**How to Gain Followers on Social Media: A Comprehensive Guide**

*Introduction*

Welcome to our newsletter on how to gain followers on social media. In this newsletter, we'll be discussing the strategies and techniques to grow your following on various social media platforms. We'll be covering everything from understanding short form to long form content, using curation and remixing, and even paid growth strategies. Let's dive in and learn how to gain followers from someone who has gained followers and achieved real results.

**Understanding Short Form to Long Form**

As a writer, it's important to understand the dynamics of short form and long form content on social media platforms. Short form platforms like X or Instagram are easier to grow at the start, while long form platforms like YouTube or podcasts require a slow buildup over time. Here's how you can leverage both forms of content to control your growth:

- Start with short form content to gain initial traction
- Use curation, quotes, and remixing to leverage traffic from popular creators
- Consider transitioning to long form content to build a deeper connection with your audience

**Paid Growth Strategies**

Paid growth strategies can be authentic and effective if used correctly. Instead of running ads or shoutouts, consider using a bit of money to get your authentic content in front of a larger audience. This approach allows you to network with bigger creators and get your content reposted without coming across as sleazy or direct.

**Mastermind and Networking**

Another effective strategy for growing your social media following is to join a mastermind group with other creators. These groups share each other's posts, talk strategy, and help each other grow. By forming a tribe and identifying as part of a group, you can leverage the traffic mechanisms to create a strategy that can be baked into your routine.

- Look for groups of 5 to 10 creators who talk to each other online
- Use these groups to engage with each other's content and help each other grow
- Consider forming deeper connections and friendships within the group

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, gaining followers on social media requires a strategic approach that combines both short form and long form content, paid growth strategies, and networking with other creators. By understanding the dynamics of each platform and leveraging these strategies authentically, you can effectively control your growth and expand your following. Stay tuned for more insights and strategies in our upcoming newsletters. Thank you for reading!

"Unlock Your Social Media Growth Potential with Our Comprehensive Guide!"

- The speaker emphasizes the importance of learning how to gain followers from someone who has already gained followers themselves.
- They share their personal experience of starting out as a photographer on social media and struggling to gain followers.
- They then transitioned to focusing on photo editing and creating surreal images, which attracted more attention.
- The speaker discusses the need to get content in front of people and shares strategies they used to get their work shared by accounts with larger audiences.
- They gained around 2,500 followers in their first two months, highlighting the difficulty of gaining followers when starting from scratch.
- The speaker mentions the importance of marketing and sales in monetizing one's work, using tutorials and courses as an example.
- They promote their book and discuss the benefits of purchasing the "Art of Focus" box.
- The speaker explains that they have transitioned from Photoshop art to writing and will be discussing social media growth from a writing perspective.
- They emphasize the importance of persuasive writing in social media growth and critique those who either overcomplicate the process or neglect it altogether.

- The key to persuasive writing is capturing and delivering value on attention
- Use a hook, address a relatable problem, provide a clear solution, highlight a benefit, show confidence or polarization, and offer a novel perspective or big idea
- Screenshot or save your best ideas for future reference and iterate on them with data
- Create longer form content to build trust and authority
- Understand the traffic mechanisms of social media platforms to get eyes on your content
- Replies, quote posts, and reposts are effective ways to increase your profile visibility and gain followers
- Be persuasive in all aspects of your writing and test different strategies over time
- Building a brand and increasing engagement takes time and effort

- The author discusses the importance of creating shareable content on social media platforms like X, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
- They emphasize the need for self-awareness and understanding why people would want to repost or share your content.
- Manual DMs are recommended as a networking strategy to grow your account and potentially get reposts.
- The author discusses the benefits of short form platforms for growth and suggests starting with them before transitioning to long form platforms like YouTube or podcasts.
- Curation, remixing, and commenting on popular content are suggested as ways to leverage the traffic and audience of larger creators.
- Paid growth strategies are discussed, with the author advocating for using money to get good content in front of more people's eyes rather than running ads or using shoutouts.
- The author emphasizes the importance of creating authentic content that people genuinely want to follow and engage with.

- The author believes that building an authentic audience is more valuable than paid growth.
- Large accounts are unlikely to share your content unless you pay them.
- Strategies for growth include asking for reposts or replies, particularly on platforms like Twitter.
- Engaging with a mastermind group can help creators grow and form connections with others.
- The author dismisses objections to these strategies and emphasizes the long-term nature of success.
- The author believes that social media strategies are not unethical and have personally changed their life.
- The book "The Art of Focus" discusses these strategies in more detail.

