How To Create A Niche Of One Where YOU Will Be The King/Queen
Welcome, 312 Writing Cheaters!
In this edition, you’ll learn:
1 rapid-fire way to increase your engagement
How to get unlimited content ideas (without “stealing” from other people)
How to create a niche one where YOU will be the king/queen
Let’s take a dive.
Reminder: Don’t try to apply all of the writing hacks I’ll tell you today. Choose 1 you find exciting, and squeeze the most out of it the next week.
A Rapid-Fire Way To Increase Your Engagement
Let’s start with a simple question:
Who are you more likely to follow?
A person with 10 followers, or a person with 10K followers?
I bet the second one is a more tempting option for you.
When you enter someone’s Twitter profile, they’re convincing you to follow them.
But, because it’s deeply rooted in our brains, people rather believe things that are believed by more people - this assures that they belong to a tribe, and belonging to a tribe was always an evolutionary advantage.
As James Clear says:
“Convincing someone to change their mind is really convincing someone to change their tribe.”
Here’s the way you can use it in increasing engagement:
Social proof.
AKA, numbers that prove that you have results, thus you’re a credible person.
Social proof could be:
followers
sales
email subscribers
DMs saying how much you’ve helped someone
likes
retweets
shares
impressions
profile visits
Whenever you include such numbers anywhere (tweets, newsletter, bio), people are not only more likely to trust you - they’ll also feel like your content is good in general.
Let’s take a look at a few masterful examples:
Justin Welsh uses social proof in his pre-newsletter call-to-action (adding the number of subscribers makes people more likely to subscribe):
John Franklin used social proof in the thread where he describes his plan to reach 10K followers by November:
I’ve used social proof when I was describing that quantity is important, but after some point, quality becomes more important. I've added screenshots of my analytics for July & August, which makes me more trustworthy in other people’s eyes:
Action point:
From time to time, add some sort of social proof to your content (and don’t forget to have it in your bio!). Maybe your numbers are not impressive, but that’s very subjective. Some people might find it impressive and are begging for your teaching.
“Obvious to you, amazing for others.” - Derek Sivers
How to Get Unlimited Content Ideas (Without “Stealing” From Others”)
Using other’s people content is useful - and it’s okay to do it from time to time.
But it often leads to creating content that’s, at its core, parroting the same thing repeatedly (that’s especially a problem for beginners) - and people often ger tired of it.
If you want to add a flavor, or a unique perspective to your content, you need to be getting inspiration from your life.
Believe it or not, daily there are hundreds of experiences that could be turned into lessons that you could turn into pieces of content useful for thousands of people.
You just need to become conscious of it.
That’s why journaling is important - it brings awareness to parts of your life you don’t notice.
They always say “do cool shit, then write about it”.
There’s already enough cool shit. You need to notice that cool shit.
Action point:
Each evening, sit down, and write down:
1 thing you’ve learned
The hypothesis you’ve formed (we all form them)
1 win of the day
1 story of the day
Boom! 4 pieces of content are ready.
How To Create A Niche Of One
A niche of one is a powerful thing.
99% of people on Twitter are just competing with each other - they’re playing the game of who’s better, faster, or prettier.
A niche of one is the ultimate way to escape such competition.
Creating a niche of one isn’t a thing that happens suddenly by clicking a magic button.
It happens with long years of pursuing your curiosities.
Pursuing your curiosity is more important than you think - because if you listen to what your brain is saying, and you notice the dopamine spikes in your body when something grabs your attention, you’re able to go down the rabbit holes no one else can.
This is the true meaning of the Naval’s quote
“Do what looks like play to you, but looks like work for others”
If you then combine your unique curiosities, you create unique content. Content that is basically expressing who you are as a person.
Another banger Naval quote to close hits:
“No one can compete with you on being you.”
Action point
A few times a week, sit down to read a book, watch a video or listen to a podcast & notice when something makes you excited. Then, go down the rabbit hole. Search for other resources. Write everything down. Do it for a few minutes/hours. Then, distill everything you’ve learned into content relevant to your niche.
Alrighty!
That’s it for today
Don’t forget to catch some sunlight ;)
How to pull out content ideas
journaling is important
It allows you to zoom out, and gain perspective. It makes you more conscious
it’s not really about “doing cool shit” - it’s about noticing cool shit
awareness & consciousness
How to build a niche for one
no one can compete with you being you
Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now
Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but look like work to others
specific knowledge
No one can compete with you on being you.