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How To Grow An Audience If You Have 0 Followers (It's Only 2 Habits)

Dan Koe38:35Added Aug 31, 2026

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Growing on social media is easy

  2. 00:00All right, I'm going to sound pretty arrogant for a second, but growing on social media is easy. And I actually
  3. 00:06mean that. I'm not just saying it because it's a good hook. It is a good hook, but I I never really had a problem
  4. 00:12growing on social media on any platform. So, when I was outlining this video, I kind of asked myself, okay, why was it
  5. 00:18easy for me to grow? And it really came from me failing at like seven other
  6. 00:23different business models before I actually started on social media. So, when I started on social media, I wasn't
  7. 00:29starting from scratch. I had a bunch of highvalue skills under my belt, even
  8. 00:34though those prior businesses thanks to shiny object syndrome failed. And I tried so many different things. I tried
  9. 00:40digital art with like Photoshop. I tried photography and charging for like in-person photo sessions. I tried
  10. 00:47multiple agencies like Facebook ads, SEO, web design. I tried dropshipping
  11. 00:52twice. I tried building an e-commerce brand like actually ordering. It was pretty much drop shipping twice and I
  12. 00:59probably even did a few more that I don't even register because they were so short-lived. It was like a week at a time. I'd start something and then I'd
  13. 01:06build the website. I'd get so excited about starting the LLC and then the the dopamine would fade and then I'd quit.
  14. 01:12And that was kind of unfortunate because as a teenager for some reason it was just the bane of my existence to get a 9
  15. 01:18toive job, right? I looked around me. I looked at my parents. I love my parents. But I looked at the older generation,
  16. 01:24right? You go to Walmart, you look around, you see the people, and you're like, that's not what I want my life to
  17. 01:30end up as. And when I reverse engineered, okay, what led them to that? In my head, as a teenager, it's like 9
  18. 01:36toive job, right? That takes up most of your day. You get home at night, you're super tired, you don't really get to work on something meaningful. So, I
  19. 01:43wanted to do something creative. I didn't want to work a 9 to5. And I wanted to do something creative. And I
  20. 01:48did end up going to college for five years, but I I was kind of treating it as a buffer period to just experiment
  21. 01:54with things. I was a straight A student in high school, but when I was in college, I was the C's get degrees dude.
  22. 02:01And so 5 years into college and just switching around so much, that was a theme of my youth, I guess, is I just
  23. 02:08switched around so many different times. I just changed, I made mistakes, I pivoted, I experimented. And that gave
  24. 02:13me a lot of experience, but it also gave me a lot of failures. And at that time, I was probably like $20,000 in student
  25. 02:20debt. And that continued to stack up. So, out of urgency and out of honestly just being scared that I wasn't going to
  26. 02:26be able to survive, I started applying for jobs and I got a job at a web design
  27. 02:31agency because I had previously acquired that skill. And so, at that job, it was kind of a cushy job. I just continued to
  28. 02:38learn how to freelance, right? I was doing web design. I could see inside of the agency that I was working at how
  29. 02:44things were kind of pieced together. It kind of made sense to me how to start freelancing in a good way. And so I
  30. 02:50started doing that. And long story short, that started to pick up over the course of 6 7 8 months. And after like 9
  31. 02:57months of me working the job, I was able to quit because I felt secure enough with my freelancing job. Now, because
  32. 03:04freelancing is really just a glorified nineto-ive job. you're still working for other people on projects that aren't
  33. 03:10yours. Probably projects that you don't care about, that you don't have any creative direction in. But that's aside
  34. 03:15the point. Actually, not really. That's why I started on social media is because I saw other I don't know why I was on
  35. 03:22Twitter of all places, but I was scrolling and I saw that there were other web designers and people talking
  36. 03:28about my interests. The web designers were just giving out basic advice,
  37. 03:33right? They were like saying here's the top 10 skills that you need to learn if you want to quit your job. And to me that resonated at the time, but they
  38. 03:41were landing web design clients from that and they were selling courses on how to do web design, how to freelance,
  39. 03:47other things like that. And so I'm like, I can do the same thing. They're they're saying all of the things that I know how
  40. 03:52to say and they're doing really well. Why am I not in their position? So I started posting on social media. But my
  41. 03:59edge and the way I kind of had consistent growth out of the gate, it wasn't super fast all at once. It was
  42. 04:06kind of like 100 followers a week for 2 months and then it picked up to like 500
  43. 04:11followers a week and then kind of stabilized around 2,000 followers a month and then there were waves. There
  44. 04:17was like large explosions of follower growth when I had a tweet do really well and then there was just the troughs of
  45. 04:23like uh 1,500 to 2,000 followers a month and it was pretty stable. But the reason I was able to do that is because my
  46. 04:29failures in digital art taught me brand aesthetics to some degree, right? All of
  47. 04:34skill acquisition is really just pattern recognition. So it's not like I was actually practicing or doing the skill
  48. 04:41when I was growing on Twitter. It's more so I had just like failed and had so much experience under my belt already
  49. 04:47that I had better taste out of the gate for what a hook looked like because I had studied Facebook ads and copywriting
  50. 04:54when I was trying to make the agencies work that I had. I had I did some cold outreach. I knew how to network. I knew
  51. 05:00how to DM people. I knew how to make friends. I knew how to provide value so that they would provide value in return
  52. 05:06which we're going to talk about in this video when I finally get to the point. and the web design that I was doing paired with the copywriting really well,
  53. 05:13paired with the branding really well. And so I was off to a better start when it came to learning how to create
  54. 05:19digital products or just creating digital products better than most beginners because what most people do
  55. 05:25when they start on social media is that's their first endeavor, right? So they're learning the skills as they go
  56. 05:31and they're building up taste over time and that's kind of what gets you stuck in beginner hell. Beginner hell is where
  57. 05:38you kind of you just post into the void and you don't really gain any followers. And usually if you don't correct your
  58. 05:45mistakes or you don't pay attention to what's working and what's not and you don't course correct and iterate, then you're never really going to have your
  59. 05:51breakout. And that's why most creators, and I don't blame them, quit because
  60. 05:57they just can't gain any traction. So that's my goal with this video. Social media is a very viable business model,
  61. 06:03especially for one person, especially with AI on your side, like you can build
  62. 06:08so many cool things in today's world. And if you have the skills that allow you to stand out because most people are
  63. 06:15just going the route of, oh, I need to post content. Oh, I need to build something with AI, everyone's doing that. And if everyone's doing it, then
  64. 06:22like nobody's nobody's going to succeed doing that. Yes, AI gives you superpowers, but when everyone has
  65. 06:28superpowers, nobody has superpowers. So again, that's my goal. You're not going to avoid the failure. You're not going
  66. 06:33to avoid the mistakes. You're not going to avoid having to build up the experience that leads to pattern
  67. 06:39recognition that leads to skill acquisition. But what I can tell you is the two levers that you actually need to
  68. 06:46pull to see social media growth faster, and it will help with pattern recognition faster. My secondary goal
  69. 06:52with this video is to show you that social media isn't luck based on an algorithm. You don't just post and hope
  70. 06:58that the algorithm picks you up and then blame the algorithm for your failure and your lack of skill. Social media is like
  71. 07:05a video game. Many things are like a video game. They have specific mechanics and levers you can learn and pull. And
  72. 07:11when you're at a higher level in the video game, you kind of see it all. You've already gone through all the mechanics. You have already leveled up
  73. 07:18all of the abilities. It's just like you get to be more creative. But when you're an expert at something, usually you have
  74. 07:24more you have more potential for shiny object syndrome and you need to focus more. So as a beginner, you actually
  75. 07:29have an advantage over people because the people who are very good at social media also tend to fall off. You see a
  76. 07:36lot of big YouTubers or people just like decrease output. I've decreased output lately. And what that does is it opens
  77. 07:41up space for new creators to come in. So two levers, that's what we need to know.
  78. 07:47Treat everything else as a distraction. Literally just focus on these two things. Don't get distracted. Focus on
  79. 07:54these two things and you will do just fine. I promise. So the first lever is to do what works from your own