- Importance of learning from someone who has already gained followers
- Personal experience of struggling to gain followers as a photographer on social media
- Transition to focusing on photo editing and creating surreal images for more attention
- Strategies used to get work shared by accounts with larger audiences
- Difficulty of gaining followers from scratch (2,500 followers in first two months)
- Importance of marketing and sales in monetizing work
- Promotion of "Art of Focus" book and benefits of purchasing the "Art of Focus" box
- Transition from Photoshop art to writing and discussion of social media growth from a writing perspective
- Emphasis on persuasive writing and key elements of persuasive writing
- Importance of capturing and delivering value on attention
- Screenshot or save best ideas for future reference and iterate with data
- Creation of longer form content to build trust and authority
- Understanding traffic mechanisms of social media platforms
- Effective ways to increase profile visibility and gain followers
- Importance of being persuasive in all aspects of writing and testing different strategies
- Building a brand and increasing engagement takes time and effort
- Creating shareable content on various social media platforms
- Need for self-awareness and understanding why people would want to share content
- Recommended networking strategy of manual DMs
- Benefits of starting with short form platforms before transitioning to long form platforms
- Leveraging the traffic and audience of larger creators through curation, remixing, and commenting
- Advocacy for using money to get good content in front of more people's eyes
- Importance of creating authentic content that people genuinely want to engage with
- Value of building an authentic audience over paid growth
- Likelihood of large accounts sharing content only if paid
- Strategies for growth include asking for reposts or replies
- Benefits of engaging with a mastermind group
- Dismissal of objections to strategies and emphasis on long-term success
- Belief that social media strategies are not unethical and have personally changed the author's life
- Discussion of these strategies in more detail in the book "The Art of Focus"

You need to get your content in front of people. This is obvious but few people prioritize it and even fewer stay consistent with it. 

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0:00 My Social Media Story
8:39 Big Picture – How To Grow On Social Media
14:33 Traffic Mechanisms – How To Get Your Writing Shared
15:44 Replies
17:53 Quote Posts
19:49 Reposts
21:15 Manual DMs
22:53 How To Control Your Growth On Any Platform
23:06 Short Form To Long Form
24:39 Curation, Quotes, & Remixing
27:01 Paid Growth
32:09 Masterminds

Video title ideas (for the algo!):
how to grow an audience and personal brand
the best way to gain followers
how to build a business as a writer

#DigitalWriting #CreatorEconomy #TheArtOfFocus

I love starting these videos out with a bit of narcissism.

On a serious note, I say this to frame the conversation we're about to have because 1, it's important that you learn how to gain followers from someone that's gained followers rather than someone who has 0 followers and, you know, theory and practice, you need both and you need results as well.

And the thing here is I didn't always have a large readership and of course this is obvious, but human nature is human nature and people see someone with a lot of followers or a lot of authority or just someone who we idolize on social media or the authors of the books that we read or just people on TV.

And we assume that they've always been like that.

We can't fill in the rest of the story because most people don't have the ability or haven't trained the ability to zoom out and actually see that other people are human.

My first attempt at social media was as a photographer.

I would post images on Instagram and just spam hashtags and hope and pray that I would someday gain 100,000 followers.

And the reality of the situation was not like that.

I did what people told me to do and I gained no followers.

And I thought my images were at least decent compared to the other people that were growing on social media.

But as shiny object syndrome goes, I eventually became more interested in the editing side of things, right?

I enjoyed editing the photos more than I enjoyed going out to take the photos.

And so I spent my days binge watching YouTube videos on tutorials for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.

And around this time is when I came across this guy on Instagram named visualsofjulius.

And he would post these surreal images, just eye candy, right?

It was pictures of galaxies and mountains and clouds that you would never see before.

It wasn't a photo, but it was fairly realistic.

I wanted to do what he did because clearly it was more like photo editing.

And so my YouTube binges continued And I borrowed some Adderall from my roommate at the time and I would just sit in my room with Photoshop open Just creating these images putting stock images and my own images together Blending them I would spend 678 hours in my room forgetting to eat obsessed with what I was creating.

I'll go over, I'll show more pictures in my story video, which will be a few videos from now, I think 2 or 3.

But this is when things started to get real.

This is when I started to understand how to actually grow on social media.

My beautiful images that I was now posting meant absolutely nothing on their own.

I couldn't just post and hope that our Lord and Savior, the algorithm, would save me.

I had to get my content in front of people.

I had to get my content shared by people with larger audiences than me.

When you zoom out, this is the 1 and only principle for social media growth.

Even if you're hosting X or Twitter spaces or a podcast where someone else is hosting you to share your spoken content.

