Branding Byte #015

Hey guys, as you may have seen this last month I only sent 2 emails instead of 4.

The reason for that is a deep reflection on how I can provide you with what you’re really seeking:

Become an independent and active creator without having to pay 2000$ in coaching, training, and a dozen tools.

I truly think that what I came up with after this reflection can reshape the way people learn on the internet. Now is the time to deliver on my vision, I gave myself 45 days.

I’ll share with you more details in a coming Newsletter.

Now that I told you this, let’s jump into today’s topic:

How to find your LinkedIn audience, or as I like to say, how to let your audience find you.

Content creation and LinkedIn positioning are both covered topics by creators, but I didn’t see a single post about the importance of audience identification.

You may don’t know it but it’s the most essential component of every creator's success. The founder market fit is real, it’s the unique intersection between your personality and your market.

All that noise about profile optimization, the type of content to write, and the way to distribute it come down to the same root:

How to provide value and resonate with a specific part of your market?

Unfortunately, many people get lost in a self-centered narrative and miss this.

I’ve been there and I know the struggle, which is why I’ll share with you my actionable plan on how I found my audience.

It’s not about you, it’s about what they need.

Creators and Entrepreneurs lost in their thoughts and narrative always miss identifying what people truly need.

• They write about what they find valuable

• They don’t put themselves in their audience's shoes

• They choose a niche they didn’t experience the struggles of

• They don’t actively try niche hypotheses that can be falsified

In the last 8 months, I had to go through this process a few dozen times before finding my market. It’s a daunting process that I had to go through 4 times before finally sticking with one.

I am sharing with you a step-by-step guide that gathers my experience:

Step 1: Understand the value you can provide.

One positioning on LinkedIn can be proposed in 10 different ways

You need to start by outlining your skills and the topics you want to learn about.

It’s a real process, don’t think you can just choose a topic and become an authority figure. Identifying your skills and value proposition needs to be done clearly and intentionally.

1/ Write down your competencies

• What professional experiences do you have?

• What education did you get?

• What strong personal traits do you have?

• What passions do you have?

Each answer to these questions will be a component of your global unique positioning.

2/ How the intersection of these can solve a real problem?

Something I did that can help you out is the following:

1. Take a piece of paper and a pen

2. Draw circles, each corresponding to a component of your positioning

3. Make sure they intersect at a point, visualize this as your uniqueness

4. Write down all the possibilities you can think off

5. Use AI (ChatGPT) to help you make sense of that intersection

Each skill overlaps the other in a way. Your experience, background, knowledge, skills, and personality are the representation of a singular individual.

Thinking you need to do the same as what the neighbor is doing to succeed is a lie. Try this and you’ll see how many unique ideas will pop in your mind.

3/ Hypothesis testing

Now that you have your assumptions, it’s time to see if there’s a market to be served, and for that google is your best friend.

Here’s what I did and advise you to do:

For each potential value proposition you identify, write intentional questions you could have asked in Google to find relevant information regarding it.

See the number of research that rises, go to the forums, and see how many people engage.

Go to Quora and search for questions that match your value proposition, do the same with Reddit, and see if you find any discussions about your value proposition.

Break it down in different ways and see what you find. That’s the fastest way to identify a market opportunity.

Once you did, you need to build the Persona’s profiles, who’s actively thinking about your potential market opportunity?

Step 2: Define a broad Ideal audience you can serve.

People may be active in Quora, Discord, Reddit, and other socials but you still need to figure out a way to address their pain and if there’s one to solve…

As said earlier, one value proposition can be addressed in different ways, which is why you need to identify who would benefit most from the value you intend to provide.

So go through this plan:

1/ Create a mere Persona of your Broad Ideal audience

This should be the broader version of your potential addressable market:

• What characteristics do they have in common?

• What Interests do they have in common?

• What pains are they going through?

• What needs do you intend to serve?

• What solution exists?

• Why does it fail?

2/ Where do they hang out?

Where is not just a question of interface/platform but also a question of why they hang out in a specific online place?

What it is that they found? What content is streamlined there?

Online platforms are all about culture and stories, understand this and you’ll always have a way to streamline and distribute your content.

This step will help you refine your distribution strategy and the potential content you can share to test if the audience will choose you or not.

3/ Be part of the community

Don’t fake it, mean it.

Most online communities and niche audiences have a tacit agreement and rules they follow. If you fail to be part of it you’ll find yourself in a miserable spot.

Participate in the groups, bring value, and help people for free.

Your goal is to ultimately become the persona you want to attract.

Step 3: Test and iterate on your hypotheses.

You have your different value proposition hypotheses, you know where the broad audience hangs out online, and you talked with them and understood their needs, now is the time to build your credibility and be seen as the solution.

As you may know already, the best way for that is Content.

1/ Build a consistent messaging strategy

Your LinkedIn profile, your posts, and the way you research and exchange with your audience should all fall under the same clear and consistent Idea.

If not, you’re running after multiple things at the same time. You are not focused and your energy is used inefficiently.

Answer this question for me:

How are you supposed to test a hypothesis if you don’t know exactly what could be the other one?

You can’t because when you don’t have one clear idea in mind to test, your work is useless.

2/ Distribute free value with your message

Your goal is to find your audience or to let it find you.

For that, you need to play the organic game.

For instance, on LinkedIn your posts are shown to your first-degree connections and if they like and engage, to your second, etc.

Writing content that’s actionable is the best way to see if people will engage and if your messaging will hook them.

Here are a few examples of post structure to include:

• Advises

• Plan to get a desired outcome

• Personal experience when you were in their shoes

Just remember, this content needs to fall under the hypotheses you’re testing and the clear messaging you are putting forward.

3/ Distribution without engagement means nothing

As said before, the goal is to get organic eyeballs into your content, but some rules need to be followed to make that happen.

1. Find 20-40 creators from the same broad niche

2. Engage with their content daily before and after posting

3. Send them connection requests and discuss them in the DMS

4. Answer the comments your audience lets under your posts

Both these discussions you’ll have will feed your strategy with information you didn’t have and guide you toward the next steps you should take.

What I find beautiful about the strategy I shared with you in this newsletter, is the duplicability and ease of use for all industries.

Remember, finding your audience is not about going after all.

It’s about being clear on the unique value you provide. Then you can find different personas that could benefit from this value, and position yourself as the guide in their journey to resolution.

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If you found that useful, follow me on Linkedin, I help 4700+ people daily leverage growth through content creation.

Till next week for a new Branding Byte!