Growing Your Brand on Social - X and Beyond

Business brain, episode 542 for Wednesday. No, not Wednesday. Casual Friday, April 19th. Sylvester the cat's birthday, 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take an idea or seven, we crunch it, we dissect it, we analyze it so that we can each use those ideas and the outcomes of those dissections to tune our business brains together. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

Here in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. I'm ready to tune, man.

Let's tune. All right, you can help us all tune because you started the year with like 14 followers on X and now actually I haven't looked today. I'm going to look right now to get a number. You are at 5682 followers on X. And these are real followers. I mean, I know there's some bots out there, of course that's fine.

They flush them out every couple weeks.

Yeah, yeah, but, but like the majority of I can look at your posts and see people interacting. And these aren't bots interacting with like generic responses. The people that are commenting are, are truly reacting and responding to what you're saying. So they're either really smart AI bots that you've hired here or, or they're real people. And I'm going with the ladder. And I've seen both sides of this. Right. Like, I, I feel pretty good, feel pretty confident saying that you've attracted. In the last three months, you've attracted basically all of these people other than like me and the Biz Brain show when I started.

Yeah.

So I'm curious how, like, for anyone looking to build their following on X, although my guess is that at least some of these lessons would be sort of generic to any social media platform. What would you say are the top three to five key things that have helped you do this?

Yeah, I think that's great. I think that the first thing is, is get involved in a group. You know, find people that are building like you are and ask them to be in a group with you.

So this would be a, we would call this a follower building group for, for growth group.

It's growth and, and what it turn. If, if you get the right group, it turns out it's not just about followers. It's actually, you know, business. Right, sure.

Yes, of course.

Building. So it, it expands out and you meet like we just had Gabe, you know, Treviso on.

Right.

I met, I met him in, in a group and getting involved like, I, I had 30 followers on X. For the last like 12 years.

Yeah.

Okay. Had an account fertility. And in, in January, I had, you know, spent a couple months really grinding my way to like 500. Very difficult. Just not making much progress at all.

Yeah, right.

But I met, I had a couple people and I can't take credit for it. They reached out to me. Hey, would you like to be. Let's. Let's start a chat. You want to help each other? Da, da, da. Just like, hey, what works for you? What. What doesn't? How's this going? And I, so I'm in a couple of groups, one of which Gabe is in, and we talk every day, you know, so we're. And we do a weekly call. We. I posted about it up on my account. You can just go find me on X or Twitter. Shannon Jean.

Yeah, he's Shannon Jean on X. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I took a snapshot of our weekly call and I posted it today. I'm like this, this is the number one secret is you don't do it alone because it's so much more difficult and there's so many more people that are. That want to work with you. So if you're starting out, you know, do find some folks that are right around where you are, but then also try to bring in somebody maybe that's got twice as many followers. Sure. A thousand. A thousand or something like that. And attract, you know, some. Hey, would you like to help? We'll do this, we'll do that. And that help is mainly asking for feedback and everything else, but it's also. Hey guys, I just did this post. What do you think you can go up, you make a comment, you like it, maybe you bookmark it. And so you're trying to give it a little boost to push it out there.

Initial boost. So the group, the value of the group. The values of the group are many. One of them is in a sense. And correct me if I'm interpreting this wrong, but hacking or goosing, leveraging the algorithm out there to, to, to kind of lift one another as you post to the group.

Okay, that's right.

And that makes sense.

Sure. And the comments should are. That you're asking for is authentic. Go.

Yes, of course.

What you think of this? Not tell me here and then go say this.

Right, right, right, right, right.

You're really saying like, oh, I've never.

Heard kind of sucks, whatever. Right? No, that's fine.

Yeah. Also helping before you post, like, hey, what do you think of this intro? Or what do you think of should this be a thread or should this be a long post? Yep. What do you like? I learned if you have less than a thousand followers, one of the most important things. So this would be number two.

Yes.

Is spend more time in the comments than you do posting posts, because no one is going to see your posts.

