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What if your entire audience on LinkedIn was chock-full of “perfect prospects?” What if every time you published to the platform, you sent the perfect piece of content to a person who desperately needs to hear it, and they’re ready, willing, and excited to pay you to fix their problem?
No, this isn’t “marketing dark arts.” It’s actually very simple when you engage in a practice I call “audience tilting” on LinkedIn.
What is “audience tilting?”
Audience tilting is when you take specific actions on LinkedIn (or other social media platforms) to build an audience exclusively full of your dream clients. Clients who share your values, have a pressing problem you can solve and are in a position to buy from you.
Most people don’t “tilt their audience” because…
- They don’t realize they can do it
- They are approaching content creation wrong
- They are afraid narrowing their audience will limit their reach
This week, we are going to break down each of these issues so you reverse-engineer your audience with people who most value your insights and services.
Let’s first address outdated mindsets around content creation…
If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this week’s article, it’s this…stop focusing on creating content, and start focusing on creating your audience.
After all, content doesn’t pay the bills; people do.
Here’s what I mean…
Imagine you are told to create a month’s worth of content about grocery shopping (random, I know, but it’s something we can all relate to, so roll with me)
When you’re solely focused on content creation you may come up with a list of ideas that include things like this:
- Best days of the week to grocery shop
- Which grocery stores have the best deals
- Which brands are the best to buy for each product
When you're focused on audience creation, you start getting curious about sharing content that speaks directly to an audience member to solve their unique challenges.
In this case, when I shift from content to audience, I think of a health-conscious single mom with a 4-year-old picky eater. My content then takes the shape of:
- Must have healthy-pantry staples that you and your little one will love
- The 20-minute grocery trip: How to buzz in and out of the grocery store in between dance class
- The 5, under 10-minute, healthy snacks you and your child will enjoy (featuring seasonal, nutrition-packed fruit)
Notice the difference?
When you focus on audience creation vs. content creation, your content isn’t centering on hacks, hooks, or how-to’s; it’s about making your audience’s life better every single day.
And when you do this, they buy.
When you focus on audience creation you also start to shape your audience, as folks who don’t fit your dream client prototype aren’t interested in reading, and will wean themselves out. This leads us to our next critical concern people typically have when I mention audience tilting…
Won’t narrowing my audience limit my reach?
Negative, Ghostrider.
Consider this: LinkedIn has over 900 million users. The most-followed person on LinkedIn (Bill Gates…maybe you’ve heard of him) has 35 million followers or about 3.8% of the platform’s users. So even if you became one of the most famous celebrity CEOs of all time, you’re still not going to tap the LinkedIn audience out.
The problem here is you’re thinking about grabbing a share of the market instead of creating your own market with people who can’t wait to work with you.
Instead of trying to siphon 50,000 followers on LinkedIn who don’t fit your target prospect, you’d be better off building a following of 10,000 followers who are the exact type of clients you want to work with— those who fit your business and your life.
Those who rave about how you help them and invite others to your community. Those are evangelists, not passive scrollers. This is how you build a profitable personal brand, not just a popular one.
So, how do I tilt my audience, then?
We covered one way, which is writing content with ONE (I said “ONE!”) person in mind. This helps keep your content focused, creative, and connective and helps you start attracting more of your dream clients.
The other is by adding and finding those people to your network daily. My dream clients are consultants, so I make it a point to connect with those individuals daily.
Over time, you’ll start to see that the majority of your viewers’ job titles start to match those of your ideal audience, a great signal that you successfully tilted and are creating an echo chamber of excitement and people you enjoy working with!
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