How to build an audience of 1000 true fans

🤔 Why do “true fans” matter?

Because 1 is greater than 1,000,000

I’ve learned that just because you have someone’s attention, it doesn’t mean they actually give a fuck.

In today’s internet, attention is in short supply and is hard to find. But, it’s still possible to cater to a broad spectrum of people to grab the most amount of attention, via SEO tricks, Facebook ads, or viral content.

However, if you want people to perform an action for you, like buy your product or share it with friends, then they have to give a damn about you, your product, and your business.

That’s where having a true fans come in handy.

What’s a true fan?

A “true fan” is someone who:

• reads all your work
• buys all your products
• pays attention to your progress

One true fan is worth more than a million people that find you (because something you did went viral) and then never come back.

With an army of 1000 true fans, advertising costs decrease. Your audience organically shares your projects and recruits others to join the tribe. There’s no tactic more powerful than having someone who is a true fan of your work.

🎯 How to get true fans

Stop confusing attention for accomplishment

I’m still learning to do this. It’s not easy because we generally tend to seek status: more followers, likes, and traffic. The metrics get addicting. But, to reach 1,000 fans we must shift our mindsets from “How can I reach more people?” to “How can I have a meaningful impact on the people I currently reach?”

Overcome your fear of sharing

Sometimes, we can get a bit anxious about what people might think about the work we put out. One sure-fire way to shed this fear is ship early and often.

1. Early because then you’ll get feedback faster and you’ll soon realize that the internet people aren’t as mean as you think.
2. Often because you’ll build resistance to the fear and you’ll improve with early release via the feedback you’ll receive. The more you share your writing, the better the writer you’ll be. The more you ship a product or feature, the better the hacker you’ll be. The more jump shots you shoot, the better the shooter you’ll be. Time compounds your efforts.

Acknowledge that audience-building is a long-term game

The basic “winning formula” is to building your audience is being consistent (over time) + being authentic + putting out quality work.

You have to be okay with the fact that your metrics will be “mediocre” most of the time. It may take 1000 days to reach 1000 true fans. The majority of people quit. The ones with the most grit and the ones who last the longest tend to be the most successful. Think: Joe Rogan’s Podcast, Tim Urban’s Wait But Why, and Garyvee.

When building your audience, you should eventually be leading people to an email list. Email is king because unlike followers on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you own your audience. And there are no algorithms to interrupt your message: you click a button and reach everyone at once.

Do the things that don’t scale

Fastest way to build an audience is to do it as slow as possible. In an online world surrounded by algorithms and bot-like behavior, being a kind human being can be a real differentiator.

• Have a conversation with as many users as possible via social media DMs, email, Slack, phone call, or in-person (for ex: connecting with happy & upset users in customer support).
• Consistently give quality stuff away for free (for ex: educational content relevant to your industry via an email newsletter).
• Provide joy through delightful, little surprises (for ex: doing a lottery where the winner get a free premium account of your product).

You won’t get to 1,000 true fans via social media ads and SEO hacks.

📚 Conclusion

We can essentially sum up how to build a fan base into 4 simple steps:

1. Make stuff that people enjoy to use/read.
2. Ask those people why they like your stuff and how you can be better.
3. Once you know what they like and how you can improve, do more of that.
4. Repeat.

🤗 Thanks for reading!

If you found this found this post useful, I write about similar ways to improve your product skills at The Product Person. You can get these posts straight to your inbox by subscribing here. And, you can get daily tips on Twitter. Have any questions? I’ll be in the comments.