one what you do.

04:05What do you make? What do you do? Is it valuable to how many people know what you do? Three is the thing that you do valuable to the people that know what you do. And if it's not, how do you make it valuable to the people that know what you do?

04:17That's where marketing and sales comes in and with consistency and effort and improving the thing that you do and increasing the amount of people that know what you do, that's success. Back to the story in the digital art world, what I was making, there are a lot of curation accounts and you still see this and like the business side of things where it's like business mindset on Instagram where they just share like quotes and stuff.

04:45But for Instagram art pages, it was they were sharing other people's art and they were growing the page because of that. And since they were choosing the best art to post, they grew faster because they didn't really have to create the art. They had a lot more leverage to build an audience.

05:02But that doesn't necessarily equal monetization unless the artists are paying them to share their work. And so you would only have a chance at getting seen by these accounts if you use their specific hashtag, like hashtag, a game of tones was an account on there or you consistently commented on their account or you networked with them, you deem them, you used strategies that I've talked about before, like the non-media networking process.

05:27And so I was consistently at this for around two months. And if I remember correctly, my post got shared by a bunch of small accounts that were trying to do the same, but maybe 10 to 20 times on like big massive accounts that had 100 to 500 K followers that were all posting digital art.

05:40So in my first two months by doing that and getting eyes on my content, I gained around 2500 followers. Now, this may not seem much like I have now, but if you've ever grown something on social media from scratch, you understand that those first, however many followers are the hardest.

05:58You don't have any social proof, you don't have any authority, you don't have any content build up, and people just don't like to follow people that have a low follower count. It's a heavy grind that you have to overcome with certain strategies.

06:08When you go and look at a person with 100 followers, even if it's the best content in the world, you're gonna be like, Oh, he probably hasn't been doing this long enough. Maybe those are one off posts. He only has 100. There's no like validation there.

06:20It's not he's not that important. But when you see someone with 100,000, they could post something terrible and then they go to their profile and they're like, Oh, this guy has 100,000 followers. He must be important. And then they follow without even questioning it.

06:31So at this point in my journey at 2500 followers, I burnt out and quit because it took so long to create daily Photoshop composites. And I just didn't really have a vision for the account. And I didn't know marketing and sales. I didn't know how to create a product if I would have just emulated visuals of Julius, the guy that I originally inspired me to do this, I would have created a course just based around my top images that I created and showed people how to create them.

07:00And that alone wasn't would be enough to monetize and expand from there. And so this is a lesson to artists is that when you go and look at most artists, they usually just have a bank of tutorials and premium tutorials as a course, and that's how they monetize.

07:12And artists think, Oh, I have to monetize my music, I have to monetize this, this and this. Just start with the low hanging fruit, like get a product out there and monetize so you can free up time to actually spend refining and growing your business.

07:25So let's zoom out, which is a principle in my book. Nice transition. Dan, I'm going to promote to you guys now and sell you on my book. But the Art of Focus Box one price is increasing on November 7th too. We only have 2000 copies available now.

07:37This is a box. This isn't your average book launch. It comes with the digital version. So you can you can read it. Only 2000 people get to read it before it's open to the public, too. You get cool things like the Foci planner. Here's just an example of the daily page.

07:54Pretty cool focus goals, All that stuff that we talk about in my productivity videos. But aside from that, there's a lot of cool things. There's a private invitation to annual events where keepsake members or keepsake holders, the people that buy the book get to meet each other if you want your book signed.

08:12I still don't feel like I'm cool enough to sign a book, but I'll sign your book. So if you want the Art of Focus box, go to the first link in the description. It's just out of focus box dotcom. Read up on it. It's expensive, obviously, because there's I'm only printing 2000 annual events or $400 alone.

08:26There's a lot in there, but if you just want the paperback hold off until that launch is after keepsake sells out. Back to the topic is that I no longer do Photoshop art.