  80. Do what works, from your own perspective

  81. 08:01perspective. And that sounds kind of that doesn't sound that great just yet, but I promise like this is the secret.
  82. 08:07This is it. If you actually treat it as a priority, it will become a priority. Because a big problem that beginner
  83. 08:13creators have is like they always think, "Oh, I don't have anything new to say."
  84. 08:19As if people are on social media to see something new. They're not. If you
  85. 08:24actually think about how you consume social media or how I consume social media, people are there to see what's
  86. 08:31already being talked about from a specific creator's opinion. That's literally how the algorithm works,
  87. 08:37especially YouTube. If you watch one video on a specific topic, YouTube is going to show you the same freaking
  88. 08:43topic from another creator. And if you understand that, you understand if that you create a video similar to one that
  89. 08:49has already done well, then you're going to be recommended to the people who viewed the one that did well. I'll
  90. 08:55explain that soon. But I hope that really clicks. That's YouTube growth in a nutshell. Every other course, like all
  91. 09:01the other tactics are secondary. They're useful, but they're secondary. And it lines up with my own consumption habits.
  92. 09:07Like I could see the same video title every single day from a different creator and I would probably watch it. I
  93. 09:13do watch it because I want to hear their opinion. Everyone's talking about Claude Code, Claude, Open AI, all of this [ __ ]
  94. 09:19the future of work when I fall down a rabbit hole of wanting to learn about that. I'm just going to watch the same
  95. 09:25topic over and over again so that I get all of the nuances so that I understand it completely. The same goes for like
  96. 09:31fitness videos on YouTube. That's I'm I love fitness. Like that's my honestly my
  97. 09:37main priority. This has all become secondary. But if I had an ounce of muscle for every time that I've watched a nutrition 101 video or just some
  98. 09:44creator's opinion on nutrition, I'd be Ronnie Coleman. This is the single most
  99. 09:50fundamental aspect of social media growth on any platform. So if we look at someone like Craig Perry, who is just
  100. 09:56running my playbook, I don't know if he got it from me, but his YouTube bio is literally reading my newsletters to a
  101. 10:03camera. I just had my newsletter open here. It's not like I read it word for word, but it's like an outline that I
  102. 10:08can riff off of. But if we look here, these are his first two YouTube videos ever. Ever. Like, can do you see this?
  103. 10:18You have 230K views and you have 144K views. That That's literally absurd.
  104. 10:23Like, you do not see that for the first two videos on someone's YouTube channel. And that proves exactly what I'm talking
  105. 10:30about here. Did he get lucky a bit? Maybe if you were to copy these one to
  106. 10:36one, would you get the same results? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But all
  107. 10:42I do know is that if you do this enough times, you will start to see a green
  108. 10:47streak of engagement and followers coming in. So, how is he doing what works from his own perspective? If you
  109. 10:54look here, how to remember everything you read. If you're on this side, I've created a video like that. I've almost
  110. 11:00created with the exact same title. If you look on YouTube, you can see that Olli Abdal has created a video like
  111. 11:06that. You can see just look up how to remember everything you read in the YouTube search bar and you'll see like
  112. 11:1210 to 20 iterations of those videos. And then right here, how to become dangerously self-educated. Now, this one
  113. 11:18is actually kind of unique, but it uses the same validated structure because I've seen multiple times how to become
  114. 11:25dangerously articulate, how to become dangerously confident, right? This is a rather new structure with the whole
  115. 11:32dangerously, but it still shows that it works. Now, is this copying? Are the
  116. 11:37things inside of Craig's videos the same exact script that every single other
  117. 11:42person who created a how to remember everything you read video the same? No, it's not. If you actually watch the
  118. 11:48video, there's some great insights. He's pulling from his own experience, from his own perspective. It's his own opinion on how to do it. Another thing
  119. 11:55for people who are worried about copying you like nobody has a novel idea. Novel
  120. 12:01ideas are extremely rare. It's not like Craig [snorts] or I can claim how to
  121. 12:06remember everything you read. Like that's a process. That's not something that you can claim. Now, if it's
  122. 12:11something else like a unique category or a unique concept that you've created, then yes, it is kind of copying if you
  123. 12:18take it. But of course, then semantics come into play. like I did a spin-off of
  124. 12:23uh Tim Ferrris's the 4-hour work week. I did the 4-hour work day because I kind of created a little framework around it
  125. 12:30from my own experience. And other people could take the 4-hour work day and some people may attribute it to me, but
  126. 12:36honestly, I wouldn't be very mad because it's like I can't claim that. So, you kind of have to use your own judgment
  127. 12:42here. Like, if you're obviously just purely copying, then yeah, don't do that. But steal like an artist is a
  128. 12:48thing for a reason is because that's just how nature and reality works. You don't reinvent the wheel. And the same
  129. 12:54thing goes with like tweets or short form posts or reals. Like nobody can claim the idea that they're saying
  130. 13:00because it's usually not completely novel. The way that they worded it, the the way that they structured it can be
  131. 13:06considered theirs. And obviously like you're going to look like an idiot if you just like copy paste it, change a
  132. 13:11few words, which I've seen a few times. And when I see those, I kind of immediately label that person as like, "Wow, you can't think originally." But
