Twitter, Instagram, and Audience building
Some unfiltered thoughts after a failed attempt of building an audience online
One year ago, when I first landed in the creators and solopreneurs community on Twitter, I learned that most were talking about building an audience on Twitter before building the product.
It made total sense.
If you have a focused niche audience, it becomes relatively easy to convert them into customers by solving their pain. Also, it helps you build connections in your industry and put yourself out as a thought leader.
That required writing.
And I was never an active social media content creator. My Twitter was dead for years, my Instagram was a private account, and I had hardly posted anything on Facebook in the past few years.
I decided to leave my comfort zone and went with Twitter.
The plan was to build a forum for homeschoolers through an audience-first business approach - connect with other educators, EDUpreneurs, and creators in the childhood education niche.
Here is how I thought it would work.
Post tweets and threads on Twitter
Go viral within a few months.
Collect emails in my newsletter and grow it into hundreds, if not thousands.
Start monetizing my newsletter.
Enjoy full-time parenting and homeschooling with a sweet side hustle
What an easy and juicy plan. 🤑
After a year of experiencing and acquiring knowledge, recently, I found myself thinking, "What the hell am I doing on Twitter?"
My tweets and threads do not get engagement. I am wasting my time on Twitter; I should move on to Instagram, as most homeschoolers and parents hang out there.
Here comes Instagram:
In the past two weeks, I experimented on Instagram, created three reels, and shared personal stories about learning and education. IG gave me a better response. I got impressions, new followers, and shares on my posts. IG is good so far.
But I don't want to make my IG salesy and flashy - I want to keep it original and calm and share my journey of homeschooling my kids.
Also, my heart is on Twitter. My creator friends hang out there, and I also like to create and engage on Twitter. I can only spend time on one platform and want to ensure I get Twitter.
Attention seekers vs. value providers: ((Unfiltered thoughts)
After reflecting on my behavior on Twitter and Instagram, I learned I'm confused.
I want to build an audience without appearing as an attention seeker.
But how will I build my email list if I don't seek attention?
Psychologically, consumers tend to go after attention-grabbing headlines and content. And I recently found out that's called "copywriting."
Baahhh! Do I need to improve my copywriting skills, then? One more course? A few more tutorials? Spending more money? Naaah!!!
Sometimes, I want to go back to software development and make easy money. (Deep inside, I don't 😛)
So, two days back, I found Taylin on Twitter. His story of building a $40,000/month business in just six months blew me away. OMG! WOW!
He achieved this by making a personal brand on Twitter. I was instantly up and scrolling his profile and reading his journey. I was motivated. (again 🤦♀️ )
Funny, but here is what I thought.
If he is making $40,000/month working full-time, I can make at least $20,000 working part-time. And $10,000/month if I work only two hours a day while parenting full-time. WOW! WOW! 🤑
Haha. Sounds funny but doable. After all, Why not?
Here is my new plan 🤘:
I will copy Taylin and Dakota's writing style in the next few weeks to create threads and tweets. They have shared their frameworks and best practices in their tweets and newsletter, and I will follow them. I will spend some time learning about copywriting as well. Through free resources, of course, I've spent all my money experimenting now.
I am already delivering valuable content in my threads; however, I struggle to attract attention. I understand that something is missing in my approach, and I need to figure out what that is.
I will return and share updates on my progress (not a-million dollar business).
Final thoughts:
Building a side hustle and a digital business looks lucrative from the outside but requires hard work, leaving your comfort zone, learning new skills, and patience.
Patience is the key.
It is easy to give up when you don't see results early on. That's why working on the project or ideas you care about is important. Because if you are passionate about something, one setback won't let you down - and you will get up again trying something else that works.
This reminds me of my favorite tweet by Courtland Allen of Indie-hackers.
Until next week,
Aimen ✨
I loved this Aimen! Your frustrations were so relatable and it was so motivating to see you turn that into a framework that works for you. I’m a big fan of your content and am excited to see how it evolves!
Wow! What a way to build in public! Thank you for honestly sharing the good, the bad and the ugly of your journey, Aimen. Great research and links too.