How to build an audience using a content flywheel

(how people like @SahilBloom, @JamesClear and @jackbutcher build massive attention & audiences)

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This model is used widely, but is often overlooked because it takes time (years), effort, and focus.

It's not "sexy". It's hard.

The great thing about building an audience using a content flywheel is that you can learn everything as you go.

Here's the steps:

1. Write concise, valuable content on very specific topics.

2. Publish those pieces natively on a platform.

3. Bundle the specific topics into larger "pillar" content.

4. Promote pillar content to capture & convert attention.

5. Engage w/ audience throughout.

6. Repeat.

Here's what happens:

The smaller pieces of content demonstrate expertise, knowledge, and clarity. Fans promote them.

The pillars demonstrate vision, authority, and value beyond the knowledge published.

The pillars attract outside traffic and convert traffic to followers/fans.

begins publishing articles on his website convering specific topics related to habits, productivity, etc.

He then bundles those articles into pillar content that attracts massive SEO traffic.

He then converts that traffic to his email list (which just hit 1 MM).

THREAD ON BUILDING A WRITING HABIT:

If it's hard to get yourself to write,

I surveyed 100+ people to identify how they overcome their blockers.

For writing blogs, books, screenplays:

Blocker #1: Procrastination

If you procrastinate occasionally, that’s normal—forgive yourself.

However, if you procrastinate endlessly, that’s a problem.

Procrastination is the result of two reflexes:

• Indulging in immediate rewards like browsing YouTube instead of writing.

• Avoiding work you perceive to be uncomfortable or tedious.

Let's tackle these two blockers.

A. Avoid distractions

Have you noticed how much writing we can get done on airplanes—despite having our knees and shoulders uncomfortably squeezed together for hours?

Why is that?

It's because there's nothing else to do on an airplane.

This reveals a truth about writing: needing a comfy chair, room, or "the right ambience" is a myth.

If you're waiting until your room is the right temperature to begin writing, you're lying to yourself.

Your blocker is not comfort, but rather distractions.

Two strategies:

THREAD:

I've been very serious about personal development for 10+ years.

But not just reading...

I've been putting the principles to work as I've grown and sold my business (7 figure exit) and built a real estate portfolio worth $20MM+.

Here are a few of my top takeaways:

20% of your customers will produce 80% of your profit.

20% of your customers will also produce 80% of your headache.

The sooner you learn THESE AREN'T THE SAME CUSTOMERS the sooner you can grow, scale AND experience less stress.

The 4 quadrants of time management concept changed my life.

Urgent + important is where stressed out owners spend their time.

Not urgent + important is where you add long term value to your company and your life. Its also the easiest area to push to the back-burner and ignore.

3 keys to hiring and managing great employees:

#1 Raise your prices (so you can afford them)

#2 Simplify the job so average employees can thrive (and killer employees can crush it)

#3 Give them praise in public (it means just as much as money)

Execution > Idea

Ideas are a dime a dozen.

Folks who are willing to do the work are a bit more rare.

Folks with the chops to execute well are extremely rare. And they are the true winners when it comes to entrepreneurship.

THREAD: 15 of the most useful razors and rules I've found.

Rules of thumb that simplify decisions.

Bezos' Razors:

• If unsure what action to take, let your 80-year-old self make it.

• If unsure who to work with, pick the person that has the best chances of breaking you out of a 3rd world prison.

Skinner's Law:

• If procrastinating on an item, you only have 2 options:

1. Make the pain of not doing it greater than the pain of doing it.

2. Make the pleasure of doing it greater than the pleasure of not doing it.

Luck Razor:

• If stuck with 2 equal options, pick the one that feels like it will produce the most luck later down the line.

I used this razor to go for drinks with a stranger rather than watch Netflix.

In hindsight, it was the highest ROI decision I've ever made.

Bragging Razor:

• If someone brags about their success or happiness, assume it’s half what they claim.

• If someone downplays their success or happiness, assume it’s double what they claim.

The map is not the terrain.

A ton of learnings from the conversation between @jackbutcher and @bzaidi on Creator Lab

40+ takeaways 👇

FYI, this is episode 2 with @jackbutcher, so check out the first for more tactics and his story

The economics of the creator economy have changed in the last decade.

You no longer need a huge audience to make a living.

1000 true fans to 100 true fans.

We're moving from a world where people paid the artist to where they're paying for value.

Jack went from ~$6K/mo in January to almost $200K/mo in the best months (October & November)

The Compounding Creator

How one creator made $1,332,400 across 6 revenue streams in 2020:

🎬 $135k - Ads
🔥 $177k - Affiliates
💰 $182k - Sponsorships
📚 $470k - Self-paced courses
🚀 $295k - Cohort-based course
⭕️ $71k - Community

Breakdown 👇

In 2017, @aliabdaal created a YouTube channel.

He started with 0 views, 0 subs, but he posted 2 videos every single week for 6 months.

His revenue from this work? $0.

***This is when 95% of creators quit.***

But 52 vids and 6 months later he hit his first 1,000 subs.

🎬 $135,200 - Google AdSense

Channel growth:

2017: 59 vids, 1,600 subs, $0 from ads.
2018: 88 vids, 120k subs, $16,500.
2019: 62 vids, 450k subs, $44,600.
2020: 98 vids, 1.3M subs, $135,300.

