How can you leverage community to succeed in the creator economy?

There is way less traffic when you take the backroads and you get to your destination quicker! To start, focus on impact > impressions. The more niche the community, the more avid the fandom and the easier you are able to move people in concert + you're able to charge a premium for brand access to your community.

Think of your content in terms of supply and demand. There's a lot of demand for MrBeast-style challenges, but also A LOT of supply. If you niche-down, or find a more specific audience to talk to, there will be a lot less competition, or 'supply', so you can build an audience that will give you more attention.

Reflect and understand your niche benefits. Lots of aspiring content creators will fall into the trap of wanting unattainable growth without understanding the benefits of niche content such as feeling more natural with your audience, maximizing your impact, and re-purposing existing content faster. Ultimately, finding your niche is key in growing your social following and your brand.

The way I like to look at defining a niche is just painting a clear picture of who I am speaking to and how they would explain my content to their friends. If I know who it’s for, and they’re able to describe it, it’s niche enough. If it’s vague and complex and hard to describe in a conversation. It’s not clear enough! Niche doesn’t need to be a subject. It just needs to be understandable.

You can't do A+ work on every platform until you build a very large team. There are simply too many. Instead, figure out what platform fits three criteria the best: 1. What do you like to create? 2. What platform best supports that type of content? 3. What platform allows you to build the business you want with that content? That will be your primary platform. Take advantage of repurposing content from your primary platform to support others, using those as a funnel to your primary platform.

Engaging with your audience goes beyond platform selection; fostering a sense of community requires personalized interactions. Leverage live Q&A sessions, polls, or exclusive behind-the-scenes content to deepen the connection. Encourage user-generated content, turning your community into co-creators. Additionally, consider cross-platform promotion to reach wider audiences and diversify your content. Remember, creating a community isn't a one-way street. Actively participate in discussions, respond promptly to comments, and acknowledge your audience's contributions. This reciprocity builds trust and loyalty, essential for sustained growth in the creator economy.

You don't need to be on every platform. Read that again. It's important to focus on the platforms where your target customers or clients are. Attempting to be everywhere at once is a fast track to burnout. You should choose platforms that align with your brand. If you dislike writing and aren't willing to delegate it to someone else, then creating a newsletter is not a sustainable option. However, if you enjoy making videos, then you could develop a content strategy that includes 2-3 platforms where you can successfully repurpose your content.

Every platform can work in 2024 :) there is no clear “one” platform. Pick one that’s natural to you and that you feel you’d excel at + want to be in the convo. If you’re great at writing, pick something that’s text heavy. If you’re good at speaking, maybe a podcast or video based platform! Start with what feels natural

What's your business? Where are your buyers? If you like talking.... try podcasting. If you have a lower-priced product.... try TikTok Shop. If you're in B2B... try LinkedIn. A/B test everything. Before understanding a platform, you need to understand your business first.

Community is not based around a huge number. Truly you can have a 500 person community and it feel massive. We overthink the numbers. Focus on making each person who comes across your page feel like they want to stay. Make them want to advocate for you, and make them feel like they should share it with others. If you do that, the numbers will come, and more important, the numbers will stay!

Sometimes maintaining is better than forcing growth. If you focus your efforts on serving the core group, word of mouth spreads quickly, others will join. The worst mistake you could make is solely focusing on new people and subsequently losing your core. The best way to maintain a strong core is to step out of it. Discord has been one of the best platforms I've used for communities to engage with each other!

Hyper-prioritize your community. Your community holds valuable insights for your business. Utilize social listening to analyze comments. What recurring themes emerge? Transform your community into loyal advocates by actively listening to them, incorporating their feedback, and genuinely caring for their needs.

Focus on the quality of each engagement regardless how small or large your community is. Quality engagements that make each member feel part of something special will yield a better outcome. Consistency on quality over time will drive community growth.

Be human! Treat other people, comments, questions, etc like humans. It doesn't have to be a calculated strategy for "growth"(:

Real-Time Feedback! Encouraging authentic conversations turns the community into a valuable source of real-time feedback. This really helps refine the content and provide a direction, as well as foster a deeper connection with the audience as they see their insights directly shaping the content we produce. Create interactive polls, surveys, or discussion threads... it's a great way for direct market research.

Focusing on serving your audience will pay dividends for when you eventually build a monetization structure. You need to consistently provide both value and trust with your audience for a long-term plan to work. Jay Clouse provides great insight in different successful frameworks, from selling classes to doing 1 on 1 coaching. IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure to not bombard your audience with sponsorship posts. On certain platforms, it will drastically hurt your viewership when oversaturated. It also over time will hurt the trust people have built with you and your content. (Are you promoting it simply for money, or because you actually like the product/service?)

Let's assume you have built an engaging community around topic they care about (not just the numbers). Now to leverage that community here are a couple of ideas 1- the easiest thing is to sell services (what are their biggest pain points?) 2- you can also develop digital products (e.g. courses) and offer to the community 3- the best idea IMO will be to build a SaaS product for the community BTW for #3 your engaged community will also become the beta users.

Community is an essential component of the creator economy. In other words, it should permeate everything you do! Think about it whenever you create, post and plan.