Big Picture – How To Grow On Social Media

08:39Obviously I'm a writer now and this video is a part of the digital writer series. If you haven't already watched the last one, go and watch the last one on how to make $1,000,000 as a digital writer. So we will be talking about social media growth from that lens, from the lens of writing.

08:53And if you want a primer on how to write good content, then go and watch one of the videos in the one person business playlist that's called something like how Social Media 1 to 1, something like that. So by writing I mean anything that is written on social media captions, Instagram posts with text on the image, tweets, LinkedIn posts, real scripts, YouTube scripts, etc.

09:11just how you can start writing on social media and growing an audience without having to post pictures of your body or images or designs or whatever. Just writing Social media growth is so straightforward that everyone overcomplicate it or they don't pay attention to it at all.

09:28Some people post and post and post just to get mad at the algorithm for not spreading their content. Other people know how to grow and they are intelligent individuals, but their posts are like art pieces that never get purchased. The artist thinks they are the best thing in the world, but the market couldn't care less.

09:42And then there are those that grow a bit, but they don't know how to double down on their best ideas and continue that growth. They forget the levers that allowed them to grow in the first place. So step one from a big picture to grow on social media is to write persuasive of content.

10:00The key word here is persuasive. You have to capture, hold and deliver value on attention. You can't just write whatever you want and expect it to capture, hold and deliver value on attention. First is a hook. Be mindful as to whether or not your first sentence will grab their attention.

10:12This goes beyond just the words you use. The structure and design of the post can do this even on x to a big problem. Imply or state a problem that people can relate to. Don't make it too high. Level three A clear solution An actionable way to overcome the problem, preferably with a unique way of doing so from personal experience.

10:28Four is a big benefit imply or state a desirable benefit that people will receive from your advice. Five Is confidence or polarization. Stand firm in your beliefs but be willing to change them. Nobody wants to follow someone who doesn't sound confident or can't choose a side.

10:47Say what you want to say. You will get eight like everyone else. Number six is a novel perspective or big idea. This is why reading or consuming content is important. If you can find a way of explaining an idea that isn't normal, it will give your readers a dopamine hit and advance their understanding.

10:59The best way to solidify these as knowledge is to screenshot that or save them or write them down somewhere safe. And when you are writing, make sure you check the box of at least 3 to 4 of them at the start. And then you begin to develop the skill and you can start to create your own rules of the game.

11:17In the next video, I'm going to be going over ten strategies to make your writing more engaging with examples and a PDF. But just if you didn't know, I teach all of this into our writer link in the description to check that out. Step number two from a big picture to grow in social media is to get eyes on your content.

11:37So we've discussed this and we'll discuss it more in the next section. We'll dive into the technical details of it because it's important, but for now, just nail it into your head that your content is meaningless unless you attempt and put effort into getting eyes on your content.

11:49It's okay to write content into the void for practice, but eventually you have to just get out there and start putting it in front of people. Step three is to iterate on your ideas with data, and you can only reach this step if you have eyes on your content.

12:02You don't know which post of your it performs best unless you've gotten it in front of people. And so with time, month after month, this is going to take six months to a year as all good things. But every month review your highest performing content.

12:16Just go scroll through, see which does the best copy, paste the link to another browser or something like that, and then start to rewrite them from different angles. Make some short, make some long, make some lists, make some the big idea, make a better hook, make more clear big problem, Make a certain actionable list, things like that.

12:38And so this is how you gradually sustain an increase in engagement over time. So you increase your baseline of the persuasiveness and impact of your writing. It's not about just writing whatever you want. It's about iterating on the best ideas that your audience actually likes that points to a product that you should create.

12:53With that specific angle. You can create whatever product you want, but you need the angle that performs best in order to catch attention and actually sell it. And then that's how you just do better and better with your writing over time on social media.

13:05Step four and this is down the road a bit, but you want to create depth with your best ideas, depth and span. That is, you can do well on one platform like X or Twitter or really anything, but eventually you either choose to become a slave to that platform or you diversify.