  133. 13:17you can take the idea. So, I mean, if we just look at these posts here, like major cheat code for life, increase your
  134. 13:24recovery speed. You will get rejected. You will lose money. You will embarrass yourself. The goal isn't to avoid the fall. It's to shorten the time between
  135. 13:30the fall and the reset. Fast recovery compounds. Now, there's an essence to this idea. Obviously like saying
  136. 13:37increase your recovery speed, that's kind of Sahil Bloom coded, but major cheat code for life. You could
  137. 13:43definitely use that as a hook. Why not? And then if you actually look at this tweet, you can just read into it and be
  138. 13:48like, you will get rejected. You will lose money. And then you start to think, hm, do other ideas spin off of that? And
  139. 13:55most of the time they do. And one thing I like to actually use AI for is just that for iterations on those ideas
  140. 14:03because like I can think through them and let ideas come to my mind, but when I'm actually sitting down to write a
  141. 14:09post like you kind of need a topic to write about. You don't necessarily need to brainstorm and like have this
  142. 14:16non-practical way of coming up with an idea or reject AI. like you're just trying to choose a topic to write about
  143. 14:22so that then you can think you can think in a certain direction. So what I like to do is take really good posts that I
  144. 14:30like and be like, "Hey, just give me iterations of these and I'll read through them and I'll just wait for one to hit and I'll be like, "Okay, yeah,
  145. 14:36I'll write about that." And usually through so many through those two filters of like, okay, it goes through
  146. 14:43AI to give me a iteration. It goes through my mind because I'm usually not taking exactly what it says here. By the
  147. 14:48end of that process, I usually have something that's pretty original. And since I've read and pattern recognized
  148. 14:55and pattern matched so many good posts, the the structure of my writing starts to come out over time and then I can use
  149. 15:02my own taste to refine it to make it even further mine. So that's like that's content 101 in a nutshell. Now, an even
  150. 15:08better way to just lock this in is many of you remember this video, how to get ahead of 99% of people in 6 to 12
  151. 15:16months. What many of you don't know is that I wrote a tweet in 2019 or 2020. I
  152. 15:21think it's 2019 with the first line that said how to get ahead of 99% of people.
  153. 15:27So, it was already a validated idea. In 2023, I turned it into that YouTube video.
  154. 15:33That's now my highest performing YouTube video at 1.7 million views. After that
  155. 15:38video did really well, Mark Manson, the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a [ __ ] created a video with the same
  156. 15:45exact title, except he said something else instead of in 6 months. And that video got like 4.5 million views. It's a
  157. 15:53proven topic, at least for now, until it gets ran through. That's another thing is you'll eventually learn that some
  158. 15:59topics that used to do well are kind of just dead now or they they've been exhausted to the point where they need a
  159. 16:06reset period and you'll see how to get ahead of 99% of people start to come back up in maybe a year, two years and
  160. 16:13it'll flood the space. It'll be super viral for a second and then it'll die down. But after Mark Manson made the
  161. 16:18video, Alex Hormoszi made a video titled How to Get Ahead of 99% of People. And then after that, Tom Bilu retitled one
  162. 16:26of his videos to have how to get ahead of 99% of people in the title. So that's
  163. 16:31four massive creators who just prove what I'm saying here. And that's the thing is that these creators aren't
  164. 16:37creating the same exact video. In my video, I'm talking about like the process of creating an anti- vision and
  165. 16:43a vision and so on and so forth. But Mark Manson like he's written so much about this before that he has a
  166. 16:49completely different view, right? Anyone can take the topic how to be how to get ahead of 99% of people and just think
  167. 16:55how would I get ahead of 99% of people based on my interests right it doesn't even like it can be business it can be
  168. 17:02start a business like this to get ahead of 99% of people it could be finance budget like this it could be
  169. 17:07relationships how to get ahead of 99% of men because for some reason young men just compete against each other and look
  170. 17:13smacks all day and don't really get anywhere with it but they'll learn that lesson when they get to it but the point the overarching point is that the best
  171. 17:19creator haters don't just post what's on their mind, right? They don't just like open up their phone and send a post.
  172. 17:25Some do. I do sometimes. You should, but that shouldn't that's not a strategy, right? If you're treating social media
  173. 17:32as a way to pursue your life's work, then business is a part of that practicality, strategy, tactics. So, the
  174. 17:38best creators most of the time research what works and base what they're going
  175. 17:43to create about on that. And so what most people do here is they'll just like
  176. 17:48bookmark posts on social media and hope that they come back to it and remember it when it's time to actually create.
  177. 17:54But then most people just start looking at a blank page and write something that isn't that good and then wonder why it
  178. 18:00didn't do well since they're actually doing the steps. Or before they write the YouTube title, they'll go to YouTube
  179. 18:05and they'll search for similar titles and that's a solid way of doing it. or they'll go to the creator's account and
  180. 18:10filter by most popular and then they can write down and study those specific titles that did well. Another thing
  181. 18:17people do is they just jot down ideas as they come to mind and hope that those ideas are good enough to do well. And
  182. 18:23sometimes they are. And all of those are fine, but they're not really strategized. They're not really a
  183. 18:28system. They're not something that you can rely on. And frankly, they're just timeconuming and they're slow. And so

