Intentional Growth Strategy

• Organic Growth is a very misleading term
• Organic makes people think that growth will happen naturally. Like planting a seed, it will just happen.
• In reality, growth of any kind takes effort and a little engineering.
• When most people hear the term “organic growth,” what they’re really hoping for is “random growth.”
• Don’t get me wrong, random growth does happen. Someone tags you in a Twitter thread that goes viral (this happened to me and I gained 300+ followers overnight)
• Sometimes the right person really does see your blog post and shares it with their million + newsletter subscribers.
• But hoping for random growth is not a strategy. You’ll be waiting a long time.
• Instead, what you need to focus on is intentional growth. (is this the right term? brainstorm others)
• Intentional growth is a series of tactics designed to get your work out in front of the right people.
• It’s more similar to door-to-door sales than anything you’d consider “organic”
• No matter how big you get, if you want to continue growing, you need to be intentional about it.
• Why should you listen to me about this?
  • In January 2021, I had 980 twitter follower. My twitter was extremely inactive and a mix of random followers from my college days and coffee career
  • In 2021 I grew from 980 → 2480 followers
  • So far in 2022, I’ve grown to 4,650
  • More importantly, I get regular inbound leads for Damn Gravity AND GFW. That’s the goal.
• How do you generate intentional growth?
• Step 1: Set intentional goals
  • What are your growth goals? Intentional growth starts with setting an intentional goal.
    • Why are you trying to grow your audience?
    • WHO are you trying to attract?
    • WHY should they care?
    • What does success look like? FEEL like?
    • How much time do you have to dedicate to this?
    • What do you need to cut out to find time?
• Step 2: Publish quality work
  • First, intentional growth starts undeniably with quality content. No BS listicles here (I honestly have no idea how the 10,000th ‘Top business books’ thread went viral this week. No clue.
  • Either way, you don’t want the type of audience that junk food content attracts. Quality content = quality audience)
  • Quality content starts with a clear and compelling idea. A singular idea that grabs people’s interest or promises to solve a painful problem in their life.
    • Example: “I want to write more but don’t know where to start.”
  • Quality content delivers on that promise. Clear steps, examples, research (if needed), proof of results
  • Ok so you have a high quality piece of content. This is where most people hope “organic growth” just kicks in.
  • I’m sorry to report, just writing quality content will not help you grow. Even doing this consistently will not help. There is simply too much quality content in the world as it is. Even the very best writers and thinkers are fighting for every second of attention.
  • Now before you log off and demand a refund for this course, let me show you how to make the most of your quality content and engineer intentional growth.
• Step 3: Position Your Profile
  • Make yourself an automatic follow for the right people
  • What you do/ for whom/ why they should care
• Step 4: Find your promoters
  • This is going to feel extremely icky to some of you. Asking other people to promote your content?
  • The truth is, this has ALWAYS been the way creators get attention. Do you think the creator of Squid Games just waited around for Netflix to call him? No, he hustled to get their attention.
  • Anyone with experience with SEO will also recognize the need to find promoters. Asking people to engage with your content on social media is the equivalent of asking for backlinks on your blog. When I ran my content marketing agency, this was common practice.
  • Musicians do this all the time. When I saw Zach Brown Band this summer, he brought up an incredibly talented guitar player named Marcus King. I never would have found him otherwise.
  • Here’s the key mental switch you need to make: You aren’t just asking people for favors, and they aren’t just doing it out of pity or kindness.
  • In fact, you’re helping them just as much as they’re helping you.
  • When Zach Brown brings up Marcus King on stage, he’s maintaining his reputation as an artist on the cutting edge. He’s also finding a foothold with a younger audience— Marcus King’s. Larger influencers/creators/brands want to promote the top up-and-coming talent because it makes them look good.
  • Therefore, when finding your promoters, think about how YOU will help them.
  • How to find your promoters:
  • Think about the type of audience you want to attract. This should be an audience of potential customers or fans of your work.
  • Then find 10-15 accounts larger than yourself. Not too large… think 2x-10x bigger. This is the sweet spot.
  • Turn on notifications for their posts.
  • Interact with their content daily. Add thoughtful comments. Let them get to know you.
  • Next time you write a quality piece, DM them. Say this:
    • I’ve really enjoyed following your work and you’ve inspired my thinking. I just wrote this thread/article on X, would love to hear what think. Then send them your Twitter post
  • Here’s what you want them to do:
    • Quote tweet (highest level of engagement but unlikely at first)
    • Retweet (high engagement but still unlikely)
    • Comment (almost just as good as a RT, much more likely)
  • If you can get your promoters to just comment on your posts, that would be HUGE.
  • Finding your first promoters: Right here in GFW
  • Using the #growth channel. One of the best things we can do to help each other grow is engage with each other on Twitter.
  • This should be fun and natural. Enjoy striking up convos. Add interesting POVs.
  • It’s NOT mandatory, but share your quality posts in #growth and do your best to engage with others.
  • Finding your promoters is the real secret to growth. Again, this is where “organic” is so misleading. This is a highly intentional (and intensive) process. But here’s what I do (screenshot of my list of promoters that I reach out to for each post.)
• Step 5: Build an intentional growth system
  • Growth requires you to consistently do the right things:
  • Post every day
  • Comment on or RT the posts of your promoters and peers (and accounts smaller than you)
  • Reply to comments on your posts
  • Generate ideas for future posts?
  • Use Hypefury to:
    • Schedule daily posts
    • Follow your favorite promoters
    • Schedule RTs/QTs/Replies
• Step 6: Create your growth funnel
  • Social media is top of funnel
  • Newsletter is middle funnel
  • Use Revue to capture subs.
  • Use Hypefury to auto-comment with a CTA post
    • Posts that perform above a certain threshold, Hypefury will add a Tweet from you to subscribe to your newsletter.