Once every 24 hours or so, I get asked a variant of the following question:
“How did you build up an email list without being on social media?”
My answer is always the same. I did it by being stubborn and stupid, by sending daily emails into the void, without anybody reading what I was writing. I did this for years before things slowly started to turn around.
The problem, by the way, was not that I was not on social media.
The problem was that I was and continue to be unsociable. Even in the world of email newsletters, even among people whose emails I read every day, I never thought to speak up, get introduced, put myself on the radar or sonar of a person with an audience bigger than mine.
Until the end of today, I am promoting Kieran Drew’s High Impact Writing. That’s Kieran’s course to teach you how to write for influence and growth on Twitter and LinkedIn.
But here’s the truth:
As with email, you can write for years on social media without anyone taking notice. The shortcut to success on social media, the royal road, is the same as in the world of email.
You gotta start making connections. You gotta start engaging with people who are more successful than you are. And you gotta do it in a way where they actually take notice and respond.
People often reply to my emails and write things like,
“Loved it!”
“😍”
“Great email!”
While I appreciate any and all reader feedback, there’s really nothing for me to reply to here. There’s nothing for me to grab onto, nothing to get curious about, nothing to make the reader stand out.
So what to do instead?
Back to Kieran’s High Impact Writing. Sure, he teaches you writing for social media. But he also teaches you the other stuff, the connecting and network building in a way that actually works.
In the one of the bonus modules (Social Media Made Simple), Kieran gives you an example of a twitter DM that got him to start following a smaller account. And then he gives you a step-by-step template that he’s since used to get his favorite accounts to start following him.
It takes all about 10 minutes to do this.
And I can tell you, it works in the world of email as well. I know, because people have written me similar things, and I’ve taken notice and then got on their list. (I still remain unsociable and I rarely reach out to anyone, even in email. And I’m paying a price for it. I don’t encourage anyone to do like I do.)
High Impact Writing goes offline today at 12 midnight PST. After that, when it does come back, the price will be explosively higher.
Also, if you act now and get High Impact Writing before the deadline via my affiliate link below, you get the recordings of my Age of Insight.
Age of Insight was a training I put on about a year ago and sold for $297. It shows you how to write in an insightful sounding way, even if you have nothing very insightful to say. Simply forward me your invoice for High Impact Writing and I will get you the recordings of Age of Insight.
Assuming, that is, that you decide High Impact Writing is right for you, and that you act before the deadline. In case you’re intrigued, go here for more details: