There are tons of ways to build an online presence.
If you got big bank, you can go down the paid marketing route and just play the numbers game. Reach a ton of people with a crafty ad and try to convert them as a social follower or email subscriber.
But what if you don’t have money to blow on ads?
How do you actually grow an online presence, year after year, even through all of the algo changes and evolving trends?
My solution has always been to simply be helpful.
But of course that’s too vague so today, I’ll break it down with a few examples.
If I had to break down a step-by-step guide on how to build an online presence by being helpful, it would probably look something like this:
Step 0: Identify your unique advantage or area of expertise
Step 1: Clarify your niche based on your unique advantage
Step 2: Pick your target audience within that niche
Step 3: Pick your platform of choice (X, LinkedIn, Newsletter, IG, etc.)
Step 4: Outline the problem you will help people solve
Step 5: Have a newbie within your niche ask you questions
Step 6: Transcribe the conversation
Step 7: Expand on the most interesting points via content
Step 8: Closely pay attention to engagement & questions from content
Step 9: Derive new content from recurring questions you receive
Step 10: Aim to be helpful 75% of the time (OK to mix in fun/life content)
In case this is still too abstract, I’ll break it down for my current situation
Step 0: My unique advantage = 10 yrs of social media experience at LinkedIn, Snapchat, a social media startup, and a16z
Step 1: Niche = Startup Marketing
Step 2: Audience(s) = Founders & Marketers
Step 3: Platform(s) of choice = X & LinkedIn (expand via newsletter like I’m doing now)
Step 4: Problem I help solve: Building an online presence
Step 5 - 10: You can see how these points play out via my account here
The key part here is consistently being helpful to your specific audience over long periods of time.
This is easy to do for a few days or maybe even weeks, but after a while most people will get lazy and begin shitposting or posting irrelevant content.
This is why I say to keep 75% of your content helpful.
3 of every 4 posts on your profile should be helpful in some way.
This balance keeps you consistent without making it seem like you’re trying too hard (people also wanna get to know who you are on a personal level too — so share updates about life from time to time).
Below you’ll find a few examples of people and brands being helpful.
Remember: likes, RTs, bookmarks, and replies all lead to page visits, and page visits lead to new followers (if your content is consistently good).
This is how you build a sustainable growth strategy.
Be helpful on a consistent basis and everything else will fall into place.
Cheers,
Ish
🫡