Oh. Spend more time in the comments of other people's posts. Ah, okay. So that might, that might actually be number one. If we're like, because, you know, you. You want to. You want to grow. But then I see the group actually being an important thing.

The group's important. That's where I learned that. That's where I learned this.

Got it.

Okay. So I wouldn't have known it had I not met these people that said, oh, I heard this and I read this and I. I'm using this thing. So you. So that's too. But you want to find certain accounts that are in your niche. So if you're a real estate person. I'm in the small business or entrepreneurial space.

Sure.

What accounts have a lot of followers. So you should go turn on notifications for those accounts. And when they post, you should try to be the. In the top five first responders so you get your name out there.

These are the tricks I wanted. Yeah. I love this. Okay.

But you need to add value. You can't just post.

Cool.

That looks. Oh, great idea. No, no, that's nothing. No. So you want to, like, if it's. If it's something you can add value to like it and go, hey, you know what? This worked great for me. Or. Or I did it this way. Or whatever.

Something that adds whatever value furthers the conversation. Continues the conversation. That's really the value, is continuing the conversation.

Don't be a troll.

Right.

Don't be a troll. If you disagree, think about. Is this the. Maybe I shouldn't comment on this post? If I disagree. Right.

Positive.

Then. Or if you can defend it, just say, you know, I tried that. It didn't work, but let me. This worked for me.

Yes. Oh, that's totally positive.

Yeah, that's okay.

Right.

But okay, like that. And then as you grow, one of the most important things is you need to develop an alter ego because you're going to attract the trolls. Okay. And they're going to hassle you and someone's going to say you're an idiot or, you know what you're talking about. All this kind of crap.

Yeah.

And you don't want to take it personally because it's not personal. They don't even know who you Are. Right. So we did a whole show about the alter ego effect.

So you're not saying to create a. A sock profile, sock puppet. You're saying in your head. Use the. Use in your head. Use this alter ego as the. The defense mechanism.

Correct.

Against the troll. I get. Yeah. It makes perfect sense.

Okay. You know, it's your thick skin.

The alter ego is your thick skin.

Yeah. Well, like, like if you listen, if you read about, like, Beyonce, she has an alter ego named Sasha Fierce.

Yes.

And she says, that's not me on the stage.

Right.

That's Sasha Fierce. So you. You. You build a layer in between of, you know, you're building a kind of a Persona. It's who you are. You want to be authentic. Very important you. That you are.

Like. Yeah, but it's a slice of who you are. It's not a glimpse. It's a glimpse. Yeah, I got it.

Exactly. Okay, so that is help.

I mean, that we do that on the show too. Of course we're authentic here, but this isn't the entirety of who we are. It's. It's a glimpse.

Same kind of thing. Yep. Yeah. And then, you know, for me, it's been having fun with it. I. I want to. I've said this for 10 years on the show. I want to have a good time. The reason why Dave is my co host for 10 years, because we laugh at every show either something we did together. Some. Some mistake I made. But I made this comment the other day. If I jump on a call with you and I don't laugh out loud during that first call, the chances of us doing business are probably. Are not probably. It's slim to none.

Same. Yeah. It's gotta be fun.

It's gotta be fun. And because it gives you. It gives you energy, man. You know, it comes back. And. And I. I love it. So, I mean, that's. Those are the things that I would focus on in the beginning. Be yourself. I. I often say it's authenticity plus serendipity that makes you successful and. And then.

But that's really it. Like, there's no. There's like other procedural tricks that have allowed you to grow your following. Like that. That really.

Volume. Volume posting. So I've posted. If you look at my. Let me go see what I'm at today. Okay. So I've made 10,500 posts.

Wow. And most of those, I would say, what, 80% or more of those have been in the last, like, three months, right?

Yeah. But a post is also a reply. Right. In a Comment, that kind of thing. So it's. And then I will. I'll leave you with this. So I have, I don't know, 50. I'll be at 5,700 followers by the end of the day.

Okay.

Okay. Half of Those came on two posts out of 10,500.

Oh, okay.

So we're talking about stacking up, learning, talent, stack. Yeah, I would not have. Half of my followers had two posts out of 10,500 gone crazy. And I know exactly which two posters are. Sure.

