Ask HN: How do you build your audience? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you build your audience?

44 pointssawirricardo14 comments

I am in the process of building my connections. I want to know how do you build your audience?

Please don't share tips. What I want to know is the actual process like how you grew from 0 to 10. Then, from 10 to 50. 50 to 100. and so on.

Like, What was the situation you were in? 1. What did you do? 2. Where do you post your blog or what did you do to help people? 3. What makes them hook to you? 4. How long did it take you to grow from 0-50? 5. Did you go through some pure luck by posting online or did you recognize some pattern?

Although I didn't really want to hear from luck, but I open for your opinion.

Thank you HN.

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"Be helpful on the internet"

People will follow you if you are saying things that actually help them. The most effective way is probably teaching something, although sharing your "behind the scenes" story can work as well.

0-10: Start with friends. If you're on twitter for example, following your friends will get you your first few follow-backs

10-50: decide what you're going to be "about". Don't tweet/post about everything - pick ONE or TWO major topics, and just post about those, with the goal of _helping_ people. Share your knowledge. Then, start replying with helpful posts to other big names.

50-100: same as 10-50. Make sure your bio is hyper focused on your one or two topics, and that you post consistently, and with posts that provide a ton of value. Answer people's questions in public.

How I did it:

exactly the same as above until about 500 followers on twitter. Then I had a _giant_ follow event with the twitter thread "Learn React in 10 Tweets": https://twitter.com/chrisachard/status/1175022111758442497

After that (and gaining several hundred followers in a day, then several thousand in a few more days), it became easier to get engagement on posts. Continue to be helpful to people, and people will continue to follow.

I wrote about the process here too: https://chrisachard.com/triple-your-twitter-following

Hi @chrisa, interesting story you have :) Happy to hear you've successfully engaged with people online.

Kind of curious, but have you tried to change your major topic? Or did you really just settle,"Okay, I'll tweet about React". Did you encounter that feeling of "I want to talk about many things"?

I definitely have the feeling that I'd like to talk about many things! It can be hard to work through :)

I'd say my one topic is actually: "teaching web developers". I happen to talk a lot about React, but I also talk about JS in general, and Rails sometimes too.

That seems to be fine - your topic CAN be something very specific like "React performance improvements", and you'll do well, or it can be something like "How to be a more effective web developer", and that will be ok too - just don't switch between topics like web development, then cooking, then politics, then your dog, then a little more web development, etc.

Sharing some of your life (like your dog, hobbies, etc) is good and is part of you being a "real person", as long as say, 90% of your content follows your major topic.

Good points @chrisa. I hope you keep inspiring other devs, friend

Luck is obviously a factor along with survivorship bias but you'll notice if you've done any research that a very large portion of relatively successful to highly successful creators did not start out with wanting to grow their audience but focused on the content they wanted to make and were caught unawares by the reception to their work

To expand on this a bit (I know you mentioned you didn't want unsolicited advice, but I think this is fundamentally important), there is a glut of good marketers with not much product. Ideally, you'd want to be a good marketer with a good product, but barring that the goal is to have a good product first if that makes sense. Otherwise, you won't have something that will keep the audience coming back since they have an ocean to choose from.

Hi @bakary, you made a good point here. To add your point, I also found that nowaday, the product may be the marketer itself (let's say myself, then 'sawirricardo' is certainly the product I'm selling), speaking in this creator economy.

We create a tool for solving your problem and will gladly share our experience.

Use, at the very beginning, the advertising rooms of social networks. They provide an opportunity to know your audience before you start spending money on advertising. You will have access to information about the demographic characteristics and interests of your chosen target audience.

On Facebook, for example, search for "audience insights" in your ad account.

You can also use google trends and SEO tools (similarweb or semrash). With their help, you will be able to understand the number of the audience and their interests. Plus cost per click.

What tool did you refer to? @IvanSologub

Step 1: from 0 to 10

Create a fake, but very interesting, online profile (Linkedin, Twitter, etc.) The persona varies depending on your target audience (designers, programmers, writers, etc.). Things to fake: name of the person (some names are more attractive than others), profile picture (attractive persons have more followers), previous work experience (big companies attract more followers). The goal is to spread content from others (highly skilled and respected people) via your channel/profile so you get followers/likes/comments. Don't spread BS; never. You are creating the "perfect" profile that shares the "perfect" work of others. You can automate this a lot.

Step 2: from 10 to 90

Let your fake profile grow. In a couple of weeks you'll get quite some followers (quality > quantity).

Last step: from 90 to 100

Make your fake profile start sharing your own (true and personal) work. Suddenly your work is being published among other (highly skilled and respectful) individuals. It is now when you start receiving followers/comments/likes/connections. Enjoy.

Edit: of course, if you already have a friend that is highly skilled and respected in the same industry as yours and they can share your work in their own social media in a regular basis, then even better!

1. Pick a single audience (in my case for https://maxrozen.com, I picked react developers)

2. Write helpful articles, share them everywhere you know your audience hangs out. I share mine on reddit, LinkedIn, twitter, even WhatsApp/DMs.

3. Answer people's questions

4. Show up regularly, and do the work. (I publish weekly).

I added a subscribe button to my website and wrote a handful of articles that were eventually indexed by Google. I’ve also occasionally posted my stuff on HN but that doesn’t drive many conversions/signups.

Hi @wannabebarista. So did you mean you target SEO in the first place?

Not really, but that may work better than what I’m doing/did. After my website got a bit of traffic from google, an article was linked to in an issue of PyCoder’s. The majority of my traffic has come from this and a handful of similar posts. Once I had a few “anchor” articles, the traffic/subs became more steady.

Got it. happy to hear your process @wannabebarista

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