  184. The new Eden (and why we had to change)

  185. 18:34this is where I transition into a sales pitch for the new iteration of Eden, which is very focused on outlier content
  186. 18:41and just being the place where you research content and write great content. Eden is quite literally you
  187. 18:47have boards that you can paste links to of social posts or websites or you can upload PDFs to, you can create notes in
  188. 18:54or documents so you can write. And so it's like I showed you my YouTube swipe file. I showed you the post swipe file. I can reference these with AI or I can
  189. 19:00go to the discover feed, set my content pillars, and I can just scroll through here and see which posts catch my eye. I
  190. 19:08can also filter by platform if I only want to see tweets or YouTube videos. And then I can click one when I like it.
  191. 19:14Let's say I add this one to my YouTube swipe file. Boom. Add it there. So, if you don't know what to create next, just
  192. 19:21scroll through here, add it to a board, and then when it's time to actually create, go to your board, create a note
  193. 19:27in there, and then start writing. Another thing that you won't find anywhere else is just the ability to search a specific creator and look at
  194. 19:34all of their platforms and filter by top performing content. So, a lot of mine on
  195. 19:39Twitter are articles. So, Twitter just renders those as a link. But I can scroll through here and I can just see
  196. 19:46one my own good ideas. So I can iterate off of those and I do that all the time. That's really how I continue growing at
  197. 19:53this point. But I can save a bunch of these to a board and just use them as inspiration. Or you can do what I showed
  198. 19:58you earlier where if I open the post swipe file and then I open the chat and I can reference this board in the chat
  199. 20:04and then I can ask for variations of these or I can just chat with it or I can add a creator's top performing
  200. 20:11YouTube videos and just be like, "Hey, break all of these down. What is this person's worldview? How does he structure his videos?" uh how can I
  201. 20:18apply this to the next video that I create? Help me create that video. So, super simple, super powerful. I'm
  202. 20:23actually very excited about this new version of Eden. If you're wondering what happened to the old version of Eden, there's actually an article up
  203. 20:30that is at eden.so/the--neweden.
  204. 20:35And that kind of goes over uh how we went broke thanks to AI credits and how
  205. 20:41we had to pivot to something specific that is actually a lot more valuable and we landed on this. So, blessing and a
  206. 20:48curse because this is going to become a staple in what I hope is every creator's workflow and I'm going to work to make
  207. 20:54that happen because this is just like a massive unlock that no other app has. So, I'm super excited about it. You can
  208. 21:00try it out with the link in the description and I think you will enjoy it quite a bit. Okay, on to the second

