Growing Your Audience in 2024

Originally published: 12/17/2022

Updated: 8/6/2024

In today’s issue, I’m going to share 3 very simple tips that you can execute to grow a bigger and better following in 2024.

As social media becomes increasingly crowded, right now is the best time to double down on content creation and audience growth.

Don’t be the person that spends all of their time building products and services only to find out that they can’t get any attention or generate any interest.

Instead, run these 3 plays next year and build your following in 2024 for better distribution in 2025.

Become a familiar character.

A powerful audience gathers when you become a “familiar character”.

This term comes from a conversation I had with my friend, and NYT Best-selling author, Marshall Karp at dinner last month.

He asked, “Do you know why people tuned in to Seinfeld or Cheers for each episode?”

I gave it very little thought and answered, “Because they were funny?”

He said, “No. They tune in because of the characters. People enjoy the predictable emotional experience that they get from spending 30 minutes with those characters.”

He continued: “My goal is to create characters you fall in love with and root for, or that you hate, but respect.”

That has stuck with me since I heard it, and I think that plays very well on social media.

My goal with my content is to make it so recognizable that you would know it was me even if it didn't have my name on it. The same style. The same thought process. The same character.

So work on becoming familiar. Make sure that when you show up every day, you're building on the days, weeks, months, and years of who you’ve been and what you've said before.

Don’t be better. Be different.

Becoming familiar is just one part of the equation of audience building.

Another part is figuring out why people should choose to follow your character rather than someone else.

Here’s my best advice: Don’t be better. Be different.

Don’t try to convince everyone that what you say, feel, think, or have done is better than everyone else.

Instead, come at your audience with something more unique. Something different.

• Get them thinking: How can you challenge the status quo in an honest way? What is something you believe that others don’t?
• Get them doubting: How can you present information in a way that stuns the reader? In a way that makes them question and doubt their prior beliefs?

We all have contrarian, against-the-grain thoughts about the subject matter we talk about.

Use those thoughts to build an audience of people who think like you, feel like you, and are going on the same journey as you.

Scale the ladder.

One of the best ways to grow your audience is to get engagement from accounts that are bigger than yours.

But, it's also really difficult to attract the attention of huge accounts. That's where "scaling the ladder" comes into play.

Back in 2018, when I had 2,500 followers on LinkedIn, I made a list of 50 people who had audiences bigger than mine, ranging from 5,000 followers up to 100,000 followers.

My goal was simply to scale this ladder over time. I worked the list 5 people at a time, starting at the bottom.

I engaged relentlessly with those accounts until they noticed me and began engaging back.

I used that engagement to grow a bit more, and when I eventually reached the next milestone, I moved up the list.

It took me over 18 months to work the whole list, but by the time I had finished, I had 50 new friends who engaged with my content regularly. Since then, I've run 15+ simple plays to grows to over 600,000 followers and be named a Top Voice.

I highly recommend that you build your own list and spend time scaling your ladder in 2024.

Well, that’s it for today.

TL;DR

1. Create a familiar character

2. Hone in on your unique differentiator

3. Build and scale your ladder

3 short lessons, but an issue that I think will be very impactful if you understand how to use it.

See you next Saturday.