13:20Another thing here is that modern power belongs to those who hold the most attention in their lifetime. This is another lesson from my book in the Vessel chapter, where I talk about the one person business just the shift in education, skill acquisition, the best skills to learn, etc.

13:33A short post that holds 10 seconds of attention is nothing compared to a video podcast or newsletter that holds 15 to 60 minutes of attention. You must take your best ideas from the last part and turn them into longer form content. This is how you get your name spread without you trying.

13:46This is how you build the roots of your brand deep into the collective psyche. This is how you build trust in authority orders of magnitude higher than those who only post short content. This is why you will almost always attribute the results in your life to a book or an author who taught you how rather than someone you saw a post about the same idea on Twitter.

14:05When you see someone post about habits on Twitter, I bet 90% of you that have read Atomic Habits by James Clear A good book will think of James Clear. You won't even attribute the idea to the person that wrote the short piece of content. You're giving the authority to someone else because they chose to write long form.

14:23Okay, so now let's talk about actually getting eyes on your content a.k.a traffic mechanisms of every single social media.

Traffic Mechanisms – How To Get Your Writing Shared

14:33So now that you're hopefully writing and posting content, it helps to understand the mechanics of the social media game. When you understand how these traffic mechanisms allow you to grow. But just understanding social media in general, then you get to pick and choose and create a strategy that works best for your growth.

14:46Test them all and see what works. Don't fall for the trap of social media gurus telling you one is any better than the other because the algorithm changed. That's always. The thing is, I think that's the hot topic of the day is always the algorithm.

15:00The algorithm, the algorithm. It's like, dude, I can post the same fucking content. I don't even have to post rules anymore. I don't have to post anything because I understand human nature. I want I understand what's going to capture, hold and generate attention.

15:14I don't need the algorithm to share my content when I'm in direct control of it. And once you learn the skills that allow you to be in direct control of it, you don't have to worry about being a slave to the algorithm, always having to study the latest and greatest tactics and never being able to develop a system or feel to your brand.

15:33When you go to my Instagram page, there's an obvious deal. Other people that are posting memes and then when you slide to the carousel and there's a video right now, there's nothing there, you're not really creating anything. It just shows that you're hopping on the bandwagon.

Replies

15:45So the first traffic mechanism to get eyes on your content and profile so you can actually grow is replies. This is the most obvious one that everyone does and everyone tells you to do because it's low hanging fruit and you have to do it. When you comment under somebody's post.

15:56There are people that go and read the comments of that post and if your comment captures, holds and delivers value on attention to the point where they click on your profile, see what you do and follow you, that's how you can start to gain followers.

16:07But there are a few things that people miss here. One is that boring content doesn't make people read the replies. I see people reply to boring posts all day long and get a few impressions on the replies. Then they wonder what went wrong. Think about this.

16:20If you if you like, a tweet can get 10 billion likes and only 100 people going to the replies because there's nothing sparking controversy or conversation. So they're not going to go into the replies. You can reply to high engaging tweets all day, but since you can't think deeper and you don't understand social media, you're not going to grow.

16:41And then you're gonna be like, okay, what's happening? Like, I'm doing what Dan told me to do and nothing's happening. Number two is that boring replies Don't make people click on your profile. Stop repeating what was said in the original post.

16:53Talk about yourself. Tell people how you've experienced the same thing in your life. Talking about yourself leads to the most profile clicks. Number three is small accounts get fewer impressions. Overall, it's good to reply and network with accounts at your size, but don't think it will help you grow by much.

17:06That's fine. You should still do it. Just be sure you're replying to the bigger accounts with interesting content. Now not only does replies help you increase your followers, just spam replies go reply to everyone. You need to get your name in people's mouths.

17:18You need to get your name known over the course of months. This isn't a one day thing where you're going to gain 100 followers. This is compounding nature. Where I see someone in the replies multiple times over the course of a month and I'm like, Oh, there's that guy again.