  209. You’re going to hate this word, but... networking

  210. 21:06lever that you can pull. The first one is just validated content. Study what works and create your own opinion on it.
  211. 21:12It is that simple. That's how you start practicing writing good content. Please do not over complicate that. So, the
  212. 21:18second lever, you're going to hate this word, but it's networking. And so, with this, I don't
  213. 21:23know what goes through most people's heads when they actually start on social media, but for some reason, they're just probably bringing consumer behavior
  214. 21:29over, right? They're used to just scrolling on social media and seeing that, oh, people post and, oh, this post
  215. 21:35did really well. And so, all I have to do is start creating posts and then one will do well and then I'll become
  216. 21:41famous. They don't see that. a creator treats it as a business because that's what it is at this point. But a business
  217. 21:48doesn't have to be soulless. It can be very purposeful. It's been the most purposeful thing in my life. It's led to
  218. 21:53some of the most drastic changes I've had in my life and it can actually provide good. Oh no, you're selling something for money. That thing
  219. 22:00preferably for a specific person is valuable and it's worth paying the money and preferably it would be worth more
  220. 22:06than what you're charging in the value that it does provide. It's called voluntary exchange. But if it were as
  221. 22:12easy as just posting, then everyone would do it.
  222. 22:18And then if everyone did it, and then if everyone did it, then it wouldn't work for anyone. Just like AI. Like you have
  223. 22:25to understand that if you want to be good at something, you have to treat it as a skill that you acquire over time. I
  224. 22:32don't know how that doesn't click for people. Like just because it's social media, a thing that you use on your phone every single day, doesn't mean
  225. 22:39that there isn't a very high skill cap to succeeding at the business side of
  226. 22:45that thing. So now the question is, okay, Dan, well, what do I do if it's not just praying for the algorithm and
  227. 22:52hoping that my post goes viral? Because we learned about validated ideas. We learned how to find those. We learned
  228. 22:58that if you create your own opinion on them, you're setting yourself up to do really well. But if you're in beginner
  229. 23:04hell, if you're at the very start, you're still posting into the void. You can't expect the algorithm to just launch you into the ether and give you a
  230. 23:11ton of followers, especially on certain platforms like Twitter where the algorithm is kind of non-existent, right? I started on that platform, so I
  231. 23:18knew that my growth had to take manual effort, right? And I'm blessed that I
  232. 23:24did it that way because now I know that like if the algorithm isn't working in my favor, I still have a lever I can
  233. 23:30pull. So, let's just break this down so it makes sense. You want followers. Followers come from people seeing your
  234. 23:36post on their phone and then clicking your profile and being interested enough to follow you. And so, if the algorithm
  235. 23:43is like the lottery, so people aren't going to see your post on their timeline organically, how can we manually get
  236. 23:50people to see your posts? How can we start rolling the snowball until it like
  237. 23:55starts rolling down the hill or becomes an avalanche or whatever? So you have to think where is the source of followers
  238. 24:01or people on social media and it's in other people's audiences right when
  239. 24:07you're on social media you really have only a few actions that you can take you can follow someone you can like their
  240. 24:12post you can repost it and you can comment on it that's the that's bookmarks etc like those are all those
  241. 24:20don't matter that that's the thing you do on social media is you engage and you follow so the followers that you want
  242. 24:26lie are following someone else. This is why brands pay so much for creators to
  243. 24:31post about their product because they have an audience. Like, how else is the brand going to find people to buy their
  244. 24:37product? They need to put it in front of people. And the way they can do that is like podcast sponsorships, partner with
  245. 24:43the creator on social media, run paid ads, Facebook or Google, maybe run chat GBT ads now that those are a thing. Or
  246. 24:50they can do other forms of marketing. But on social media as a creator, you're practically marketing yourself. So, you
  247. 24:56could technically pay people to share your posts and that works to some extent if you do it the correct way, but uh
  248. 25:03let's not bank on that. And for those who kind of get turned off by that, that's a very viable strategy, right? If
  249. 25:08you're treating this as a business or as some like a way to pursue your life's work and you have the money to do it, go
  250. 25:14ahead. I do not care. Because people are only going to follow you if your content is good, right? If your content sucks,
  251. 25:20like people say it's cheating to pay someone else, it just doesn't make sense. They don't have a business mindset. They don't understand it. But
  252. 25:26if someone else shares your post and people don't like it, they're not going to follow you and then it's a waste of money. It's the same thing as putting
  253. 25:32money into Facebook ads and people not buying your product because your product sucks. So in essence, it doesn't really
  254. 25:37matter if you pay or not because you're only going to grow if you're good, if you're skilled. But if you don't want to
  255. 25:43pay someone and if you're smart, you can get in front of other people's audiences for free. And all of it just boils down
  256. 25:51to making friends. And I know that sounds simple again because it is. But most people don't know how to make friends. Most people in today's world
  257. 25:57are antisocial. You would think that more people being on social media would be more social, but they're not. And so,
  258. 26:04yes, that means that you're going to have to talk to people and that on social media that happens in the DMs or
  259. 26:10in the replies, but one-on-one, it's in the DMs. And for this to work for you, I would recommend prioritizing it. I would
  260. 26:17recommend time blocking it for 30 minutes on your calendar so that you actually sit down and do it, right? 30
  261. 26:23minutes on your calendar should be for uh researching validated posts and
  262. 26:28writing out ideas and actually drafting the posts. And then the other 30 minutes should be reaching out to people to get
  263. 26:34those posts shared. Right? When you launch a product, that's practically what you're doing in the first place to kick it off the ground is you're
  264. 26:39reaching out to people to see if they like the product and to see if they'll promote it, whether it's for money or
  265. 26:44not, or if they'll just use it. And if they do use it, boom, you have a user. You think one user isn't a lot, but if
  266. 26:50you compound over time and then word of mouth kicks in, then you start growing organically. The same thing works for
  267. 26:56building an audience. And so the goal here is to make actual friends because what do friends do? They support each
  268. 27:02other and they're usually working toward the same goal. They have a similar value set. So if you have like five people
  269. 27:08that you're in communication with and then you write or create a really good piece of content and then you send it to
  270. 27:13them and you say, "Hey, I put a lot of time into this. I think you'll resonate with it. I think your audience will
  271. 27:18resonate with it. Can you share it? Now, obviously, it takes a bit of time to get to that point, which we're going to go
  272. 27:24over, but it really does become that simple once you actually have friends because if they are friends, then
  273. 27:29they're more than happy to do that. Like, sharing something takes no effort. Like, it it's not a big deal at all. But
  274. 27:35if the content sucks, then they're not going to want to do that. So, go back to step one. So, you know how to write good
  275. 27:41content, and you're there to return the favor, right? Like with Eden, when I go to my friends and I say, "Hey, I built
  276. 27:47this really cool thing. Do you like it?" And they say, "Yes." And I say, "Okay, I'm launching this week. Will you help me promote it?" They'll say, "Sure." And
  277. 27:55then like they have a lot of followers, so that's really helpful for me. And so what I say, anytime that you launch
  278. 28:01product or anytime you need something shared, please do not hesitate to send it to me so I can return the favor.
  279. 28:07Value exchange. But if you don't have that friend group yet, I call this process. Some of you may have heard of
  280. 28:12it, non-neing. And so if you do this right, this is how you get someone like a 50,000 follower account to share your
  281. 28:19post. And now your post is in in front of 50,000 people and you didn't rely on the algorithm and that's how you grow if

