5 simple shifts to reach more of the right people online

Growing your audience can feel like you're pushing an elephant up a hill—if you're approaching it in a way that makes it harder than it needs to be. In today's episode, I'm sharing some small shifts that you can make to make it easier—because it doesn't have to be hard.

– Why being seen online can be so hard and the key to standing out with your content instead.
– Why building a visibility plan to attract the right people into your audience is so important to avoid being at the mercy of the trends and algorithms.
– How reaching the right people doesn't mean they're going to buy from you right away—it's how you support them once they've found you that's important.
– Why using social media is no longer an effective tool for audience growth and how you can use it to nurture them instead.
– Why showing up online is *not* about how often, it's about using the time you do have to focus on what works.

 

 
This is episode 718, five simple shifts to reach more of the right people online. I know that growing your audience sometimes might feel a little bit like you're pushing an elephant up a hill. You're putting a lot of work in and you're not really making a whole lot of progress or seeing the results for the amount of work that's going in.

And that might be because you are approaching the whole audience growth process in a way that makes it a lot harder than it needs to be. 

So today I'm going to share a couple of small shifts that you can make to make the whole process of growing your audience a whole lot easier because it doesn't need to be that hard.

 

Shift #1: 

Now, before you make the shift, you might be thinking, well, it's really hard to stand out and get attention online and the shift that I want you to make if you're in this situation is I want you to understand that the key to standing out online is sharing remarkable content.

That's not going to be content that's like tips and tricks and how to do the thing that you're selling a service to do or selling a digital product to do, right? Instead, what we want to be sharing is something that's going to make the right person think, Hmm, that's interesting. I never thought of it like that before, or something that will make them hit that share button and tell a friend, tell somebody else, this is often going to be stuff like your unique perspectives, your unique stories, experiences, and insights that nobody else has on the same topic. It's like a little hot take almost all those things are going to catch the right person's attention a whole lot more than how-to content that they're probably not even ready for yet. 

 

Shift #2:

Before, growing your audience required, staying on top of trends, posting more often, and hoping that the algorithm would show your content to the right people.

Now, the shift that I want you to understand is you can't just lean back and hope that the algorithm is going to show your content to your ideal clients because it's not going to. Social media platforms make money out of advertising and if they're showing all of your business content to your ideal clients for free, then they are losing out on potential ad revenue. So why would they want to show your promotional content to your ideal clients? They're not going to. 

So instead of leaning back and hoping that the algorithm is going to show you to the right people, you need to think about where you can intentionally get in front of those right people. Where can you get in front of your ideal clients? And this might look like speaking at events. It might look like being a guest on podcasts. It might look like collaborations and then building a visibility plan so that you're consistently reaching out and doing these things. So consistently pitching podcasts rather than pitching 20 in one week and then none for a year.

The great part about this is that you don't have to be on social media if you don't want to be but instead think about where is your audience. Where are your ideal clients online and offline? And then think about how can you get in front of them. And yes, I know that speaking at events and being a guest on podcasts and all of that kind of thing might be a little bit outside of your comfort zone, but the only way to expand your comfort zone is to step out of your comfort zone.

 

Shift #3: 

Before, if I could just attract the right people, they would buy from me. Unfortunately, this is not the case and the shift that I want you to understand here is that reaching people is only one part of the overall equation. 

Your content is what is going to keep them around long enough to know you, like you and trust you, and then eventually buy from you.

On average, somebody has been on my email list for 109 days before they buy Launch Magic, which is one of my courses. It takes a little bit of time before somebody is ready to buy your offer. So you need to be thinking about what kind of remarkable content are you sharing with your audience to build that know, like, and trust.

When somebody signs up for my courses, I usually ask in the onboarding survey, What made you decide to buy? And I'm always surprised at how many people say things like, Oh, I've been following you for a while. Or I've been getting your emails for a while. I've been listening to your podcast for years.

And these things build trust by consistently showing up over time with remarkable content, that's how my audience began to know me, like me and trust me enough to buy from me. So it's not about getting your offers in front of the right people and hoping that they will buy when they see the offer. It's about getting your content in front of the right people and then getting them to stick around and nurturing them until they're at the point where they are ready to buy from you.

 

Shift #4:

Before you think you need to be on social media if you want to reach the right people or grow your business. So this is a big shift to make, social media is a great place to nurture your audience, but it's not so much an audience growth tool anymore. 

It's a place to nurture my existing audience, not reach new people. And I recently came across a stat that said that organic reach on Instagram was declining by 32 percent year on year. That's a huge decrease in organic reach. So it's only going to get harder and harder to reach new people, but also harder to reach your existing people on Instagram. and we've seen this happen with other social media platforms. 

Facebook followed the same trend. TikTok's also limiting reach as well. We're noticing this happening across different platforms and yeah, sure. There are still people who go viral and become a success story, but these are the exception, not the rule.

And you're much more likely to get a better return on your time by doing the things that are getting you in front of the right people, rather than just sitting there and hoping that the algorithm is going to show you to those people. 

 

Shift #5:

Before, if I just had more time, I'd be able to show up on social media.

Now shift that I want you to make here is to understand that growing your audience isn't a matter of just doing more. It's not about quantity, it's not about doing more of what you are already doing, but rather about spending your limited time on the right things.

You're not getting the best return on your time. I am all about working smarter, not harder and that means that you need to be tracking and putting in place some kind of audience growth review ritual each week and then that way you can stop spending time on the things that aren't delivering a result and you can start doubling down on the things that move the needle.

The other thing that I love about saving time is repurposing content. So for me, I show up on this podcast three times a week. These podcast episodes get repurposed. The video gets posted to YouTube. It gets sliced into bite-sized short-form video that gets shared on Instagram, on TikTok, and on YouTube shorts. And that's all just from three podcast episodes a week. 

So repurposing can save you a lot of time as well. 

Now I'm going to have a bonus. I'm going to share a bonus shift with you as well. This is one that I noticed comes up a lot. And that is the belief that there is a magic pill for audience growth that everybody else has figured out except you.

And that if you can just find what that magic pill is, that right platform, or the right thing to say, or the right thing to do, then you will win. You'll be able to do it. It'll be effortless. 

And here's the shift that I want you to understand. There isn't just one magic platform or trend or tactic that's going to work to grow your audience and if there was, everyone would be doing it and it would no longer work. 

 

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