Q&A: Your questions about audience growth answered (Part 2)

In the previous blog, I looked at the first half of the questions that you all had about audience growth, and while I had probably more than a hundred questions submitted. I've selected 20 of the most common ones that came up to answer them in the last episode. And today I'm doing the next nine of them.

 

 

Question #11: What makes a good piece of content?

I talk a lot inside my course Boost Your Brand Superfans about this concept of remarkable content. Seth Godin in his book Purple Cow writes about if you're not remarkable, you are invisible. And it's very much the same with content. He was talking more in a broader business sense there but it's very much the same with content because we live in a world now where there is just so much content. It's not reading a free blog post is enough, that's not a selling point anymore. It's got to be unique content.

So what makes a good piece of content? Firstly, it's gotta be remarkable and when I say remarkable it's content that zigs instead of zags and it goes against what everybody else is saying or not necessarily against what everybody else is saying, but it zags when everyone else is zigging. It's something that also gives your audience what they want and needs and meets them where they're at. I think it's underestimated how important it is to meet your audience where they are at.

 

Question #12:  What is good growth for a podcast?

If you're in a broad category, good growth might be a million downloads. So there's such a wide range of what is considered “good”. And you know, I consider my podcast to be pretty average with growth and that is in the last four years, we've hit 1.5 million downloads, but the first six months we hit a hundred thousand downloads.

So the growth isn't going to be exponential over time and I would say the best thing to keep in mind rather than looking at the numbers is paying attention to the kind of feedback you're getting from your listeners. Are you having people reaching out and saying that your content is making a difference? Are they leaving reviews, talking about how they are enjoying your podcast?

Those things matter more than just download numbers. That's how many people your podcast is potentially reaching, but that's not necessarily the impact that it's having.

 

Question #13: Do I have to have a social media following? If so, what is the best platform?

I've also been kind of rethinking my relationship with social media lately and where we used to think five years ago that you could start a business just by posting to Instagram and posting the right content and liking people's posts and commenting on their posts, that's not really how it works anymore.

And it really concerns me when somebody says that they're spending like an hour a day engaging on Instagram. That is way too much of your day. If you're working an eight-hour day, that is a significant amount of time. Imagine what you could do with an extra five hours a week, rather than liking and commenting on posts that people are probably not going to like and comment back and engage with you. So you don't need to be doing any of that stuff on Instagram.

 

Question #14: My audience loves my Instagram stories but barely engages with any posts even if the information is the same. How do I get them to engage with my posts so I can grow my audience?

Firstly, engaging somebody with your posts is not going to grow your audience. I talked about this a bit in the last blog that I've been on Instagram for the last four or five years. I have 30,000 followers. I cannot think of a single post that I've shared that has got me more than maybe 50 to a hundred followers.

I've never had that massive influx of followers and that was also years ago. It just doesn't happen anymore. Actually, I lose more followers each time I post now than getting an influx of followers.

So please stop thinking about people engaging with your posts as a thing that is going to grow your audience because it's really not. Instagram is not a great way to grow your audience.

Your audience loves Instagram stories but barely engages with your posts. You know what that tells me. That tells me, let's go with what's working with your audience, what your audience likes rather than trying to shift what they are already engaging with. Why don't we use that to our advantage? Why don't you share the best content on your Instagram stories?

Think of Instagram as a way to nurture those people and if they're already loving your Instagram stories, that's a sign that they care about what you are doing now, how can we maybe get them off your Instagram stories and onto your email list? That would be a bigger question I would be asking.

 

Question #15: What's the easiest way to come up with content?

Exactly what I'm doing right here, where I'm answering the questions that you all submitted in my survey that I send out twice a year and one of the questions I asked this time around for the very first time was if you had to ask me three questions about growing your audience, what would they be?

And this has given me content ideas for the rest of 2022. So that is the easiest way to come up with content, talk to your audience, if you cannot, for whatever reason, get in front of them. If you don't already have an audience, look to the communities they hang out in, and what are they asking in Facebook groups.

Things like that will bring out the questions people are asking and where somebody is asking a question, there's an opportunity for you to answer it with content. So that is my favorite way to come up with content. The other way to come up with content is to look at what they need to know to be ready to buy from you.

 

Question #16: How do I keep my audience engaged once I have them?

It's something I also struggle with because consistency is not one of my strengths. But I've been able to stay consistent with this podcast and consistent with emailing my list and for my audience, that's enough to keep them engaged. I consistently email value content. I consistently share valuable podcast episodes.

Consistently sharing that value is a great way to keep them engaged. Bringing them in on your journey, helping them to co-create your products, and helping them to co-create your content by sending out those surveys and talking to them is a great way to keep them engaged and also find out from them, like, what they want from you? So send them those surveys and ask them what kind of content you want to see.

 

Question #17: How can I better understand what my audience needs?

Ask them. I know I'm spruiking the power of surveys in this one but as I chatted with Kirsty Fanton, we talked about customer research and the power of using customer research to write your copy. I also think customer research for your content is so important because your audience is literally telling you what they want. You as the expert on your topic, know what they need.

See how there's that gap between what they want and what I know that they need. So, how can you better understand that? Talk to them, find out what the problem is showing up in their life and find out what transformation they want to achieve.

This is always a great question that I love to ask in my surveys, how can I support you? And my audience answers me, oh, I want a step-by-step plan, or I want this, or I want that and that's either going to be a content idea for me or a product idea.

 

Question #18: What packs the most punch when you are on time?

Not social media. To be fair social media has really helped with building my brand a long time ago but now, it really hasn't and it doesn't anymore, algorithm changes. All of those different reasons have completely changed the role that social media plays in my business.

It's not where I would be spending my time, even now. I'm full-time in my business. I don't have a whole lot of work on, to be honest, I don't really work more than maybe 30 hours a week. I have time if I wanted to spend more time on social media, but I don't think that is the best return on my time.

So I would be spending time building my email list. Writing awesome emails to my email list. I would be spending that time, identifying potential brand collaborations and potential podcasts. I could get an interview spot on and then reach out and pitch those.

So when I say collaborations, it's getting in front of other people's audiences, people who share the same audience. Brands that have a complimentary product or complimentary service offering that is similar to yours but not a competing one or if somebody else has an online course or membership teaching to that same group of people that you are trying to reach.

So those kinds of activities give you the best return because you are getting in front of the right people. It's better than throwing content into the social media black hole and being like the Instagram algorithm loves me but it doesn't.

 

Question #19: Is TikTok really a better way to grow your audience?

It can be if it's what you enjoy doing but if you don't enjoy doing it, it's going to be really hard to grow your audience because you're going to struggle to be consistent. You're going to struggle to create good content and it's going to show your audience. It's not going to grow as a result.

So if you have the time and energy and you want to do it, great, there's an opportunity there, but I wouldn't rely on that as your only way to market your business and I wouldn't expect it to happen overnight. It's going to take time. It's going to take consistency. It's going to be hard because you're going to want to give up when you don't see those instant results. But it's just like any other form of content if you stick with it long enough, you will see those results.

 

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