More from Ali on YouTube revenue here:

This slide shows the average number of vids needed to hit subscriber brackets (data from @TubeBuddy).

- Top row: Number of subs.
- Middle row: average vids needed to hit number of subs.
- Bottom row: Ali's vids to hit number of subs.

In 2017, Ali was growing at 2X the average, with 27 subs and $0 per vid.

By 2020, he was growing at 10X the average, with 8,673 subs and $1,380 per vid.

But, his output remained steady at ~1.5 vids per week. This is the compounding nature of sub and revenue growth.

@souparker Hey @souparker, unfortunately we couldn't find a Readwise account associated with your twitter handle.

To start saving, you can connect your twitter account to Readwise here: https://t.co/zgeK1TmLTe 😄

Twitter is, by far, the fastest way to build a high-quality audience.

Why?

It's quicker to write insightful tweets than it is to produce 10min YouTube videos or 1400-word blog posts.

Here's a thread of actionable tactics from studying the fastest-growing Twitter accounts.

2/ Fast-growing accounts have two things in common:

1. They spend 30+ minutes per day sourcing and refining 1-3 daily tweets. They don't wing what they say, and they typically sit on each idea for a few days.

2. Key: They write tweets that get *retweeted.*

3/ Retweets bring followers.

We polled people to ask why they retweet. They said:

1. "Retweeting is my bookmarking system for ideas."

2. "I retweet when someone's put elegant words to my thoughts."

3. "I want my followers to know I relate to this statement."

4/ So, to get more RTs:

1. Tweet referenceable content that people will refer back to later.

2. Challenge the status quo with elegance and wit.

3. Pick a debate and argue your side with a novel take.

The most RTed tweets? *Threads with advice like this.*

5/ How to write a tweet:

• Open with a hook: Make it counterintuitive or counter-narrative.
• Concise body: Satisfy the craving your hook created.
• End with a punchy zinger: Summarize implications of your finding and what it means for the reader.

I’ve gotten a lot of bad advice in my career and I see even more of it here on Twitter.

Time for a stiff drink and some truth you probably dont want to hear.

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College isn’t worthless for everyone.

All of the successful folks who tell you college is worthless went to college.

What does that tell you?

It’s not about the learning, though.

It’s about growing and learning how to sell yourself and your ideas.

Miami isn’t the next tech hub.

It’s surrounded by a swamp.

Construction costs are insane because of hurricane codes. Vacant land doesn’t exist.

Property insurance has risen on average 20% per year for 5 years.

Plus it’s hot AF. Ever been there in July?

Starting a business isn’t right for everyone.

95% of folks are better off getting a job.

It’s hard AF. Decisions are critical and plentiful. Risk is for real. Stress can be crippling. Delegation can be impossible for poor communicators.

Most folks don’t have what it takes.

Technology isn’t as far along as the media makes you think it is.

We’re 5+ years away from autonomous vehicles.

Alexa still can’t play the song I want 25% of the time let alone make decisions and “learn”.

Robots fall on their faces when they aren’t on perfectly flat ground.

Conventional wisdom says there are too many podcasts––don’t bother making another one. But at least half the value of hosting a podcast is building the muscle to consistently create.

A thread of podcast lessons learned 20K+ listeners, 15 guests and 365 days after launching one:

Having a podcast is primarily an excuse to schedule conversations with people you’d most want to chat with one-on-one anyway.

The audience is secondary to the conversation. The more you focus on having a great conversation the more likely an audience is to be interested in it.

Similar to picking a market for a startup, the most important thing to do is pick a differentiated theme for your podcast.

This is the “wedge” that will forge your initial audience. For example, the hook for #ParadoxPodcast is Silicon Valley folks exploring topics beyond tech.

The second most important thing is recruiting guests. Few people in the world are interesting to listen to solo. @joerogan’s podcast wouldn't work without guests.

You want "guest NPS" to be high so they feel good about the episode and share it with their audience. A few tips.

Make a short list of initial guests you can reach and schedule through your network to build momentum.

Then, don’t be afraid to leverage cold emails or DMs to book guests outside your immediate grasp. You might be surprised who will say yes. Great guests beget great guests.

The conversation between @jackbutcher and @ShaanVP was full of gems

Here are 30+ key takeaways 👇

State the obvious.

9 times out of 10 we all have a version of "obvious" that is different from others.

An audience is a superpower that lets you dabble in all kinds of things.

Those who should be envied have assets other than money: cult followings, knowledge, audiences (or a combination).

Network and audiences are what allow awesome stuff to come into life all the time.

Content is the magnet.

Hindsight in 2020: (10 thoughts)

Relationships > everything:

My relationship with @celiapreihs is the foundation of all the good things in my life, and has amplified the quality of hundreds of relationships with people I've got to know and learn from this year.

Shiny objects make us duller:

The grass is always greener until you're standing on it. "No" is still the highest ROI word in my vocabulary.

The internet is very, very big:

Make something work for one person (could also be yourself), then work on distribution.

Scale is seductive but you can't get it if you don't have something people want.

You can't please everyone:

If you could, there would be no point anyway - it's tough when someone doesn't love your work but it's how markets function.

The blows hit harder in the early rounds, just keep getting up.