3 unexpected benefits of building an audience

Hey friends,

On Friday we found ourselves surrounded by techies and creatives at the beautiful Williamsburg home of a fellow startup founder. Sitting on the floor of his Japanese garden-style patio, we found ourselves so immersed in the conversation that we struggled to finish our lunch and almost missed the rain that fell on the high glass ceiling. Unsurprisingly, we were talking about audience building.

Over the past few months we’ve continuously had to pinch ourselves at the opportunities we’ve had because we’re building an audience. Yet, we also know that we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible.

Audience building has many benefits, a number of which may come as a surprise. Let’s take a look at the top three.

Increasing serendipity and engineering luck

Building an audience often translates into unbelievable opportunities. Why? Because opportunities come from people.

Your content is your ‘bat signal’. It helps you attract like-minded people and build relationships with them before you even meet them. This creates familiarity and expands your luck surface area. While many use Twitter to do this, but it’s true for any platform. Harry Stebbings broke into VC with a podcast. Packy McCormick did it with a newsletter. It doesn’t matter what medium you use as long as your audience is engaged.

Getting media coverage without an expensive PR firm

Oftentimes, companies seem to think that the best way to get media coverage is to drop $10K a month on a PR agency or issue a press release about a specific milestone. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Social media has completely changed the game. Nowadays, you need to own your story before you ask anyone else to tell it. As Substack’s Head of Comms, Lulu Cheng, points out, you need to tell your story and build an audience in the process. This will also establish you as an expert in your space. As a result, opportunities will come your way because you will likely be top of mind for any journalist who is looking for an expert quote. Instead of paying an agency to chase media for you, reporters will come directly to you instead. How great is that?!

Expand financial opportunity

Ash Lamb is a visual artist based in Barcelona. During the pandemic, he quit his day job to pursue his passion of translating complex ideas into visuals. Within a year, he had built an engaged audience, which helped him launch a course, get freelance opportunities and significantly increase his income.

He’s not the only one. As you create engaging content, the right people will recognize your skills. Some of them will reach out. This can lead to new careers, lucrative work and opportunities you never even dreamed of. It may sound cheesy, but audience building really has the power to change your life.

With love,

Team Salley