Of course.

You know.

Yeah, you can see the stats.

Yeah. You can just look at it and so that's it. That's where the serendipity part comes in. You know, you get. You get a big account that reposts something you did. It's. Once it starts taking off quickly, it grows and grows and grows. And you watch. You're like, holy smokes, man. This is going to be. It's not what you think. You're going to create what you think is the most valuable post and it's just going to lie there dead. And no, you're like, why doesn't anybody like this? And then, you know, like, I had a guy in my group, Tyler, great guy, he posts a joke about the Costco hot dog, and it went to like a million and a half views, of course. And he probably picked up three or 400 followers, you know, so it's. It's got it. Value and virality.

Value, virality and volume.

Yeah. And we had a guy talk in our growth group that came in, Chris Munn is his name, and he said, you know, you should be about 70% value and maybe 30 virality. So and, and have fun with it. I post pictures of, you know, trees in my yard that I think look beautiful. And then I post stuff I'm doing and work, I'm working on. People build in public up there and. Yeah, so. And if you're trying to grow up there or on LinkedIn or you want to connect, reach out. I'd be glad to give you some tips.

Amazing. Thank you for. That's great. That's great. Yeah, that's good advice. I mean, it, it all makes. The nice part about it is that it all makes sense.

There is a system.

No, I get that there's a system. And my guess is. And you sort of said this, that consistency, you know, don't go dark for a week and a half.

Bullheaded persistence. Just like that's your favorite term.

It is my favorite term.

It's. I'm. I'm going to grow. You get some momentum, right?

Yeah.

The first thousand is a grind. Yeah. A grind. Yeah. I mean, yeah, first.

Yeah, it's interesting because, like, I've never worked to build my following anywhere.

Yeah. My following produce great content that people.

Value and then they follow me.

Then they follow you.

Correct.

That's it.

Right? That's it. But if I wasn't. If I actually worked on my following, I could. I could probably 10x it pretty quickly.

You could definitely 10 exit, there's no doubt about it.

Yeah, that's interesting because you have like.

7,000 followers, something like that.

It's been. It's been as high as 8 on x. But then they. They do their purges of bots and things like that. So I think I'm about 6,000 or something. Maybe seven or so.

I don't know. That's great. As long as I'm ahead of you, pretty soon I'll be fine.

Oh, wait a minute. Oh, I still have opportunity. You definitely have more momentum than me. There's no question about that. Yeah, I got 6,500 followers, so.

Yeah. And that.

That part at Dave Hamilton, folks. It's at Dave Hamilton. That's right.

That's right. That's right. Unfollow immediately unfollow.

Shannon Jean at Dave Hamilton. Put the follow over there.

That back and forth and this kind of competitiveness, that's another big part of the group.

Right. You know, you. Oh, I get that.

Joke around and help each other out and have a good time. Kind of bust your chops and. And so it's trying to make it. If you're just out there by yourself, just trying to. Oh, this Chris Ryan's asking what the two posts were. Oh, so the first post that it got a million and a half views was a post about Netflix. And the post was ridiculous. I saw another post going viral from a guy named Mike Higgins, and he had made a comment that if instead of buying an iPhone every year, you had taken that money and invested in Apple stock every year it was worth, like, I don't know. Sure. 3, 4, 3, 4 million to $20 million.

Yeah. Some amount of money. A good amount of money. Yeah.

Really? It was really taken off and we were joking about it in the group and I was going to a concert and I said, you know what? I'm gonna. I'm gonna find something that's comparable to that, because that's another kind of tip is to get involved in something that's going viral. Some concept. The algorithm likes it. So I Posted hey, in 2008, if you had taken your family on vacation and spent $10,000, you'd have had a great vacation. But if you'd have taken that $10,000 and bought net Netflix stock at $5.80, that stock in 2023 was worth $770. And I just said you'd have. Whatever it was, 2 million 8. Da, da, da, da, whatever. And it just. And I. I did it. I got in my car and drove away to this concert. I drove for like an hour. And I was like, you know, I'm going to delete that post, because that's just silly. I feel kind of dirty. You know, I wasn't adding no value. I didn't quite understand it back then. Yeah. But by the time I got to an hour away, it had already had a hundred thousand views. And so it gained. It went to like 1.5 million, I think. And then. Or no, it went to 3 million. Sorry, what am I saying? That's my 3 million post. So 3 million views. And I probably picked. I think I picked up a thousand followers.