  282. Find someone you WANT to DM

  283. 28:25you turn this into a repeatable process. So the first step is to just find someone that you want to DM obviously
  284. 28:31like you shouldn't just reach out to anyone and everyone. This should be like a small curated group of people that you're going to strategize and grow with
  285. 28:38over the course of 6 to 12 months or probably even longer. Like I have built so many long-term friendships just by
  286. 28:45being on social media and being social. I moved to Texas with JK Molina and Dakota Robertson like three years ago.
  287. 28:52My buddy Joey lives down the street from me. He literally moved here from Atlanta. My trainer Randy lives over
  288. 28:59there and we met online. He was using my software. Reached out. He's like, "Hey, I know you like fitness and I know you do everything yourself, but let me do
  289. 29:05your meal plan and training. I think you'll like it." I was like, "Fuck it. Okay, let's do and now we're very good friends and we're starting a neutropic
  290. 29:12business together. Like it's it's so serendipitous how these things happen and just opportunities pop up when you
  291. 29:18have people who either have opportunities or like the connection
  292. 29:23between you creates opportunities. I know that DMing other people is just like this non-tangible strategy. Like it
  293. 29:30just doesn't result in an immediate direct outcome as feedback, but I promise if you do this like this is the
  294. 29:36greatest advantage you can have. And so, where do you find these people that you want to DM? On social media. Like, you
  295. 29:42you kind of just take it easy. Like, you scroll. If you see an account that you like, make an effort to DM them. Make an
  296. 29:48effort to engage. Make an effort to be seen by them and to and for you to show that you're supportive. And if you just
  297. 29:54have time to look around, like you can go to someone's profile that you like. Like, you can go to my profile and do this. I don't I don't know if it'll
  298. 30:00yield any results, but you you just find people on social media by how you would find people on social media. There isn't
  299. 30:06like an exact way to just pinpoint exactly who to talk to, but you could go to like my profile, click on my
  300. 30:12following list, who I'm following, and see people who are similar to me or similar to you, and just go through them

