You know, building an audience wouldn’t be so difficult everyone wasn’t trying to solve the same problem at once.
There was a reason social media worked better when each site had their own identity and function. Now, when you squint your eyes, everything looks like tiktok— I mean twitter— I mean….
So the question now is …. where ya’ll at?
and,
Who all over there?
Every day in Threads some one asks “ARE WE STILL USING THIS?”
And some one else says “YES, STOP ASKING.”
But we still can’t shake the feeling that too many people have slipped through the cracks and at any moment something might change again and make dread— I mean threads— irrelevant overnight.
So what do we do now?
Well I have some ideas.
You’re not going to like them.
“Disappear” for a year (or two) and see how much has changed and how much unnecessary humiliation you avoided. This is what I did and I got to skip tiktok dancing, clubhouse and spill.
Become a local socialite and skip the digital clout-chasing line. Turns out putting effort into introducing people to each other IRL and having little parties will give you access to the elites 10x faster than any IG post.
I recommended the “2-Hour Cocktail Party” book on a live the other day and some girl emailed us saying she was hosting a 17 person get-together at her house like two weeks after reading it. Don’t under estimate how much a 17-person get together can change your life.
The book was written by Nick Gray. He was thrilled I recommended it and we were chatting. Let me know if you think it would be worth it for him and I to have a discussion online. If you nudge me I’ll nudge him. Maybe I’ll invite him to speak on my fraudcast.Courses are out. Communities are in.
Part of why the internet feels so ick right now is because everyone is learning what a funnel is and so an innocent youtube search is sending people into either a matrix of:
a) Some one selling a course which means all their videos are disguised as solutions but are really marketing materials that lead people to a landing page > webinar > cart.
The courses have to be at a minimum of about $3k right now because FB ads are so expensive. Which means if you ain’t selling something worth at least that, the streets is quiet. Or you just don’t mind taking the money any way. Good luck with that.
b) Someone who is selling affiliates and makes videos with 30 different lists of the same 10 things and will lead you to amazon or affiliate page. The makeup girlies, the amazon girlies, the camera bros.
You are being sold dahling. You are being sold. And it’s okay… sorta.
It gets annoying af some times. Sometimes you just want to listen to someone interesting riff off. Sometimes you just want some of that juicy fringe internet nectar.
Which leads you to the third matrix you’ll end up in which is usually a quality content creator who begs you to join their patreon every 5 minutes. And as much as you love them, you STILL aint really feining to spend $3./month And even if you do, it’s still not usually enough to pay their bills so they burn out and stop making content any way or even worse, turn into a tai lopez guru right in front of your eyes. AHHH!
So what I’ve been telling everyone is instead of trying to monetize with a course or affiliates or Patreon try a COHM-BI-NATION.
First things first, stop signing up to do more work. What I don’t like about the Patreon model is that you’re essentially signing up to be even more of a work horse because on top of feeding the public algorithms like IG, X, etc. on a DAILY basis you have to work to make “exclusive content” for Patreon on a MONTHLY basis as well. No.
But if you marketed a *community* the onus to deliver is also on them and not just you! To be honest, content creators and companies are shocked when I tell them to move out di way. *rihanna shoo*
Back in my day, when I made a pay wall to the Boss Babe community and we were working our assess off to make “exclusive content” one little market poll revealed that the girls weren’t really engaging with the exclusive content. They were paying to talk to each other!!
You see, what I’m trying to say here is people don’t just want to learn stuff, they want to know people and they want people to know about them. Help people know people by throwing them behind a pay wall that secures a niche interest or throwing parties!
I have more advice but that’s enough for now. I wrote this email to promote my new Youtube video about why I stopped talking about tech so much but the caffeine in this matcha got typing on this kitchen island in curly hair no carrie bradshaw.
Tell your friends about me! I’m trying to make my Youtube more of a central location for my audience so subscribe to me there too! f*ck it!
Everything...just EVERYTHING mentioned in this one was spot on. I’ve been disillusioned with my industry (design & advertising) for a minute. Now, after watching the video, I’m not quite sure if it’s disillusion or jadedness or both 🤷🏽♀️. A lot of what you’ve discussed, talked about and written has always resonated with me so I look forward to the fraudcast and continued discourse
PLEASE invite Nick Gray. It’s a been a dream of mine to foster community through salon style events, so IMMEDIATELY downloaded his book and started taking notes. Thank you so much for recommending it.