Okay.

For whatever reason. And the second post, I was talking about selling Costco store returns. I posted it not this past Sunday, but the Sunday before. It got. I don't know, about 280,000. It's my pinned tweet post right now. It got 262,000 views, and it got some crazy amount of bookmarks where to get it got, which is another indicator. It got over 2,000 bookmarks, meaning people saved that post.

Yeah, right, right.

And I picked up 1800 followers in 24 hours.

Got it. Okay. So you really are like, the 50% of your followers are from these two exposure points, if you will. Yeah, yeah.

And so what happened? Yeah, it is. And so I think what happens is that as you grow that momentum, it. It gets. I don't want to say, easier.

Well, no, the algorithm is going to prioritize you if.

Yes.

Which makes perfect sense, because, yes, it does it for every social media platform. Their goal is to keep you on the platform. So if they see an account or even a single post, if the algorithm sees an account or a post that is getting a lot of traction, or a topic like Twitter has their trending topics, then they're going to float that to the top of the feeds of people that you don't follow, because they know that there's a chance that you. And they, you know, it's. It's. It's far more complex than that. But this all makes sense. Like, of course they're going to highlight these things for people until, until they see, then it starts to go and then you're done.

Yeah. And one of the other little tricks is always answer a question in the comments. You want to comment quickly, you want to get back in because that helps you push it out.

Yes.

But you want to end your comment with another question. So when somebody asks you what were the two posts, you, you would answer them and say, what were your biggest two posts?

Because you want the conversation going.

Yeah, exactly. So you want to get them to come back and talk and engage. That's what X wants. Right. They want people engagement.

They want to be able to stay on the platform. Yep.

Don't post links to other platforms if you want to grow because it'll just bury you. Because they don't want you to leave.

They don't want that.

Don't put a link to your website, your YouTube. Don't do that. Record a video and put it, do it like we're doing, do it like we're. Stream it. Stream it on X or do whatever. But, but, yeah, but I, you know, the number one thing, man, have a good time with it because we, you know, I, I, I say this all the time too, but in the beginning of any venture, project, business relationship, you know, you're putting in all this energy. Takes a lot, a lot of energy, man. At some point it needs to flip.

Yep.

And the project, the business, the relationship needs to start giving you energy.

It's got to come back. But.

Got to come back.

I, you know, as a performer, musician. But it's true of any kind of crowd, right? Well, yeah, but you can go on stage and sometimes it works this way, where you go on stage and the crowd is full of energy and they just give it to you right out of the gate or, or even, you know, three or four songs in, or, you know, whatever, and then that fuels you and, and when that happens, that's amazing. But that's also failure, in my opinion.

Oh.

Because it's my job to go out and give that energy first to them. Right.

Okay.

Okay. Like they come in presumably. Like, the nice part about being a performer is everybody there is rooting for you to succeed. Right. It's, it's like sports. Sports is also the entertainment business, don't get me wrong. But with sports, at least, if not more that, you know, at least half the people that are there don't want you to succeed. They want the other team to succeed.

That's a friction, right?

That's the friction. And that. And that's the entertainment value. And I get that. Like, I totally get that. But, you know, it's like a musician or you go play theater shows or, you know, whatever, everybody there comes in to be entertained, which means they're rooting for you. So you take. Put that plant, you know, plant that thought in your head and then go out and just deliver on that first song, the first whatever, and give them all the energy you possibly can. And that will amplify what they're about to give back to you. Because if you don't, chances are they'll give almost nothing back to you.

Yeah.

