Is anybody listening to you??

{on likes, comments, and followers}

You have something awesome to share with world. You even dream of making a living with this passion.

But nobody’s listening to you yet.

The handful of followers on social media hardly “like” and never comment on your posts. The motivation to create that you had at the beginning is running dry. Is it even worth showing up anymore?

Why should anyone listen to you?

Likes, comments, and followers provide a clear metric that makes it easy to see growth, so the natural tendency is to let them define your worth. Peter McKinnon and Cody Wanner recently collaborated to debunk this myth that follower counts define your worth. Their battlecry? #nosmallcreator

Everyone starts at zero. Prove that you are worth paying attention to.

When you only have ten followers, show up for those ten. Go all out for them. Reward them for being early adopters and give them the attention you wouldn’t be able to give hundreds or thousands.

Show up alone today so you’re here for the masses tomorrow.

When people check out your profile or website what do they see? Is it worth it for them to stick around?

If you don’t put yourself out there when you don’t have a following you won’t gain a following.

You don’t think it matters whether or not you put out content today because no one’s listening anyway — but what about the people who are tuning in and are met with silence?

As Sean McCabe says, “Show up every day for two years without expecting any results.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean “shipping” or publishing your work every single day. It does mean creating every day so that you have content worth sharing regularly. Begin with the discipline of practice. Work on your passion every day without worrying about whether it’s worth noticing or not. If you show up every day you will have things that are worth sharing before long. Then when people take notice your early work will be behind you and you’ll have even better content for them to discover.

Start producing — and publishing — regular content.

Publishing on a schedule lets people know when to listen so they are more likely to tune in. When they see you around a lot they become familiar with you. Familiarity leads to friendly interactions. Friendly interactions lead to trust and when people know, like, and trust you, they will hire and buy from you.

Post weekly. Choose a day and share something, anything, on that day every week.

Think about your routines. Most of them are either on a daily or weekly cycle. Anything that happens bi-weekly or once-a-month gets confusing or forgotten. Publish on a weekly cycle and you will be more likely to become a part of someone’s routine. Daily can be even better, but it’s extremely difficult. Start with weekly and then once you are success at being consistent you can consider publishing daily.

Set up an editorial calendar.

Keep it simple:

1. Decide which day of the week you will post.
2. Collect your post ideas in one place.
3. Start creating content.

You don’t need a magic formula; just do it.

Originally published at jordanelisheva.com on July 15, 2018.