This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Have you ever wondered about the best ways to expand your online presence? If you're trying to reach people for your side hustle, your e-commerce business, the personality brand you're trying to build, your coaching business, whatever it is, or maybe you've got a blog, YouTube channel, social media account of some kind, whatever the case may be, you want to know the next steps to reach a larger audience. Well, you are not alone. A lot of people want this, in fact, and they want it in different ways, but there are some commonalities. So today on the podcast, which is called Side Hustle School, by the way, welcome.
We're going to address a question from Trent. Trent is a tech enthusiast and gadget reviewer from Phoenix. He's been creating tech blogs and unboxing videos. Love those. I always loved watching a nice unboxing video.
Who knew that was going to be a huge genre, but it is, you know, lots of monetization there as well. Anyway, he's thinking of expanding his reach. He wants to know about like taking his content to additional platforms, so we'll talk about that. But I also want to encourage him and you perhaps, before you just go kind of posting the same things everywhere, or before you drive yourself crazy trying to create unique content for everywhere, you know, both ways are kind of problematic. Let's maybe do a little bit of research to understand what your readers, followers, viewers, listeners, your subscribers, your fans, the people who love you, what they really want.
Okay, so let's focus on that. Quick little shout out to our sponsor, thanks sponsors and thanks listeners. I'll be right back with the detailed question from Trent. [Music]
Hi, I'm Trent from Phoenix, tech enthusiast and gadget reviewer. Your episode on leveraging social media for promoting side hustles was super useful.
And I've been writing tech blogs and doing unboxing videos on YouTube for a while now. So I'm thinking of expanding my online presence for this side hustle. I'm wondering about the best online platforms that could help me broaden my reach and improve my visibility of content. Given my niche, do you have any insights into where I should focus my promotional efforts? [Music]
Trent, what's up, man?
Thanks for being out there. Love a good unboxing video as mentioned. And also as mentioned, I think before we list a bunch of platforms and expansion plans and such, I think it's good to just take a little bit of a step back and say, okay, you've got limited time and energy. You've got some constraints. You definitely can't be everywhere.
You're not gonna do a good job at it. Nobody does. So you really need to be specific about any expansion before it takes place, I think. So my first question is how well do you understand the existing audience that you have? Like, do you truly understand both their demographics and their psychographics?
So demographics, pretty obvious, their age range, background, where do they live? You know, what's their income? That can be relevant in the tech industry and for gadget reviewing and such, but psychographics, it's much more of like, what is their emotional need? You know, what need are you meeting when you connect with them? Why do they choose to subscribe?
Why do they watch your videos? There's lots of unboxing videos. There are lots of tech reviewers and gadget reviewers. So even if the audience is relatively small at this point, whoever has chosen you has chosen you. And so you want to understand like, why?
Why are they choosing to watch you? And I think the more you delve into that, the more you understand that, the more you pay attention to how your content is resonating, then that dictates what you then do in terms of any expansion. And it may be the case that you're better off just kind of doubling down where you are right now and making more videos, making more in-depth videos, truly kind of plumbing the content of like, what exactly do they want? How can I meet that need on a consistent basis? And maybe it is the case after you do all that, that you're like, yes, I can now go on to Twitch.
You know, I can do some live streaming or I should go on Instagram or threads or, you know, whatever the platform is, it could be Discord or Mastodon or Blue Sky or one of these kinds of things. But the point is before you expand, you always try to understand how can I keep the quality of my content high? How can I truly meet the needs of people who are following me? I think that's so much better. I've actually pulled away from a lot of social media in recent years, just because I felt like I wasn't doing a great job at it.
So I try to meet people where they are. So I'd love to be able to, you know, be an expert and have content on all the platforms at all the times, but that's not gonna happen. So I have had to be more strategic and I encourage all of our listeners to be strategic as well. So good luck. And I do think, by the way, Trent, just to be clear, I do think you can broaden your reach significantly.
So keep up the good work. Listeners, if you have a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Got a new episode every day as we go into August. It's gonna be a big month. I've got my book, "Gonzo Capitalism" coming out on the 22nd.
Look forward to sharing it with you. And of course, a new episode every day. For now, my name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from the Onward Project.
