If you want to grow faster on social media...don't do this

Today’s Tip: To grow faster, get more proof.

The fastest way to grow your social followings, while also building a long-term personal brand…is to have proof that you’ve done the thing you talk about.

This sounds simple and obvious, but many people ignore it.

Picture this…

• Two people post content about car dealerships

• They have the same usernames, same profile pictures, post at the same time each day, and say the exact same words

• One is a car enthusiast. The other has run a dealership for 20 years

Who grows their social media channels faster and has a more durable personal brand around car dealerships?

It’s the one that runs the dealership…because he/she has proof.

Big social followings come from validated insights shared repeatedly.

• Insights = interesting ideas

• Validated = proof that someone should take those ideas seriously

This doesn’t mean someone without experience can’t grow a social following, but it’s the harder road…because they don’t have public proof to validate their ideas.

The easier road…is to go get public proof and then make content about what you learned. When people see your great ideas, they will assess, trust, and follow.

Again “proof” means that you’ve done the thing you talk about:

• If you share content about the business of sports, you’ve worked in the front office at a major sports franchise or you’ve built a large media publication interviewing these types of people

• If you review plants, you’ve actually built gardens or worked in a nursery

If you’re young or inexperienced, this presents you with a bit of a chicken and egg problem.

You want to start growing your social channels today, but you don’t yet have significant proof or skills in anything.

Some will say you should just make content about your life.

You can try this, but you’ll have limited success.

In 2024, social feeds are too noisy and audiences are trained to look for things that will help them…they don’t have time to dive into generalized personal stories about you.

You can share content about your personal journey, but it has to be angled around building proof while learning a specific skill.

For example, if you want to make content about investing, you may not have a massive portfolio or work experience at a hedge fund. Instead of making content about your life in NYC, only make content about you journey to learn how to invest. This helps document your process of building proof in real-time. It may not be better than insights shared from a 20 year Wall Street vet, but relatively, it’s better than every other aspiring investor making lifestyle content in NYC.

When it comes to figuring out where to get proof, you can pick a skill, a domain, or the intersection of both.

• A skill would be something like making videos. To build proof, you need to actually make videos, and prove that when you talk about the process of making them, you have public proof that people should care about what you say

• A domain would be something like tech, fantasy football, sleep. The more you know about this topic, the more interesting insights you can share. The proof here often comes from a previous job or project, so credibility of logo matters because people that land on your profile may only give you 2 seconds to credentialize you.

If you want your stuff to resonate on social media, go build proof and then display that proof publicly for strangers to see when they land on your profiles.

Pick a focus, begin building proof, signal about it in your bios, make content in that area, repeat.

This is critical for growing in the next generation of social media.

PS - If you need help improving the storytelling in your content, check out my full breakdown featuring lessons from Steve Jobs, Christopher Nolan, Casey Neistat, and the creators of SouthPark. It’s at 180,000 views on YouTube!