I see this all the time because I teach writing and therefore I teach social media because that's how you share your writing.

This is what I try to fucking hammer in people's heads is getting eyes on your content, your writing.

This just pisses me off so much because people think they can neglect that aspect.

Your writing will not get seen without people.

And people think they're so introverted that they can't get in front of people.

You have to use the strategies that get your writing in front of people.

I just wrote something in my notes because this came up earlier in my head when I was at the gym and it makes me so heated is that there are 3, 3 things that you need for success.

3 things that you need for success are 1, what you do, what do you make?

Is it valuable to how many people know what you do?

3 is the thing that you do valuable to the people that know what you do.

And if it's not, how do you make it valuable to the people that know what you do?

That's where marketing and sales comes in.

And with consistency and effort and improving the thing that you do and increasing the amount of people that know what you do, that's success.

In the digital art world, what I was making, there are a lot of curation accounts.

And you still see this in like the business side of things, where it's like business mindset on Instagram, where they just share like quotes and stuff.

But for Instagram art pages, it was they were sharing other people's art and they were growing the page because of that.

And since they were choosing the best art to post, they grew faster because they didn't really have to create the art.

They had a lot more leverage to build an audience, but that doesn't necessarily equal monetization unless the artists are paying them to share their work.

And so you would only have a chance at getting seen by these accounts if you use their specific hashtag, like hashtag a game of tones was an account on there, or you consistently commented on their account, or you networked with them, you DM them, you used strategies that I've talked about before, like the non-needy networking process.

And so I was consistent at this for around 2 months.

And if I remember correctly, my posts got shared by a bunch of small accounts that were trying to do the same, but maybe 10 to 20 times on like big massive accounts that had 100k to 500k followers that were all posting digital art.

So in my first 2 months by doing that and getting eyes on my content, I gained around 2,500 followers.

Now this may not seem much like I have now, but if you've ever grown something on social media from scratch, you understand that those first however many followers are the hardest.

And people just don't like to follow people that have a low follower count.

It's a heavy grind that you have to overcome with certain strategies.

When you go and look at a person with a hundred followers, even if it's the best content in the world, you're gonna be like, oh, he probably hasn't been doing this long enough.

He only has 100, there's no like validation there.

But when you see someone with 100,000, they could post something terrible.

And then they go to their profile and they're like, oh, this guy has 100,000 followers.

And then they follow without even questioning it.

So at this point in my journey at 2,500 followers, I burnt out and quit because it took so long to create daily Photoshop composites and I just didn't really have a vision for the account.

If I would have just emulated visuals of Julius, the guy that I originally inspired me to do this, I would have created a course just based around my top images that I created and showed people how to create them.

And that alone would be enough to monetize and expand from there.

And so this is a lesson to artists is that when you go and look at most artists, they usually just have a bank of tutorials and premium tutorials as a course and that's how they monetize.

And artists think, oh, I have to monetize my music, I have to monetize this, this, and this.

Just start with the low hanging fruit, like get a product out there and monetize so you can free up time to actually spend refining and growing your business.

So let's zoom out, which is a principle in my book, nice transition, Dan, I'm gonna promote to you guys now and sell you on my book.

But the Art of Focus box, 1, price is increasing on November 7th, 2, we only have 2000 copies available.

Now this is a box, this isn't your average book launch, it comes with the digital version, so you can read it, Only 2000 people get to read it before it's open to the public.

2, you get cool things like the foci planner.

Here's just an example of the daily page.

Focus goals, all that stuff that we talk about in my productivity videos.

But aside from that, there's a lot of cool things.

There's a private invitation to annual events where keepsake members or keepsake holders of people that buy the book get to meet each other.

If you want your book signed, I still don't feel like I'm cool enough to sign a book, but I'll sign your book.

So if you want the art of focus box, go to the first link in the description.

It's expensive, obviously, because there's only printing 2000 annual events or $400 alone.

But if you just want the paperback, hold off until that launches after Keepsake sells out.

Back to the topic, is that I no longer do Photoshop art, obviously.

I'm a writer now and this video is a part of the Digital Writer series.

If you haven't already watched the last 1, go and watch the last 1 on how to make a million dollars as a digital writer.

So we will be talking about social media growth from that lens, from the lens of writing.

And if you want a primer on how to write good content, then go and watch 1 of the videos in the 1 person business playlist that's called something like how social media 101, something like that.

So by writing, I mean anything that is written on social media, captions, Instagram posts with text on the image, tweets, LinkedIn posts, real scripts, YouTube scripts, et cetera.