17:32There's that guy again. Maybe I should dm him, maybe I should follow him. Maybe. Oh, he's replying to this other guy that I really like to. Oh, and then the creators actually start to notice you if they spend time in the replies and things just get better when you reply with a personal story so people trust you more.

Quote Posts

17:54So traffic mechanism number two is quote posts. Quote posts are when someone repost your content with some form of commentary. So on. Ex this is obvious. The feature is called repost or quote post. Then it takes their post. It gives you somewhere to type about it.

18:07And then you write something. You write a tweet that's engaging the captures, holds, delivers value on attention. And not only does the creator see that and can possibly retweet it, which is or repost it, which is traffic to your profile. And the thing here is it's the same on Instagram where someone can share your post to their story, or you can share their post to your story with commentary and tag them so they see it.

18:28But the thing here is, is like you think you can just post something and be like, Oh, this is great. There's no reason for them to repost it. And even if they do just for validation to show that they know what they're talking about to their audience, other people aren't going to click on your profile.

18:41It's boring. People aren't going to read it. There's nothing of value there. Again, talk about yourself. Learn how to write persuasive content and do not not write persuasive content in every single situation you're in on social media. I don't care if you're in the DMS.

19:02I don't care if you're writing your own post. I don't care if you're in the replies. I don't care if you're in a quote post. I don't care if you're in an email. I don't care if you're in a YouTube video. I don't care if you're fucking anywhere.

19:07Be persuasive at any given moment. You have to transfer your consciousness to your reader and understand are they going to read this? Are they going to continue reading this or are they going to click off? Now there are nuances with all of these.

19:18This is why I say test them all over the course of 6 to 12 months, because this one is more of like a numbers game and luck. Because if you're aiming so big with some, you're trying to repost, quote, post someone on X with 500,000 followers, they're probably not going to see it.

19:38And if they do, it's just by dumb luck and then they may retweet it. But you have to be very conscious of what you're doing on social media here. If you're going to do some cool posts, make sure it's targeted and actually worth your time.

Reposts

19:50So the third traffic mechanism for going on social media is reposts. So this is obvious, it's just repost on X or share on YouTube or share on Facebook or repost on Tik tok. I don't know how it goes or on Instagram. It's like you can repost the actual post to your page, but it's usually just sharing to your story.

20:10And the thing here is, is that your content has to be good enough and shareable enough for people to share to their feed. What does that mean? One, they have to identify or resonate with what you're actually posting. So you need to think when you're actually writing, are people going to retweet this or repost this?

20:24And why? Why would I repost this? Why do you repost things? Self-awareness here. When I repost something, it's usually because I want my audience to see what it is that I agree with or resonate with. Right. So if I'm just reading a post, I'm not going to share it to my feed because my friends are going to see it right?

20:45Someone's not going to retweet you if they don't want their friends to see what they like. So that's the thing is you have to just pay attention here to what you're writing to make sure it's relatable and it catches and holds attention and it's something that they want to spread.

20:58It's something they want to identify with or be known for. So always think before hitting post. Will people share it? Why should they share? Do identify with anything I'm saying. Is it polarizing enough to spark discussion and get comments and boost engagement further?

21:12The fourth traffic mechanism is just manual DMS.

Manual DMs

21:20This one is more difficult and slow, but I highly recommend networking in general to help grow your account. That's also a strategy to get reposts and other things of that nature. We'll talk about that in a bit, but you can also go watch the non needy networking process video and of course like DMS work best when you're not a corporate robot like most people are on LinkedIn.

21:37Nobody wants to receive a message like, Hey, great to connect. I love your stuff. We should have a virtual coffee and talk about the complexity of XRP, your automations to enhance the overall experience of your loyal email subscribers so that you can build an incredible digital presence.

