Build Audience Before Product: But How Do You Do It?

Build audience before product.

But how do you do it?

Here's how I've built an audience across channels and grown my startups from 0 to $2 million revenues.

Involves a mix of marketing & writing.

(1/11)

Golden rule: Don't always share updates or links to your product/content.

Instead:
• Talk about the problem
• Critique existing solutions
• Talk about how you'll solve the problem
• Share product building process & experience
• Share launch plan, stats & learnings

(4/11)

Channels:
• Blog
• Newsletter
• Social media
• Slack channels
• Community websites
• LinkedIn & Facebook groups

(3/11)

When building audience on any channel, make personal connections.

Share your personal experiences, stories & learnings vs. company or product updates.

People connect with people, not with lifeless entities or brands.

(2/11)

• Share your newsletter on social media. Not as links, but handcrafted posts.

• Launch your newsletter as a product.

• Make a personal connection with your subscribers:
⇒ Send them a welcome email
⇒ Provide them an easy way to reach out to you.

(5.2/11)

How to grow a newsletter

• Define a clear goal for your newsletter ⇒ what value will your subscribers get?

• Be yourself & write like a person would.

• Submit to newsletter directories.

• Publish & distribute your newsletter like a blog.

(5.1/11)

How to build a Twitter audience

• Be yourself & bring out your own personality.

• Share personal experiences, stories, opinions.

• People should support you, not your company or product.

(7.1/11)

How to grow a blog

• Focus on SEO from day 1
• Keep a mix of keyword focused & expert content
• Write less, distribute more
• Distribution channels: Social media, Newsletter, Reddit

Pro-tip: SEO optimise your newsletter issues & publish them as blogs

(6/11)

• People love specifics. Share your secrets - what frameworks you use, what channels worked for you, how you make money & how much.

• Engage with popular accounts. Reply to their tweets sharing your opinions.

(7.2/11)

• Analyse tweets that work, both your own & those of others. Don't try to find a template but see what idea or emotion worked.

(7.4/11)

• Write consistently. Both your audience & the Twitter algorithm will appreciate this.

• Bookmark tweets you like. Use the underlying idea and share your unique opinion/experience around it.

(7.3/11)

How to build an audience on community websites

• Contribute first, market later. Moderators can easily mark you spam.

• Follow the community guidelines. Ex. Sharing your own blog posts rarely (1 out of 10 times) on HackerNews or Reddit.

(9.1/11)

• Share your achievements. People love to celebrate with you.

• Share your failures & learnings.

• Make connections. Interact on other people's posts. Chat over DMs.

• Write consistently. Both your connections & the LinkedIn algorithm will appreciate this.

(8.2/11)

How to build a LinkedIn audience

• Be yourself & bring out your own personality.

• People connect with people. Company, brand or product accounts don't work.

• Focus on sharing personal experiences & stories vs. company updates

(8.1/11)

• Follow the guidelines. Usually there are specific days or threads where you can market your own content.

• Make connections with people and take the conversations outside of the groups. Connect over email, chat or social media.

(10.2/11)

How to use Slack Channels, LinkedIn & Facebook groups

• Key is to find the right set of groups or channels.

• Contribute to the group. Help others and even reach out to the admins.

(10.1/11)

• Tailor your existing content to the theme of the community. Ex. On some subreddits, users love analysis & breakdowns while on others, personal stories work best.

• Help others & ask for help. Community websites thrive on members who are keen to help each other out.

(9.2/11)

That's it for the thread!

I regularly share such threads around startups, so consider retweeting the first tweet & following me 🙂

(11/11)