Brand Building: Your Niche is You
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get people to pay you for that. It's probably not what you think >>>
I mentioned brand building briefly in this post recently. Let’s talk about that for a minute.
We live in a society that tries like the dickens to label everyone and everything and stuff it all in a box called COMPLY.
This is seriously flawed.
“The problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you're destroying the peg.” ~Paul Collins
God, in His infinite wisdom, made us all beautifully individual with a purpose, a set of talents, and a one-of-a-kindness that is ours alone.
Unfortunately, the education system is designed to strip you of all of that and turn you into a compliant worker.
Any deviation will result in medication that will chain you to your school desk.
It’s time to unpack yourself.
What makes you tick?
Words are my thing. What’s yours?
Restoring old cars?
Crafting?
Woodworking?
Motorcycles?
Gaming?
Collecting dolls?
Traveling?
Some of the above?
All of these above?
Whatever your thing is, that is you, and you are your niche…your brand.
So, how do you make money from it?
It depends on your business model.
You either make money directly by providing a product or service for a specific price, or you make money from advertising while sharing your thing. Perhaps, you double down and do both.
But, it’s easy because all you have to do is…ready?
Be yourself.
Whoever you are, there are enough other people in the world who will relate to you to make a full-time living from your brand which is…YOU.
And, it’s easier than you think.
You don’t need a following of hundreds of thousands or millions of people.
You just need a small tribe of less than 5,000 people who think you are the bee’s knees, and they will because being yourself is like a breath of fresh air.
Of course a larger audience is nice, but it becomes overwhelming when you focus on large numbers.
Focus on your brand. Share your expertise about your thing. Share nearly everything.
How?
Well, there are 4 types of learners:
Visual - Those who learn by seeing.
Auditory - Those who learn by hearing.
Tactile - Those who learn by doing.
Reading/Writing - Those who learn by reading and writing.
Creating content will cover all of the above, and most of the time, it will cover more than one type.
Where?
Anywhere. Start where you with what you have even if that’s just your smartphone.
Thanks to the Internet, you have the power to get your content in front of millions at your fingertips.
There are 4 types of content you can create:
Written
Video
Audio
Images
Pick one and start publishing.
You can make this as easy or as hard as you want. Practice will make polished. Just start.
Where do you publish?
Substack handles all 4 types. 👀
Simplify
As a writer, you already have the skill you need to start.
You need:
1 Acquisition channel - Where you acquire your audience. i.e. social media, website, communities, blog
1 Retention channel - Where you share value and build rapport. i.e. email, social media, YouTube
1 Conversion channel - Where you convert your audience into revenue. i.e. product sales, advertising, services
Let’s Run An Experiment
Starting on Monday, September 16, 2024, let’s see if we can make something happen. I’ll track my progress for 2 weeks and post an update at that time.
The goal of this experiment will be to increase Substack subscribers, so I will be focusing on my acquisition channel.
I have chosen X, so I’ll be posting over there like a crazy person.
Why X? I have 5700+ followers there. I like the platform.
I will not be using any fancy tools, schedulers, or any paid stuff.
Also, since Substack has a platform built in that is similar to X called Notes, I will be posting there as well.
If this weren’t so convenient, I wouldn’t even consider it, but I can literally copy/paste the same content between the two.
I will create a public document where I track my progress over the 2-week time frame so you can follow along.
At the end, we’ll see what kind of progress has been made and if we want to turn this experiment into a system.
If not, we will move to the next experiment.
I hope this one works because I don’t have a “next experiment”. 🤣