Just how you can start writing on social media and growing an audience without having to post pictures of your body or images or designs or whatever.

Social media growth is so straightforward that everyone over complicates it or they don't pay attention to it at all.

Some people post and post and post just to get mad at the algorithm for not spreading their content.

Other people know how to grow and they are intelligent individuals, but their posts are like art pieces that never get purchased.

The artist thinks they are the best thing in the world, but the market couldn't care less.

And then there are those that grow a bit, but they don't know how to double down on their best ideas and continue that growth.

They forget the levers that allowed them to grow in the first place.

So step 1 from a big picture to grow on social media is to write persuasive content.

You have to capture, hold, and deliver value on attention.

You can't just write whatever you want and expect it to capture, hold, and deliver value on attention.

Be mindful as to whether or not your first sentence will grab their attention.

This goes beyond just the words you'd use.

The structure and design of the post can do this, even on X.

Imply or state a problem that people can relate to.

An actionable way to overcome the problem, preferably with a unique way of doing so from personal experience.

Imply or state a desirable benefit that people will receive from your advice.

Stand firm in your beliefs, but be willing to change them.

Nobody wants to follow someone who doesn't sound confident or can't choose a side.

Number 6 is a novel perspective or big idea.

This is why reading or consuming content is important.

If you can find a way of explaining an idea that isn't normal, it will give your readers a dopamine hit and advance their understanding.

The best way to solidify these as knowledge is to screenshot that or save them or write them down somewhere safe.

And when you are writing, make sure you check the box of at least 3 to 4 of them at the start.

And then you begin to develop the skill and you can start to create your own rules of the game.

In the next video, I'm gonna be going over 10 strategies to make your writing more engaging, with examples and a PDF.

But just if you didn't know, I teach all of this in To Our Writer, Link in the description to check that out.

Step number 2 from a big picture to grow on social media is to get eyes on your content.

So we've discussed this and we'll discuss it more in the next section.

We'll dive into the technical details of it because it's important, but for now, just nail it into your head that your content is meaningless unless you attempt and put effort into getting eyes on your content.

It's okay to write content into the void for practice, but eventually you have to just get out there and start putting it in front of people.

Step 3 is to iterate on your ideas with data.

And you can only reach this step if you have eyes on your content.

You don't know which post of yours performs best unless you've gotten it in front of people.

And so with time, month after month, this is gonna take 6 months to a year as all good things, but every month, review your highest performing content.

Just go scroll through, see which does the best, copy paste the link to another browser or something like that, and then start to rewrite them from different angles.

Make some short, make some long, make some lists, make some the big idea, make a better hook, make a more clear, big problem, make a certain actionable list, things like that.

And so this is how you gradually sustain an increase in engagement over time.

It's how you increase your baseline of the persuasiveness and impact of your writing.

It's not about just writing whatever you want, it's about iterating on the best ideas that your audience actually likes that points to a product that you should create with that specific angle.

You can create whatever product you want, but you need the angle that performs best in order to catch attention and actually sell it, and then that's how you just do better and better with your writing over time on social media.

Step 4, and this is down the road a bit, but you want to create depth with your best ideas.

You can do well on 1 platform like X or Twitter or really anything, but eventually you either choose to become a slave to that platform or you diversify.

Another thing here is that modern power belongs to those who hold the most attention in their lifetime.

This is another lesson from my book in the vessel chapter where I talk about the 1 person business, just the shift in education, skill acquisition, the best skills to learn, et cetera.

A short post that holds 10 seconds of attention is nothing compared to a video, podcast, or newsletter that holds 15 to 60 minutes of attention.

You must take your best ideas from the last part and turn them into longer form content.

This is how you get your name spread without you trying.

This is how you build the roots of your brand deep into the collective psyche.

This is how you build trust and authority orders of magnitude higher than those who only post short content.

This is why you will almost always attribute the results in your life to a book or an author who taught you how, rather than someone you saw post about the same idea on Twitter.

When you see someone post about habits on Twitter, I bet 90% of you that have read Atomic Habits by James Clear, a good book, will think of James Clear.

You won't even attribute the idea to the person that wrote the short piece of content.

You're giving the authority to someone else because they chose to write long form.

Okay, so now let's talk about actually getting eyes on your content, AKA traffic mechanisms of every single social media.

So now that you're hopefully writing and posting content, it helps to understand the mechanics of the social media game.

When you understand how these traffic mechanisms allow you to grow, just understanding social media in general, then you get to pick and choose and create a strategy that works best for your growth.

