This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Are you looking to reach more people on new platforms? Like you've already got one or two social networks that you're posting on, but you're like, I want to be able to reach more people elsewhere. There's all kinds of networks these days. And of course I always encourage people, hey, don't try to be everywhere all the time. That's just not possible for most of us.
Much better to pick a couple of places. But if you are looking to boost your digital footprint, and of course, it's a new year. Everybody wants to reach more audience, have more people coming in. And we're also like dealing with various challenges, algorithms, saturation, everybody's got something to sell or something to talk about. Yet, of course, some people are able to break through.
So how do they do that? What can we learn perhaps from leaders, including Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, two friends of mine who just done amazing. Of course, everybody knows Seth and Gary. And if you don't, well, then you're new to the online world. And that's okay too, because everybody is welcome.
So let's talk with Derek from Kansas City, facing the challenge of standing out, growing his audience, feeling stuck with minimal engagement and slow growth. We have all been there. We have all been there. So let's talk about it. What are some effective strategies to make more of a mark online in 2024?
Or I guess some other time if you're listening later, but we're focused here on this year. All right, stay tuned. Detailed question from Derek and my answer coming right up. [Music]
Hello, Chris, I'm Derek from Kansas City. As an aspiring digital entrepreneur, I've been trying to grow my online presence, but find it increasingly challenging.
Is it just me or is it actually getting harder to stand out online? What strategies would you recommend for effectively growing an online audience in today's crowded digital landscape? I'm tired of getting three likes on my posts and only a few new followers each week. [Music]
All right, I love the question. We all want to grow.
And yes, we can focus on why some things are hard, but I also think it's good to focus on, okay, what are the opportunities and who has succeeded in this world? What have they done that we can learn from? I don't wanna get three likes on my posts either. I mean, three likes are nice. I appreciate the people who leave three likes, those three, but it would be nice to, of course, reach more people.
So maybe a couple of examples. You know, again, with the note that you can't be everywhere, don't try to do that, but I think consistency somewhere and anywhere that you can take that consistency and then extrapolate it elsewhere is good. So, you know, what do I mean by that? Well, let's talk about Seth Godin. You know, he's been writing a daily blog post for many years every single day, and he mostly focuses on the blog, but that post has been amplified.
You know, he has an Instagram account, a Twitter account, all these accounts that he doesn't really manage himself, just the post kind of goes out. And because people have been reading for a long time, they get amplified, they get shared in different platforms. So you can think about reposting once you have a specific habit. I don't think it's good to always just kind of blast everything everywhere, but if you have a specific habit, a practice you have built over time, and if you don't, you can start working on that, then it does become helpful to cross-post. Also, Humans of New York, another great example of someone who really created a specific format, and then that became very shareable, lots of similar projects that have been inspired by Humans of New York.
There he's combined a number of elements that have worked well, storytelling, featuring different people, engaging with the audience, but then just again, that consistency. And then when I think about posting in lots of places, leveraging multiple platforms, Gary Vaynerchuk is the first example that comes to mind. Gary has some frenetic energy that he uses throughout the day to speak to different groups, and then he's got a whole team of people that are clipping things and posting it. So you probably don't have a whole team of documentarians following you around. I mean, I personally wouldn't want that myself, but I do think there's something to be learned from the idea of making content once and then sharing it elsewhere.
And then maybe one final tip, use SEO and hashtags. A great example of this, the minimalists. These guys have used keywords to reach a wider audience that's interested in minimalism. Lots of people were doing minimalist stuff and a number of them kind of broke out, but those guys kind of led the way, I think partly because they really took some time to understand how people are searching for information and then targeted their content to reach those people. All right, a lot more I could say about this, but I think those are a few things we should pay attention to this year as we all seek to grow, again, sustainably, grow sustainably, but we do want to reach more people.
And to make more of a mark online. Nothing wrong with that. So let's work on that. Listeners, let me know if you have a question or some feedback, sidehustleschool.com/questions. I'm sharing every day online and some of these platforms as well.
Would love to connect with you there in addition to the podcast. But of course, I'm gonna keep making episodes every day. I'm so grateful for this community. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
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From the Onward Project.