21:50You can make friends online to the point where they're happy to just share whatever you you ask them to share. And another thing here is that like, I'm just teaching, I'm teaching this as a traffic mechanism where like you can do lead generation in the DMS for your products or services, but obviously there's diminishing returns there where your effort is much better spent when you're selling a high ticket service, when you're doing cold outreach, because that's a lot of time invested and the payoff is a lot better, where

22:22if I can sell a 20 $500 service with a decent amount of DMS, it's going to take a while. That's better than me sending that same amount of DMS to sell like $150 product and it's obviously better than me sending the same amount of DMS for one impression on my post.

22:36If I treat my post as my offer in the DMS because technically a post is an offer that in the conversion, the conversion of that offer is engagement, but you get the point. So now let's get into how do you actually control your growth on any platform.

22:50If you are smart, you can use the traffic mechanisms that we just

How To Control Your Growth On Any Platform

22:58discussed in a creative way to control your growth. Those are literally the only tools that you can use to grow your following if you want actual followers, right? So step one to controlling how you grow is understanding

Short Form To Long Form

23:10short form too long form. This is like the main teaching of to our writer and how I teach to start long form or even with a book like me writing and outlining the book shaped every single newsletter I wrote, shaped every single tweet I wrote, etc., etc.

23:23But short form platforms like X or Instagram or LinkedIn are inherently more easier to grow, at least at the start, than something like YouTube or podcasts or medium that require some search engine optimization than just the slow build up over time, like on YouTube.

23:37I don't think people are going to really care about you until you have at least 50 videos. Same goes with a podcast and the search engine for a podcast is just absolute trash. So instead my strategy was always this. I filled out YouTube a while ago, like after the digital art stuff, and once I got on Twitter and started writing, it kind of just made sense.

23:57It's like, okay, this is a bit easier to grow. I'm more in control of the traffic mechanisms here. Why don't I build here and then transfer my audience over to YouTube, podcasts, etc.? So I get eyes on that content, eyes again in your audiences eyes.

24:11And so this is a route that actually makes sense, one for people that just don't have the resources or equipment or speaking skills or whatever to start YouTube and actually grow. Right now you can practice that on the side while you get good at writing and actually grow an account.

24:32And while I said short form isn't as potent as long form because it doesn't hold as much attention, that doesn't mean that you neglect the benefits of the short form. So number two, for taking control of your social media

Curation, Quotes, & Remixing

24:44growth is curation quotes and remixing. Deejays and producers grow by remixing popular songs so they can steal the traffic from that popular song. And so you may see this on Instagram a bit. I see it all the time where a deejay will remix a popular song like How Crank that remix of I Forget What Song by Taylor Swift.

25:04And it just went viral and it brought a lot of traffic to him because he was banking off of the back of Taylor Swift's authority. You see this on YouTube as well. When people make a video about someone else who is popular, they're taking the traffic of people that are going to watch that specific person or in a podcast.

25:22This is why people bring big guests on a podcast so they can grow that audience. And this was also a similar case when I was doing digital art. I could take their image, remix it, post it, tag them, they share it, I leverage their audience and grow.

25:35That's a repost for a quote post or however they decide to share it. Traffic mechanism. So the same is true for writers as well. You can quote them in a thread or newsletter. Use their ideas in your longer post to illustrate a point, then deem them the post saying that you mentioned them.

25:49They may repost it without you asking to is to commentate on their content similar to how YouTubers make reaction videos to leverage the traffic that the larger creator is getting. Third, you can get people on a podcast because people just love getting on podcast.

26:02This is how you can get exposed to a larger creator's audience. They will share the podcast or have their audience watch or listen. There are a lot more benefits to starting a podcast than just becoming a podcaster. You can use it as a way to network and meet bigger people that you can befriend and actually get to know on the podcast.

26:18And then you have that connection with them and can ask them for something in the future. It's not just about like growing the podcast. That's what I did when I had a guest podcast two years ago. The fourth is to talk about their ideas and credit them a simple post where you say, The best idea I've seen this week.

