Are you risking losing your advocates?

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The Problem with Growing

We’re all playing different games: we have different motivations in doing what we do. Some people just want to be famous (and some forget to wear pants). Adam Grant related on Twitter:

Having followers doesn’t make you a leader. It means you’ve captured attention. Narcissists build themselves up for personal glory. Servant leaders build others up for a shared mission. Leadership is not about gaining an audience. It’s about guiding a group to meaningful goals.

For those of us who are working on the mission, growth can become a challenge: what happens when the people that we know (or even those that don’t) drop off being advocates for us? Why does that happen?

1. We don’t do follow-up with people. When we post or DM, follow up can be everything. If you’re using social media like a bullhorn, guess what? The algorithm isn’t going to reward you, and the potential for “churn” of advocates that lovingly reply to you, like and share your stuff, but there is no reciprocation? Invariably, it’s VERY hard for someone to be loyal when it’s a monologue.
2. You run of out time or energy. A few years ago, my friend Katelyn Bourgoin shared this caution in “7 lessons I’ve learned on my way to 75,000 Twitter followers…”Random people will ask you for favors
   As my following grew so did the number of people asking for my time
   At first, I tried to respond to all of them but that isn’t sustainable when you start getting 20+ requests a day
   Now I ignore most of them and feel shitty about it.”Dennis Prescott is another creator that I know personally (you’ve seen him on Netflix, etc.), and I know he has certainly felt the challenges of keeping up with huge numbers of followers: and there is no real good solution, unfortunately.

• Hire someone? That’s not you.
• Bot? It might be your voice, but is it authentic?
• AI Twin – that can also go wrong, too
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3. You say something or do something that turns people off. Look, you’re never going to please everyone: that’s not the point. Yet, there are examples every day of people being cancelled for saying something stupid, or, saying something that others don’t take well. Of course, be careful, be conscious, but be yourself, too (unless you’re a horrible person – then, be better).

What’s the opportunity with your networking?

It’s critical to think about systems and processes to help you nurture relationships as you scale your following. Here are a few thoughts:

• Do the wild and crazy things. Taylor Swift… Think about how you can use her strategies of engaging and delighting people.
• Do group things. What if you invited your top 30 advocates together for 30 minutes? What would you do? What’s the value of them being together in the room together? How could you delight and surprise them?
• Use boring systems. I love how personal CRMs are becoming a thing these days. Think about how you can use this (or a business CRM) to track your interactions. It needs to be low intervention (ideally, does it integrate easily with the last touchpoints across your platforms)?
• Send birthday cards. If the CEO of a $1.5B company can write a birthday card to each of his 7000 employees, couldn’t you do the same? Those positive connections mean something, and if you think strategically about who your advocates are and how you can nurture the relationships, you’re going to be way ahead.

Keep the conversation going: what ideas would you add to this list? Share a post online and be sure to tag me! 

Jonathan