I started writing on social media because I wanted to do what I want.
But writing wasn’t my first attempt at freedom.
And before then, I definitely didn’t realize that writing – the weird skill for English majors and physical book authors – was my ticket to taking control of my life.
My first “real job” was as a web designer for a retailer marketing agency (think eCommerce stores for furniture and appliance retailers).
That came after working at a print shop part-time trying to pay rent in a frat house with 7 other dudes. While living there, I did everything in my power to work for myself. I’d always wanted to do something creative. I tried everything from photography, digital art, dropshipping, multiple eCommerce stores, starting an automated agency, freelance web development, and more. All failed.
But we all know failure is a good thing.
I got the web design job because I was 5 years into University with debt starting to pile up. I had about a year left of school because I switched majors at least 4 times that I can remember.
But my dream didn’t die. I knew that once I got the job, the clock started counting down toward my demise.
Getting a job was the bane of my existence. The crux of my anti-vision.
I knew I would get comfortable.
I knew if I didn’t act now, I’d be in the corporate system for life.
And it would only get harder – as responsibilities piled up – to get out.
Luckily, I had so many failures under my belt that I made a good chunk of money with freelance web design. Enough to quit the job. I procrastinated most of my work at my job to pursue and learn about freelancing. I was a terrible employee, but I did just enough to fly under the radar.
But I was still working close to full-time as a freelancer.
I still hated working on projects for other people.
That’s when I finally came around to social media.
The Key To My Freedom
You don’t learn anything from praise or success.
You learn from negativity and failure.
My “failed” businesses are what taught me all of the skills (like branding, design, copywriting, and distribution) that developed my mind to finally realize the importance of social media at this stage of internet businesses.
After a few months of scrolling on Twitter in 2019, I realized something.
- People were just… writing. No images, no designs, no time-consuming video editing. Like sending texts to a huge public group chat.
- People were talking about things I already knew. I often thought, “I could write that tweet.”
- People were using their profiles as a way to attract clients. A few did so with web design (“Hey, I could do that too.”)
- The people were actually cool. I felt like I was in a place that didn’t have business-speak or the professionalism I despised, but they were still cashing out big.
That’s when it clicked.
“Wait, these people aren’t sending cold emails or doing weird client acquisition strategies.”
They’re just building an audience.
You’re telling me that I can just write content I enjoy and it can attract clients to me?
Why have I been ruining my mental health by sending manual cold emails and working with people in a niche I despise because someone told me it was profitable?
After all this time… writing, of all things, was the key to my freedom.
Why?
One, it could help me get freelance clients, but that was just the start.
If I stuck with it and built even a small audience, I’d be able to do something even higher leverage.
Physical products, digital products, software, books… I could finally “make money while I sleep” and stop taking on projects I didn’t care about.
As many of you can tell, that vision came true with the right amount of persistence and iteration.
But money was just the tip of the iceberg.
Most people fail to realize that. They love to say, “They’re just in it for the money,” but absolutely nobody is doing anything in life for only one reason.
Yes, duh, we’re in it for the money. Money is necessary. Leave your conditioned perception of money out of this. The point is:
What’s a more fulfilling line of work is there than getting paid to be yourself?
To sell products that have a positive impact on others.
To help people by talking about the interests that are important to you.
I know it sounds altruistic, but to me, that sounds a hell of a lot better than making money just to survive, even if it’s freelancing.
Freelancing wasn’t as free as I thought.
The Future Of Audience Building
Social media has changed since then.
You wouldn’t believe it, but it’s easier now to build an audience than it was before.
TikToks, Reels, and Shorts didn’t exist.
Of course, those aren’t writing-based, but their popularity changed the way algorithms work as a whole.
Algorithms have switched to an interest graph.
Meaning that social media followers don’t matter anymore (mostly).
The “For You” page has changed what we see on our feeds.
Yes, you still see content from people you follow, but only if you continuously express interest in that account.
Most of the time, your feed is filled with related posts on topics you’ve shared, viewed for an extended period of time, or engaged with recently.
This means a few things:
- Small accounts can grow rather quickly if they learn to write engaging and relevant content.
- To stay relevant on social media, you can’t go as deep as you used to. You have to stay rather shallow. (Not a bad thing. You are forced to meet people where they are, beginner level, and actually change their lives to the point of understanding your depth.)
- If you want to build and keep your audience, newsletters are more important than ever. Social media becomes a “first layer” for followers to be introduced to you. Not a place to be nurtured or educated (again, mostly).
I’m talking about short-form platforms here.
Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, and shorts.
Long-from YouTube videos and podcasts are a slightly different story.
Newsletters Are The New Audience
I’ve been talking about this for 2-3 years now and it seems like others are catching on.
For trust, authority, and leverage – long-form matters more.
For traffic, virality, and attention – short-form matters more.
The point is that both matter.
If you rely on one, you limit your long-term success.
Yes, you can talk about shallow topics on social media all day and make some quick cash, but you aren’t building something that will last years from now, both in terms of digital and mental real estate.
If you don’t write long-form, not only will you be forgotten in people’s minds, but your business can be shut down by social platforms at the snap of a finger.
If you don’t write short, you don’t build your audience.
If you don’t write long, you don’t keep your audience.
Your follower count doesn’t represent your audience size anymore because “For You” pages exist where everyone goes viral.
An email list is the only true representative of your audience size.
An email list is the new status symbol.
Nobody can take an email list away from you.
Let’s piece this all together.
1) Write short-form to attract people.
You can’t build a newsletter unless you have people to send to the newsletter.
It’s like people who write a book and expect Amazon traffic to make them rich.
No. You need your own traffic source to fuel your products and writing.
AKA short-form on social media.
Short-form writing is your base in today’s social media environment.
Write about your opinions.
Give short actionable advice but don’t fill in the blanks. Let people ask questions for more engagement.
Make polarizing statements that are true from your perspective. Let people filter themselves out if they can’t see both sides.
In the simplest of explanations:
- Pick an idea, any idea.
- Write it from your own perspective, don’t worry about the first draft.
- Edit it. Make it attention-grabbing and impactful.
- Reference other’s content structures, not ideas, to enhance your own.
- Iterate with feedback based on engagement.
You don’t need a course to start, but if you want all strategies in one place, consider joining the Writer’s Bootcamp that starts October 28th. We go over post, thread, newsletter, and other writing strategies like social growth and audience building.
The problem most people have with short-form writing is this:
They don’t want to be shallow.
They don’t want to “play the status game.”
They get upset when people don’t follow or engage with the ideas they post that are so clever, cool, and deep.
Stop thinking about it like that.
Think of it like you are expanding people’s minds from shallow to deep.
How are you going to help people if you expect them to know everything you know?
You are meeting them where they are, which is going to be shallow most of the time (that’s why they’re on social media), but then it’s your duty to introduce them to something deeper in your long-form content.
You need to think of all of your content as one unit.
Your posts, threads, and newsletters are all one organism.
Short-form is for attracting a broad and somewhat shallow audience.
Medium-form, like threads and shorter YT videos, is about going a bit deeper and letting the right people choose to join your newsletter, watch your videos, or read your books/guides/courses.
Long-form, like newsletters and long videos or podcasts, is for the dedicated fans. They are aligned with your goals and want to learn as much as they can from you.
2) Write medium-form to educate people.
In my eyes, the role of medium-form content is to display competence.
Threads, carousels, short YouTube videos, long posts, micro articles, etc.
Pick one style that makes sense and get better at it.
Personally, I like threads, because you can cross post them as carousels quite easily and use them as shorter YT video scripts.
(My most viral 1.5M view YouTube video is exactly this thread, which was an expanded version of this short-form post).
Threads, carousels, and short videos are great at:
- Building authority and trust.
- Giving people enough information to instant follow you.
- Leading a lot of people to the bottom of the thread where you can promote your newsletter, opt-in, or even product.
You can build a high-quality audience with threads alone, but the problem still remains:
Your follower count doesn’t matter anymore.
3) Write long-form to create 1000 true fans.
All of your content should lead people up a hierarchy of trust and value.
Posts lead to readers.
Threads lead to fans.
Newsletters lead to superfans.
And if you’re familiar with the 1000 true fans concept, an engaged email list is all you need to set yourself up for life.
I was first introduced to this power when I read The Invisible Selling Machine by Ryan Deiss. This is one of the few business books I’ve actually read. I mostly get my business advice from ancient philosophy and modern psychology.
And while I don’t use any of his tactics anymore, the first lesson of the book stuck with me.
Ryan was in chaos. One of those life situations where he had to come up with a lot of money fast or else he was done for. So, he created a valuable offer, sent it to his list, and made a substantial amount of money overnight (because he took the time to build an email list).
I don’t have the book with me now, but it was more money than anyone would know what to do with. Much more than $100,000 if I remember correctly (don’t quote me).
In short, newsletters are where the people who actually care about you and your interests go to support you.
We’re doing a live stream on the Kortex YT channel here if you want to learn how I write newsletters and YouTube scripts. It’s on October 25th at 1pm MST.
How To Build An Audience In 2025
Audience building comes down to 6 things:
- Testing ideas and structures on social media.
- Having a catalyst strategy for new posts.
- Turning best ideas into threads & newsletters.
- Repurposing your writing to other platforms.
- Taking advantage of exponential events.
- Sending everyone to your newsletter.
These are the only things you need to focus on every morning.
When done well, it should take no longer than 1-2 hours a day.
1) Social Media Posts Are The New MVP
MVP = minimum viable product.
Social media, in my eyes, is a testing ground for ideas that can be distributed to higher leverage platforms.