26:38Then go on to explain how it impacted you and credit the original author. They could share you, they could comment, they could do whatever that will get eyes on that content. And this also stresses the importance of long form and short form together, because for some of these, it's difficult to just do in a post, obviously in a podcast you can, but even in like a newsletter sharing someone's quote and slowly helping other people spread their name so they'll help you spread your name.

Paid Growth

27:02The third strategy for controlling your growth is paid growth, and this is where it gets very touchy. People who are quote unquote, super authentic and moral and noble, who also have zero experience with social media, love to say how authentic and moral they are for not using paid growth strategies.

27:15I've observed these people over the years and four years down the road, they've either not grown at all or lost followers. People don't like bitter complainers who stop focusing on providing value and pushing a more holistic worldview. Now, here I'm not talking about running ads to gain followers.

27:36That's the worst thing you can do. When I see people losing hundreds of followers a day because they did that on Twitter or Instagram or whatever it is, you're just don't do anything that requires something or someone else to tell people to follow.

27:50You just get eyes on your content. That's all I'm talking about here. I'm also not talking about Instagram shoutouts where people post to the page and you do all this stupid shit like, Oh, I like a stupid viral thing where you're like, I started in Amazon FBA Company and grew to $1,000,000 in 5 seconds.

28:10And then and then the caption is just like follow account, follow account, follow account, follow account. It's like that doesn't work. I've seen it time and time again. It does not fucking work for loyal followers that is. I've some, I've seen some people have success with it for like quick churn and burn clients.

28:27But you're not nurturing the audience, you're not capturing the attention, you're not allowing people to follow you because they want to follow you. You're not nurturing the audience and holding more attention over time. You're not building trust.

28:37What I'm talking about is a truly authentic post, one that you would normally write and using a bit of money to get it in front of other people's eyes. Good content is obviously a prerequisite it here because the common thing is like, Oh my gosh, like you're only growing because you have because you paid for growth.

28:50Then like, I don't do this anymore. I tried it at the beginning and it works because my content was good. But that's the thing is it's like if you have crappy content, someone reposting you like it's not going to do you much good. Like to me, this is a better way of doing paid ads where you're just letting people follow you.

29:12This is a ten times better way than doing paid ads like I truly don't get the people that like talk shit about this strategy and then they go and run paid ads and have to use all of these like sleazy direct response principles. It's like, think about it like this, right?

29:25I write a piece of content. I pay someone that I know that I normally wouldn't have been able to get a hold up. They offer it as a service. I go, I pay them one. I get to network with that bigger person. I ask, Hey, can you help me? I want to leverage your audience, something like that.

29:40Not that direct, but then they repost my content. They don't tell people to follow me. They don't do anything. They just repost it. There's no ad, there's no sponsored fucking thing there that turns people off. People that like the post, like the post, people I want to follow, they follow over time.

29:59I nurture them in my audience and then eventually, if they want to buy your product or service, they can. To me, that's ten times more authentic than literally any other kind of paid growth. And the other thing here is that just reality is harsh.

30:13Large accounts are busy and probably won't do this. They won't share you unless you pay them because they need a filter. If they're getting hundreds of DMS a day, they're not going to spend 24 hours a day responding to DMS. They need something.

30:24They have other things to do that led to those DMS. You need to offer payment for them to pay attention to you. If you don't like that, don't start a business. If you don't start a business, enjoy the other side, which is ten times more corrupt.

30:43This is an unfair, it's just reality and you don't have the mind or experience to understand that. So a few things that you can do with this strategy is you can ask them to repost you just as simple as reposting or sharing to the story. Again, no caption, no asking to follow you, or you can ask them to reply to you because again, people get so up in arms about what is the best strategy based on the current algorithm or repost better or replies better or whatever better.

31:09Do you think replies are better? Then ask them to reply to you for however much money instead of reposting you. And this really only works on a platform like Twitter or X like on Instagram. The replies don't boost you. On the other person's feed on x if someone replies to you, their followers still see it, so just DM them.

