WHO EVEN ARE YOU?

So the first thing that you need to do when you are trying to build an audience as a solopreneur, or as an aspiring influencer is figure out who the heck you actually are. Why is somebody going to follow you? What makes you different?

I know this is something that you’ve probably heard before. But how often are you actually sitting down and thinking to yourself, why would somebody follow me? 

Figuring out exactly who you are and then using that, not just knowing it, but actually using it in your branding and in your content strategy, is going to help separate you from everybody else. 

• What are your values? 

• What mission are you on? 

• What type of impact do you want to have on other people? 

• What are your passions? 

All of these things, when you are super connected to them, are going to help you stop getting so swayed by all of the popular trends. You know, so many people are just trying to either make money on the internet or build their audience without any true intention behind that. And whilst this can get you so far, what it’s going to end up doing is, for the most part, lead you to feel extremely confused about why you’re even creating content and building an audience in the first place. Not to mention leave you feeling burnt out because you don’t have that passion and mission behind the content that you are creating. 

So the first thing that you should do before you even start thinking about the tech, is start thinking about why you want to create content in the first place. If you’re strategizing about what is going to be most popular and what is going to help you to grow the fastest like dancing on Tik Tok, I guarantee you are essentially selling your soul to the devil. 

When your brand is in true alignment with who you are at the core, it’s so much easier to be consistent, which is super key when you’re building an audience. And it’s going to be so much more fun for you to just create content for you and for your audience. 

RELATABILITY & ASPIRATION

Now, the second thing is super important. I teach this in so many of my programs like for example, I’ve got a program influencer vibes, which is all about branding, content, strategy and engagement with your community. Because this is honestly the key. 

When you are building an audience, there needs to be a certain level of relatability. And specifically, if you are an entrepreneur, aspiration is super important because the reason why somebody is going to follow you and eventually buy from you is that you have the expertise or have achieved certain results in some specific area. 

If you want people to follow you, you simply need to lead. 

I think a lot of people forget this when they are creating content, or they struggle with this because we have disassociation from our own expertise and achievements. So we don’t really highlight the aspirational parts of who we are and what we’re trying to do in the world. And that can actually diminish our ability to be seen as a leader to our audience.

So. Why would someone look up to you? 

Look at all the creators that have absolutely blown up across all different platforms; there is something about them, whether it’s their aesthetic, their style, their body, their lifestyle, their daily routine, the consistency that they have to their habits, their skills, their expertise, their knowledge, the results that they get – there is something that keeps their audience encapsulated and inspired.  Often, this is balanced out by the relatability that they have from being vulnerable, sharing their struggles and being real, sharing their personality. 

When you are trying to build an audience balancing these two things is super important. 

CONSISTENCY

How important it is to be consistent. Now there are two different arguments when it comes to consistency – Quality over quantity. 

So many people are talking about the fact that if you want to grow on social media, you must be prioritizing quantity over quality. This does not mean that you can start posting absolute crap to the internet. It should be that you are posting as often as you possibly can for your personal circumstances without sacrificing quality. 

So if that for you is three times a week on Instagram, and maybe once every two weeks on YouTube, if that’s the absolute max that you can do, and still maintain putting good things out onto the internet that people actually want to watch. That is so much more important than you just trying to post every single day across multiple different platforms. 

You should never sacrifice quality in the pursuit of quantity as you grow. And maybe you start hiring different team members. Or maybe you just get better at your own processes and systems. But at the end of the day, nothing beats good content. And so, making sure that you are prioritizing putting good content out on the internet is super important. 

But also, you’ve got to consider that it’s super important that you are maintaining consistency. So frequency is going to depend on your circumstances. But consistency is just making sure that you’re not doing what most creators do. And that is showing up really intensely for a month and then falling off the face of the planet for another month. You can do that later on.

When you’ve got a million followers, it doesn’t matter. But as you are starting to grow, maintaining a slow and steady pace is super important. 

CONTENT COMES FROM COMMUNITY

So now this is sort of like a psychology and a strategy tip combined into one. But what so many people do wrong when they’re trying to build influence on the internet is they are so hyper-focused on the content and less focused on the community. 
So many people complain about the algorithm but what people are choosing to consume is what is driving the algorithm. And so it’s not this machine that is working against all of us, trying to make it hard for us for no reason. It’s actually what people choose to consume that is feeding data into these algorithms that is ultimately determining what is shown back to these people. These social media platforms want to keep you and your audience on the platform for as long as possible. 

Now, when you understand this, it’s less about hacking the system. And it’s more about satisfying the audience. When you know who your audience is better than they know themselves. When you know their consumer behaviours. When you understand their psycholog
y, when you understand their patent interruptions, like think about this question, have you even stopped to ask yourself:

What could I say what would stop my audience in their tracks? 

Community is key when it comes to building a huge following in the online space. 

It’s not about hacking the algorithm. It’s about hacking into that person’s heart. And I know that sounds corny, but at the end of the day, making people feel something is going to make them take action. So stop worrying about the algorithm and start trying to understand who your audience is:

• What is going to make them engage? 

• What is going to make them enjoy your content? 

• What is going to make them click on it in the first place? 

Then build your strategy around that.