  301. Send them simple praise

  302. 30:18and see if you like any of their content. And so, step two, once you have someone that you want to DM, which should be pretty quick, you literally
  303. 30:24should just open social media, see someone, and then be like, "That guy sounds cool. I'm going to DM him." But
  304. 30:29the second thing you do is you just send them simple praise, right? You like, you don't have to do this. You can skip to
  305. 30:35further steps, but we're just getting into the flow of things here. You have to learn how to make friends. You just send simple praise. It's like how girls
  306. 30:41compliment each other's shoes or something like that. And then they're like, "Oh my god, girl, where'd you get those?" And they start up a conversation
  307. 30:47and then one thing leads to another and then they're getting lunch and then they're best friends. So, what you do
  308. 30:53here is you go and look at the person's like content, at their website, at what
  309. 30:59they're creating, if they're creating anything, and you trying to find like something that you resonate with. And in
  310. 31:05my opinion, the simplest thing you can do here is to just send a single sentence. So, if someone wrote a social
  311. 31:10post that was like about how most people quit social media too early, I'd be like, "Damn, that's true. I actually
  312. 31:15quit like four times and now I'm back at it. How long have you been a creator?" Wow. So difficult to start a
  313. 31:21conversation. it. I you can ask GPT for how to start a conversation. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you're that far
  314. 31:27gone socially, maybe try it. The only other tip I can give with this step is to just avoid corporate speak like the
  315. 31:33plague, right? You're not here to connect with someone on LinkedIn. You're here to just like text them like a
  316. 31:39friend. Like you're you're just act as if you're passing by them. You're at the gym, right? And you see someone with a
  317. 31:45similar shirt as you and you're like, "Oh, dude, nice shirt." And then that connection is kind of formed. You go on
  318. 31:51about your workout and then you come back the next day and then you see them again and you go, "Oh, what's up, man?" And you give them a fist bump and then
  319. 31:57you go home and you come back and then you give them a fist bump again. You go, "Oh, dude, I didn't get your name. What
  320. 32:02is it?" And then you give your name and they're like, "Oh, nice." And then you just be like, "Uh, what's your what's your split? What are you training
  321. 32:08today?" And then they go, "Oh, I'm training arms. What about you?" And I'm like, "Yeah, me too." And it's like,
  322. 32:13"Oh, what are you training like on Saturday?" It's like chess. And they're like, "Oh, we should hit that together. Do you come around this time?" And
  323. 32:18they'd be like, "Yeah." and you'll be like, "Okay, cool. It's a date." So, it's it's literally the same exact
  324. 32:24thing. Like, you're just doing it in the replies and the DMs as opposed to in the gym. And rather than getting in a lift
  325. 32:30together, you support them in some way on sharing their content. And so, that kind of covered step three, which is to

  326. Show interest in them

  327. 32:36just uh show interest in them. So, what you're trying to do is drill into something that is important to them. And
  328. 32:41for another creator, it it's usually what they're building. Like, you can ask them, "Are what are you building? or I
  329. 32:48see that you're building Eden. How's that going? What's the next feature you're going to drop? I actually looked into it. It looks super cool. I'm going
  330. 32:54to start using it. Or just be like, oh, I I was on your Substack and I went back like a year ago and you had this really
  331. 33:00good article that I read through and this part really resonated with me. Like, where did you come up with that? Just something, right? It doesn't even

  332. Show you are useful

  333. 33:06matter. So, step four is to show you are useful. And this is really where like the power comes into play. But it's also
  334. 33:12the part that trips people up the most because they don't think that they have any value to provide. And the thing here
  335. 33:18is that like you personally don't need any value to provide. Like you just need to be someone who can connect the other
  336. 33:24person with some form of value. That can be a resource. That can be a person. If you meet another person that you think
  337. 33:30that person should meet and just be like, "Dude, I think you should reach out to this guy. I think he's really cool. You guys would hit it off." Or
  338. 33:36what I really like doing and what I really like when people do for me is when people know what I'm working on or
  339. 33:43when I know what other people are working on. like me working on Eden.
  340. 33:48Imagine I'm someone else. If someone else were working on a software, then if I watch a YouTube video about AI and how
  341. 33:54it's going to disrupt tech and how this is the way forward, I I would just send them the video and be like, "Hey, you
  342. 34:00might find this interesting. I know you're building XYZ. Maybe this will impact it a bit." And then they might
  343. 34:06watch it or they'll just be like, "Thanks." Or they'll take mental note and be like, "Oh, that was really cool. Like, he thought of me outside of our
  344. 34:13DMs." And then that's when the law of reciprocity kicks in and they feel the need to return the favor. If you give
  345. 34:20something, someone else is going to feel the need to give something in return. So all you really need to do at that point