When you get. If you go out and nothing and you haven't given anything and three songs in, or even one song in, the crowd is roaring and they're giving it all back to you. It's like, imagine how much more they would be giving back if I had planted this seed first.

The law of reciprocity.

It is the law of reciprocity.

Right?

And it is absolutely that.

Yeah. And it works in every aspect of your life. Your, Your musician, your relationship, podcast, your relationship, everything.

Like, this is the entertainment business. I get that it's infotainment, but whatever. Like, but yeah, I. So I always try to make sure when I walk on stage, like I am performing from the moment I step on stage. It's. It's not, you know, like I'm gonna. I'm not gonna play a note of music as I'm walking on stage because I gotta get to my drums, I gotta plug in my in ears. I gotta like, get my stuff together. All that doesn't matter. The performance starts right. You're being seen.

Yeah.

And so remember that like, you're performing. And I always say one of my other favorite words to use, and this drives a lot of musicians crazy, is some. Others not at all. But is the word costume. It's like, what's your costume for tonight? A lot of guys like to show up on stage and like, oh, I'll wear my tie dye T shirt and my jeans. It's like, okay, like. Or my tie dye T shirt and my cutoff shorts. It's like, that's a. There. There's a whole community of musicians that is against cargo shorts on stage. Jimmy Buffett.

Yes.

Rest in peace.

Yes.

Made that his costume. And the guy, you know, he. He ended his life with. With a lot of success.

Yes.

A lot of success. There's nothing wrong with cargo shorts as your costume. As long as you know they are your costume and you embrace it. Don't just go like, well, I'm afraid, yeah, I wore this today and I'm just gonna try and hide on stage. You're on stage. There's no hiding. You know, I knew coming into this podcast today that I'm wearing this Hollister hoodie thing. Yeah, yeah, I'm aware.

Conscious.

Yeah, it's you. You gotta be it. Whether you've chosen to wear it for your performance or not, it is your costume. You know, 100% of the time, what you're wearing or not wearing is your costume.

So that is exactly advice to grow on any social platform. It's the same thing. Your cost, your what you're posting. Adding value. If you don't add up there, no one is going to follow you.

No, they want. They want to be entertained. They want to be engaged.

Yeah, yeah, you're going to. I mean, you could be a meme account and post funny memes and people will follow you because you're giving something.

Correct.

But you have to give first, you know, and that's why trying to be in the comments a lot and responding. You're trying to, you know, engage and get in the community and people will come to know you.

Yes.

You know, eventually you change your profile picture and people be like, hey, you.

Know, I've always found crowds are more comfortable once you engage them. Like. Like, right. You know, people come to a show, there's like, in general, people are shy and, you know, and aren't comfortable just like approaching strangers or whatever. But if you start the conversation with the crowd or I found on stage with bands, starting a conversation amongst each other on stage, right. Bantering, you know, with, you know, me and the lead singer or whatever, saying stupid jokes or inside jokes, that you're sort of letting the crowd. It's the same thing. And that then brings people, they're like, well, I want to be involved in that. It's like, yes, of course you do.

Of course.

I've made this look fun, to your point.

Well, that's it. And we've actually, you know, our group has this, you know, group I'm in, and it's grown a lot to where we have people, you know, asking us, can we join? Can I want to be involved in this kind of thing. So it's like, they get it. It's powerful. So, you know, start your own group.

Start your own club.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. And I love talking about this. I'm always interested in talking about stuff I'm. I'm involved in, of course, and new things. And here I'm building from zero to one again, which I, I think is great. I think it's great. Yeah. So thanks for asking.

Yeah, of course. No, I, I, I mean I've obviously watched you grow this and maybe it's because you're getting close to my numbers that I gotta like get some nervous secrets out. Nervous out of there.

So this is definitely. Dave learned the most on this.

I learned the most.

That's right.

Thanks for hanging out with us, everybody. And yeah, follow us on X. Follow me Dave Hamilton and follow him if you can find him. And, and yeah, and follow biz brain show. That's really what we got to build together is that. Yeah, exactly. Thanks for hanging out. Keep living that charmed life, folks, and have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. Sam.