Hiya writers,
For years, I’ve been advising writers not to rely exclusively on social media to build platforms. I learned this the hard way after my (verified) Twitter account got hacked and Twitter would neither reinstate nor delete it. So it sits, controlled by someone else, with a blue tick to give it legitimacy. (Isn’t it actually a white tick?) That audience I built over many years could have been lost, except for the fact that people found me on Twitter through my newsletter rather than the other way around. (I started a new account but didn’t bother trying to grow it.)
Now Twitter is imploding and writers who have spent years cultivating large followings are—rightly—panicking. I’m personally not bothered. My audience (you!) always read me over email anyway. I’m sad that Twitter is self-destructing in entirely preventable ways and that so many friends and colleagues are leaving in droves. It’s just that my business won’t go down with it and, therefore, I’m not personally invested in its success or failure.
This freedom is the reason I no longer create free content for platforms I don’t own. I love TikTok and spend hours on it, but I have no desire to make videos. When I have a book to promote, I’ll do what I’ve always done—partner with people who enjoy creating content for these channels and leverage their audiences. It will be a limited time effort, which means not only do I not have to build an audience, but I don’t need to continuously feed them content when I have nothing to promote.
The creator economy has, so far, been focused on endless creation and many creators have realized that this is highly unsustainable. For a research project earlier this year, I spoke to dozens of companies that are using TikTok to generate hundreds of thousands in revenue from partnerships and ads. Except for one, none of them even have a presence on the platform.
Authors have long been advised to build audiences on social media. I’ve been saying for years that this is a mistake.
What you should be doing is leveraging audiences on social media.
And they don’t have to be your own.
Cheers,
Natasha