15 Rules for More Money, Followers, and Influence on Social Media
Lessons I've learned from building a 30,000+ audience and 6-figure business as a LinkedIn ghostwriter.
Three years ago I knew I wanted to start writing online.
But there was one problem…
I had no idea where to start!
What topics should I write about?
What if nobody likes my content?
What’s the best niche to be in?
How do I make money online?
After three years and 100,000 words published online—I’ve learned a few things about The Creator Mindset.
Here are my 15 Rules for More Income, Followers, and Influence on Social Media
1. Your personal brand is your online reputation
It’s not just a game for influencers with brand deals on Instagram anymore.
In 2023, a personal brand is how you attract more career opportunities without sending 1,374 resumes that get ignored.
The old way of applying for jobs is dead. The new way is to:
Pick a platform (LinkedIn)
Start sharing your expertise
Watch opportunities come to you
The hardest part is starting.
2. Audience = Leverage
Celebrities were the first to figure out how to leverage the power of social media.
Grow a loyal fanbase with content
Build trust with them over time
Listen to their wants & needs
Create solutions for them
Sell directly to them
Having “1,000 true fans” gives you the ultimate form of leverage.
And you don’t need a massive audience to benefit. You can earn 5 to 6 figures with a relatively small fanbase.
Here’s the difference between followers and fans that most people get wrong…
3. Build trust with your audience before you monetize
There are 100K follower accounts that make no money. There are also 5k-10k creators making six figures a year.
What’s the difference between the two?
Trust.
Without genuine trust from your audience, good luck monetizing.
Here’s how you can tell if your audience trusts you:
You get DMs like “I love your content!”
You get a lot of comments, not just likes
You get asked “Can you show me how to do that?”
Strangers send you long stories sharing how much your post resonated with them
This is a sign your audience feels like they know, like, and trust you. You’re ready to monetize with a course, e-book, or simple service.
4. Growing on social is about the law of reciprocity
Speaking of trust, it’s not just your audience you want it from.
You also want creators on the platform to trust you.
The easiest way to make this happen is to support their content.
Whose content do you enjoy?
Who has a similar ideal audience?
Find them online and make friends
Comment on their daily posts
Send a friendly (non-salesly) DM
Do this with the same 5-10 creators for long enough…and they’ll take notice. This is how you grow with the law of reciprocity.
5. Play long-term games (years > weeks)
Growing a personal brand and earning an income writing online is like investing.
Start early
Start small
Be consistent
Let compounding take over
See hockey-stick-shaped results
Your gains will be small and infrequent at the start. That’s normal.
Keep going and trust in the process, learning and iterating along the way. Just like most things in life — success as a content creator is not linear.
6. Don’t do 2 until you can successfully do 1
I see a lot of creators burn out because they try going from zero to 100 right out of the gate.
Gotta be on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube
Gotta launch a course and podcast
Gotta aim for 1 million followers
Gotta post 3 times a day
That’s a recipe for quitting because you hate it.
Don’t turn writing online into a chore. Start slow and find a process you enjoy. That’s the only sustainable way.
7. Commit to 90 days at the start.
It takes this long to see results.
If you can’t commit to 90 days, it’s probably not something worth investing in for you.
8. Set Boundaries to Avoid Creator Burnout
From Day 1, set boundaries around:
How much time will you spend online?
When will you respond to messages?
*Should social apps be on your phone?
*Learned this is a hard “no” for me.
I’ve seen a lot of creators I started with on LinkedIn gain serious momentum, then crash and burn, because they had no boundaries.
Trust me as an introverted creator:
Too much social media is f*cking terrible for your health.
9. Don’t Fit Into a Niche, Build a Category of One
I spent way too long trying to find the perfect niche when I started writing on Medium in 2019/2020.
I was interested in way too many things:
Personal finance
Personal development
Digital entrepreneurship
Psychology and philosophy
The more I boxed myself into a niche, the unhappier I became.
Luckily I came across the concept of Category Design.
No need to fit into a box as a writer and content creator if you understand how to build a category of one.
10. Use Tools to Gain a Competitive Advantage
Don’t be the naïve, snobby writer who sticks their nose up at tech.
Instead, embrace these powerful tools. They give you a competitive advantage.
Chat GPT for content ideas
Taplio for posting on LinkedIn
Tweethunter for posting on X
Zopto for Ai powered outreach
Loom for eliminating 99% of calls
These are five tools that have supercharged my writing business and productivity.
Highly recommend.
11. Don’t Wait for Inspiration to Strike
‘‘I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.” — Some Writer Somewhere
Block time to write for 30-90 minutes each day. Don’t wait for the moment to be right or for inspiration to strike. It may never come.
12. Spend 30 min/week talking to your customers about their problems
I learned this rule from Justin Welsh.
“Instead of working on something you think your customers will want, spend (at least) 30 minutes a week talking to them and learning about the problems they’re facing. Those problems form the foundation for your products and services.”
— JW in The Saturday Solopreneur
Learn his 30-30-30 Method here.
13. Start building an email list from day one
You don’t own your social media account.
You rent it from the platform.
At any time the platforms can (and have):
Kick you off their app
Suspend your account without notice
Blow up all your hard work growing a following
That’s why you build an email list.
You own your email list and can take it from email service to email service over the course of your career without fear of losing it.
This is why a free email newsletter is a huge part of my creator strategy and the strategy we design for CEO clients on LinkedIn.
“The FinGhost Funnel”
14. Monetize with simple offers once you’ve built trust
By appealing to everyone, you appeal to no one. After many failed attempts, I learned that offers are the key to selling your services.
Offer = How You Present Your Service to Prospects
Here’s why I’m able to sell services at $4,000-$9,000 per month from a LinkedIn account:
I built trust with my LinkedIn content
I show client results, screenshots, testimonials
I’m better at presenting offers people actually want
Old offer:
“I’ll coach you for 3 months for $4,000.”
New offer:
“I’ll help you grow your following and increase your sales by $10k per month. If I don’t achieve these metrics, I’ll work for free until I do.”
One gets a lot more “Yeses” than the other.
15. Create repeatable systems to sustain
Repeatable systems are the lifeblood of growing a brand and business.
Without them, you don’t survive. You burn out.
Here are the 10 rules & systems that helped me build a 6-figure income as a LinkedIn ghostwriter.
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Thanks for this one mate, stimulated some good thoughts and ideas.