Building an Audience is a massive topic obviously - I’ve written maybe 10 Prompt Playbooks on the area already.

Today we’ll cut it down to my top recommendations.

We’ll follow COVR: Customers, One focus, Video, Repurposing.

Yes, there should be an E, I know I know.

But I’m not going to stick in something random just for the tidy acronym. I respect you too much for that 😗

Customers

Here’s a biggie. You need to be putting your brand out in front of your customers.

Not only your peers.

Just because other people in your industry are on a particular channel (say, LinkedIn or Twitter) this doesn’t mean it’s where you need to build your brand.

We want to be putting our content, and thus our brand, in front of customers. So make sure you know where they are.

It’s a subtle distinction but important.

For example I use Twitter/X to build my reputation, make connection with peers and be an authority.

But that’s not where my customers are. My individual customers are on Facebook and TikTok. My corporate customers are on LinkedIn.

Obviously building your professional reputation amongst peers is very useful. But it’s not the primary focus - we are focusing right now on customers and revenue.

How do you find where your customers are? Lots of ways but my favourite (because it is fast!) is running adverts.

Direct advertising instantly turns on the traffic tap and tells you immediately how people will react to your content and your brand.

It’s much cheaper (in the long run!) than spending lots of time trying to build an organic following.

For example I ran ads for this newsletter on 6 different channels to see what would work best.

For me I found it was Facebook, a channel I personally don’t use or enjoy but it turns our my audience and customers hang out on. What I want has nothing to do with it! It’s where my customers are.

One focus

Once you’ve found your channel go hard on that ONE channel.

Don’t spread your effort yet but instead build an organic following on one channel.

This lets you refine your message and get in the reps required.

If you immediately try to be everything, everywhere all at once (great film) you’ll fail.

Yes you can get cool tools that post everywhere.

But you also need to be present there to engage. And that takes time. You cannot just push out content and hope to build a following without also engaging.

So once you know the one channel where your customers hang out double down on that.

Your first benchmark is 1,000 followers. Once you get to that you can look at other channels. Until then stay focused.

Video

If you’ve spent anytime with me (hi) you probably knew this was coming.

Right now you need to be doing video.

More than that: short video.

It’s simply the fastest, easiest way to get your brand out there.

The benefits include you being able to be authentically yourself and speed/low cost of production.

More importantly (and cynically) it’s what the channels want. All of the main social platforms want short video.

And they want it because it is what their audiences want. Makes sense.

Regardless of what you think about short video it’s the format that audiences want and thus the channels want.

Hell, you probably enjoy short video yourself. Why wouldn’t everyone else? Keep it simple by sticking to what works. It increases your chances of success.

Repurposing

Finally, once we have found our one channel and once we are happy producing video we can look at the most powerful tool at our disposal.

Repurposing.

Repurposing is basically taking one piece of content and making it suitable for other channels.

For example a blog article can be sliced and diced into short social media posts. That’s repurposing.

If we start with video we have the most information dense format.

Video has image and audio. And if you have audio you have text. It’s a three for one (threefer?), containing all the major media types.

I’ve written a whole Prompt Playbook exclusively on repurposing so won’t retread. The main takeaway is that repurposing is the key to hitting the other channels.

This is the point where we can expand and start getting more traffic from more channels. Via the mechanism of repurposing.

COVR up

We started with one primary channel based on it being where our customers are.

We focus entirely on this one channel until we find our feet and are confident in our branding and messaging.

We use video because it’s the single most powerful single format. It gives us the best chance to grow our brand by swimming with the current rather than against it.

We then deploy repurposing in order to multiply our impact over other channels. But only once we have the other elements aligned.

Premium Prompt - Hey, Listen!

I’d love to say it’s this simple and easy.

Well, maybe it’s simple. But not easy!

Along the way make sure to listen to how your audience is reacting.

They’ll give you hints that’ll help you refine your brand. It’s free brand consultation!

An expert can give you great sounding advice but it’s really the audience and customers who you need to listen to.

How do we do this?

See how they comment - what do they mention?

Pay attention and double down on the elements they pick out.

This last week I’ve been told about my eyebrows 30+ times.

I know it’s a humorous example but it’s still worth highlighting. If people are noticing and connecting to something about you and your brand then lean into that. Don’t fight the tide but go with the flow instead.

In addition talk to people!

This can be at arms length using polls (great tool and built into most platforms).

Or it can be closer by having chats, phone and video calls with them. Ask them what they think works and what they think does not.

People love to give feedback. They want to help. Seriously, it’s a wonderful thing!

So let them help - ask about your brand and messaging and what does and does not resonate with them. It’s invaluable information!