Don't fall for the trap of social media gurus telling you 1 is any better than the other because the algorithm changed.

That's always the thing, that's the hot topic of the day is always the algorithm the algorithm the algorithm It's like dude I can post the same fucking content.

I don't even have to post reels anymore I don't have to post anything because I understand human nature.

I want I understand what's going to capture hold and generate attention I don't need the algorithm to share my content when I'm in direct control of it.

And once you learn the skills that allow you to be in direct control of it, you don't have to worry about being a slave to the algorithm always having to study the latest and greatest tactics and never being able to develop a system or feel to your brand.

When you go to my Instagram page, there's an obvious feel.

And then when you slide to the carousel and there's a video right now, there's nothing there, you're not really creating anything.

It just shows that you're hopping on the bandwagon.

So the first traffic mechanism to get eyes on your content and profile so you can actually grow is replies.

This is the most obvious 1 that everyone does and everyone tells you to do because it's low-hanging fruit and you have to do it.

When you comment under somebody's post, there are people that go and read the comments of that post.

And if your comment captures, holds, and delivers value on attention to the point where they click on your profile, see what you do and follow you, that's how you can start to gain followers.

But there are a few things that people miss here.

1 is that boring content doesn't make people read the replies.

I see people reply to boring posts all day long and get a few impressions on the replies.

If you if you like a tweet can get 10 billion likes and only 100 people go into the replies because there's nothing sparking controversy or conversation.

So they're not going to go into the replies.

You can reply to high engaging tweets all day, but since you can't think deeper and you don't understand social media, you're not going to grow.

And then you're going to be like, okay, what's happening?

Like I'm doing what Dan told me to do and nothing's happening.

Number 2 is that boring replies don't make people click on your profile.

Stop repeating what was said in the original post.

Tell people how you've experienced the same thing in your life.

Talking about yourself leads to the most profile clicks.

Number 3 is small accounts get fewer impressions overall.

It's good to reply and network with accounts at your size, but don't think it will help you grow by much.

Just be sure you're replying to the bigger accounts with interesting content.

Now, Not only does replies help you increase your followers, just spam replies, go reply to everyone.

You need to get your name in people's mouths.

You need to get your name known over the course of months.

This isn't a 1 day thing where you're gonna gain a hundred followers.

This is compounding nature where I see someone in the replies multiple times over the course of a month and I'm like, oh, there's that guy again, there's that guy again, maybe I should DM him, maybe I should follow him, maybe, oh, he's replying to this other guy that I really like too.

Oh, and then the creators actually start to notice you if they spend time in the replies and things just get better when you reply with a personal story so people trust you more.

So traffic mechanism number 2 is quote posts.

Quote posts are when someone reposts your content with some form of commentary.

The feature is called repost or quote post.

You write a tweet that's engaging, that captures, holds, delivers value on attention.

And not only does the creator see that and can possibly retweet it, which is or repost it, which is traffic to your profile.

And the thing here is it's the same on Instagram where someone can share your post to their story or you can share their post to your story with commentary and tag them so they see it.

But the thing here is, is like, you think you can just post something and be like, oh, this is great.

And even if they do just for validation to show that they know what they're talking about to their audience, other people aren't going to click on your profile.

Again, talk about yourself, learn how to write persuasive content, and do not not write persuasive content in every single situation you're in on social media.

I don't care if you're writing your own posts.

I don't care if you're in a YouTube video.

You have to transfer your consciousness to your reader and understand, are they going to read this?

This is why I say test them all over the course of 6 to 12 months because this 1 is more of like a numbers game and luck.

Because if you're aiming so big with someone you're trying to repost quote post someone on X with 500,000 followers They're probably not gonna see it and if they do it's just by dumb luck and then they may retweet it But you have to be very conscious of what you're doing on social media here If you're gonna do some quote posts make sure it's targeted and actually worth your time.

So the third traffic mechanism for growing on social media is reposts.

It's just repost on X or share on YouTube or share on Facebook or repost on TikTok, I don't know how it goes, or on Instagram.

It's like you can repost the actual post to your page, but it's usually just sharing to your story.

And the thing here is, is that your content has to be good enough and shareable enough for people to share to their feed.

1, they have to identify or resonate with what you're actually posting.

So you need to think when you're actually writing, are people going to retweet this or repost this?

When I repost something, it's usually because I want my audience to see what it is that I agree with or resonate with.

So if I'm just reading a post, I'm not gonna share it to my feed because my friends are gonna see it, right?

See all Dan Koe transcripts on Youtube

The Only Way To Grow An Audience (What Personal Brands Don’t Tell You)