Post on social media.
Turn your best posts into threads and newsletters.
Turn your best threads and newsletters into free downloads.
Turn free downloads into an information product or service.
Turn your information product or service into a software, physical product, book, or other scalable business.
2) You Need An Idea Catalyst
If you have low or zero followers, you will experience beginner hell.
I’m not sure what people are thinking when they start, but no, the algorithm isn’t going to do anything with your posts. You may get lucky, but I don’t like basing my life’s work off of luck.
You need a way to guarantee that people see your posts. That way, you can actually see what ideas do well and which don’t.
There are a few ways you can do this:
1) Pay To Play
Ads allow you to pay a platform (like Facebook or Google) to show your posts to more of their audience.
But ads aren’t the only way to reach a larger audience. In fact, I’d rather not pay the platform for it. I’d rather pay an individual with whom I want to build a relationship and who has a highly engaged audience.
Almost anyone who has a social media audience also has a service where they help you grow. It’s easy money for them and highly beneficial for you.
DM accounts over 20K followers and ask if they help kickstart social growth.
(Big brands charge thousands for this because other brands view it as a viable marketing strategy. If you don’t have thousands of dollars, don’t reach out to big brands for growth.)
If you don’t want to invest in growth (1) that’s fine but (2) I’d question whether you’re serious about building your life’s work. You’ll spend $40 on a nice pleasurable dinner but you won’t spend that much on business traffic that could make you 10X more if you have a product and understand the concept of ROI.
And no. I don’t agree with those who think investing money in your business growth is “inauthentic” so they can pitch you on their way to grow. And double no, you don’t need to grind in the replies like everyone else and race to the bottom (that doesn’t mean don’t comment and make friends).
2) Building A Tribe
Now, you don’t need to pay to play the social media game.
I haven’t done it in 3 years now. But you can bet that when I first started out I was going to do everything in my power to replace my current life situation. I wanted out of freelancing so bad. I wasn’t going to delay that because growth gurus say it’s bad yet can’t string together a logical argument as to why.
There are other methods to getting your posts spread to larger audiences.
You inject yourself into a tribe on social media.
- Find accounts around your size.
- Add them to a list or bookmark their profiles.
- Reply to their content every day.
Then, take a conversation from the replies to the DMs.
Treat it like you’re texting a friend after you found something interesting you wanted to share with them.
After that, ask them what they’re doing to grow.
Boom, now you’re in a position to ask if they want to grow together by engaging with each others content.
If you want to watch this happen live, I’ll probably inject my way into the startup niche on X at some point next year for Kortex-related reasons. Feel free to watch.
3) Exchanging Value
If you don’t have money or suck at making friends, maybe you have a skill set or other form of social capital you can exchange for shares.
I.E. You have an Instagram audience while they have an X audience.
You can offer to share their posts on IG while they share yours on X.
Or, maybe you can build a landing page to write an email sequence for them in exchange for shares.
Get as creative as you want with this.
Trading goods and services is just as viable as trading money.
3) Turn Your Best Posts Into Newsletters
When a post stands out as an anomaly, turn that post into a newsletter.
Use the BPAS framework.
- Big idea – state the idea in the post.
- Problem – illustrate a relatable problem based on the big idea.
- Amplify – give examples of how that problem impacts people’s lives.
- Solution – give steps, lessons, or insights that help solve the problem.
This is the short and sweet way to write a newsletter.
There are only 2 sections. The intro with the big idea, problem, and amplification of the problem, and the solution where you list out each step and give context to each (like I did in this letter.)
4) Take Advantage Of Exponential Events
Audience growth is non-linear.
You flatline or make slow progress for a bit. Then you see a lot of growth at once.
There are a select few posts on X that led to above average audience growth for me. Every time I repost those ideas I know that I will gain followers.
My YouTube growth was very slow until one video did extremely well (and grew me by 200K subscribers in a month.)
My IG growth was also slow, but when I hit the jackpot with certain reels or carousels, I grew by 1.2M in a few months.
Most of viral growth is experimenting with ideas for 1-2 years until you reach one of these exponential events.
When you have a topic that does well, don’t be an idiot and try something different. Post about that as much as humanely possible from all angles until growth starts to plateau.
I made 20+ more videos on the one-person business model, and it took me to where I am today.
This is less about sticking to a niche and more about experimenting with your interests and doubling down on the ideas that work.
I have plenty of philosophy and productivity videos that have done better than my one-person business videos. I doubled down on those too.
5) Send Everyone To Your Newsletter
Promote your newsletter everywhere.
Once a day under your posts or in your story.
At the end of your threads or carousels.
In your YT descriptions.
Your newsletter will be where you promote your products or services (most of the time, not all of the time.)
If you don’t get people on your newsletter, you may never see them again.
Remember, followers don’t matter. Email list does.
That’s it for this letter.
I hope it was helpful.
– Dan