31:28Ask them if they help with growing your brand and then take the conversation further and see what they offer. In terms of who? I don't know, figure it out, test it, waste a bit of money and I've heard so many objections about this strategy.

31:41But like the other thing is if you think it's fine for advertisers to promote a product randomly in your face, then I don't see why you shouldn't think it's fine for creators to accept money to share content that you'll probably like without you asking to buy anything.

31:53That's other thing is that the content that people share isn't so positioned and directly trying to sell you on something than an ad that already pops up randomly on your feet, like, Oh no, something pops up randomly and randomly on my feed that I may like.

32:07And I Oh no, I didn't know that someone was paid to share it. Now again, we're getting touchier.

Masterminds

32:12Here is strategy number four to growing is a mastermind. Harsh truth. Every creator, you know, is in a group chat with other creators. They talk strategy and have fun building businesses together. They also share each other's posts and help them grow.

32:24They use their traffic mechanisms to create a strategy They can back into their routine with some groups, comment on each other's posts each morning. Others repost the posts that they share in the group. Most of all, they form a tribe and start to identify as a part of a group.

32:36You can notice that there are tribes of 5 to 10 creators that all talk to each other online. This is why. So the other thing here is that people call these engagement groups. They call them whatever. I like to call them a mastermind, because that is a pattern.

32:48And reality is that shared minds work better than a singular mind. They can build better together, they can grow better together, etc., etc.. Napoleon Hill I believe. I think that was him, had the concept of the mastermind, which is just a shared mind working towards a singular goal.

33:09You don't have to think of these as just superficial transactions of sharing each other's content. You can make it deeper than that. You can actually meet people that become lifelong friends. You don't have to go about this alone and just swear off anything that you may think is authentic because your mind is so closed and fucking narrow.

33:21Sorry for getting heated. I've been doing this for 3 to 4 years. I've seen every objection in the book and it's frankly very annoying. So the thing with this is, yes, you're going to have to do people yes, you're you're going to have to develop some social skills.

33:34Yes. You're going to have to dis identify with your misinterpretation of what an introvert is so that you can actually achieve something great in your future. Another thing is that this is a long term game, like you're allowed to leave groups when you don't feel it's right.

33:47If it is that superficial transaction of, Oh, you share this post, I'll share this post and you don't care about anyone in there, then yeah, leave. Go and form a new one, like iterate on everything in business. And last thing is that you will not see insane results in less than a year.

34:06And even if you do, it's wise to not that you will like that expectation most of the time won't match with reality come time and it's not going to feel good. So don't hold that expectation. That's for this one. I hope this actually helped. I don't apologize for being a bit harsh, but that's the reality of the social media game.

34:22You either learn to play or you don't. Another thing here is that, like none of this ever in my entire social media career has seemed like as dark or inauthentic as people make it seem. Like if someone makes a video about like, Oh, here's what influencers do to X, Y, Z, and they just frame it as the most evil thing in the world.

34:42It's not like that. It's just reality. It's a great thing. It's a really good thing. It's actually changed my life. It's changed who I'm building a business with right now. Almost everything in my life, clearly over the past four years would not have been possible without any of this.

35:01And the people's lives not to sound like narcissistic or self-aggrandizing here again, but like the people's lives that have changed, They wouldn't have been changed, like without these strategies or without knowing this. So even if some made it, even if you don't have the ideas to connect to understand that these things aren't unethical in the grand scheme of things like this, that this is what you have to do to grow.

35:26It is like if you don't have the authority of someone who already has all of the I's, if you're just starting out and you're using social media as a beginner to build your authority, this is what you're going to have to do. Lastly, I talk about all of this really in the Art of Focus.

35:38I talk about everything that I talk about in my videos, so linking the description to get the keepsake box again, it comes with a really fancy planner, so you can get that inside the box. That's it piece.