  346. Get on a call to make a deeper connection

  347. 34:25is just ask, which we'll get to. But step five, which is an optional step, but highly recommended, is to just get
  348. 34:32on a call with the person. Right? This is like getting coffee or getting lunch with someone you met at the gym or
  349. 34:38something of that nature. But online, you kind of just be like, "Yo, we should catch up on a call sometime and talk
  350. 34:45about business. That's it." And then you get on a call and then you come out of it with like a lot deeper connection.
  351. 34:51The amount of calls that I got on when I was just beginning on social media was absurd. It's like people just like to
  352. 34:59speak with other people who have related interests because they're not going to find those people in their everyday life. like there are very few people
  353. 35:05around me or especially that I went to school with that have similar interests or that do similar things. So you kind

  354. Send more resources as they come up

  355. 35:12of have to build a tribe of those people. So you can do that or you don't have to. But step number six is to just
  356. 35:19continue sending more resources or to just check in. So you send them a video that you thought was interesting. You send them an article. You send them a
  357. 35:25tweet and be like, "Oh dude, uh this is exactly what we were talking about the other day." You just kind of maintain faint connection while providing value
  358. 35:32to them. Maybe you create something like I've had many people scrape all my YouTube videos which you don't have to
  359. 35:38do anymore because you can just go and eat in creators go to my YouTube chat with all the videos. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars scraping with
  360. 35:45Manis anymore to actually get the transcripts of people's YouTube videos. So try that out. But they'll do that and
  361. 35:51then they'll have the AI like get all of my stuff like all of my patterns and all
  362. 35:56of my concepts in one place and I'll be like, "Oh, that's really cool and thank you for doing that." Even though I like
  363. 36:01that's what I do as a like you reverse engineer your own stuff. Like I have a database, not really a database, but I
  364. 36:06have a note of all of those things in one place already. Yeah, it's good either way. But now step seven and

  365. If you haven’t already, ask

  366. 36:12finally, and you don't need to go through all seven steps to do this. It can just come naturally in the conversation. But this is where you ask
  367. 36:18and you can ask them a few things. You can just ask them to join a group chat with other people you've been talking to. And now you have this really
  368. 36:23powerful group chat where you can share strategies. Or you send them one of your posts that you put a lot of time into.
  369. 36:29or you can just ask them questions, right? If they're an expert in a place that you're not, you have a connection
  370. 36:34where you can kind of get free answers out of them without paying for consulting or coaching. But if you plan
  371. 36:40to leverage their audience for growth, which isn't the goal of the friendship, but that's a benefit of it, you want to
  372. 36:45send them a post that you actually put a lot of time into and that's good. And then you ask them to share because if
  373. 36:51it's not good, they're not going to want to share it. But this is also how you can come up with content ideas, right? in your conversation, something comes up
  374. 36:57like a problem or just some idea and then you can write about that thing and then you can send the post to them and
  375. 37:03be like, "Hey, I just wrote this up. It was inspired by a previous conversation. Um, if you hit it with a share, I'll hit
  376. 37:09you back at some point." Or ju just be honest. Like my favorite outreach strategy in general is just brutal
  377. 37:15honesty and be like, "Hey dude, I'm really trying to grow. Um, if you could share this, that would be awesome. If not, absolutely no worries at all. I'm
  378. 37:22not expecting anything." And so that's literally it. You have two levers. You can write validated content and then if
  379. 37:28the algorithm doesn't magically pick it up, which it probably won't, especially if you're a beginner, then you have a manual way of making friends and having
  380. 37:36them share it to their audience so that it can at least get kickstarted. Is this all going to happen overnight? Is it
  381. 37:42going to happen tomorrow, the next day? Probably not. It's going to happen over the course of two weeks, four weeks, 3
  382. 37:48months, but it will compound and you'll definitely see some growth out of this because these aren't levers that you
  383. 37:56guess at. They're just levers that you pull. It's just an action that you do and you get better at. It's a skill. Not
  384. 38:02that you're going to DM 500 people, but if you DM five people a day for 30 days or 60 days, it's a lot of freaking
  385. 38:08people. And if one isn't kind enough or close enough of a friend to share one of your posts, then you're doing something
  386. 38:15wrong. So that's it. Those are the two ways to grow. If you like this video, like the video, subscribe. If you want
  387. 38:20to research outlier content or have a place to write high performing content, check out the new version of Eden. I
  388. 38:26think it's really cool because I like just saving links to boards and being able to write with them open next to it.
  389. 38:31So check that out. I'm super excited about it. Yeah, that's it. I'll see you in the next video. Bye.
How To Grow An Audience If You Have 0 Followers (It's Only 2 Habits) — Transcriptly