“Without a certain level of Trust between parties, a Transaction will not occur” — Josh Kaufman, The Personal MBA

Table of Contents

• Let me assume something
• Reputation & Authenticity
• Trust & Authority
• Negotiating Interest (a secret sauce)

Let me assume something

If you are a content creator, I’m going to assume two things. One, you want to maintain a good reputation; secondly, you are invested in building an audience. An audience along the lines of the famed, “1,000 True Fans”, essay. In 1,000 True Fans, author Kevin Kelley persuasively makes a case that 1,000 dedicated and loyal fans, who spend about $100 a year with you, can be the foundation of a thriving business.

His essay is convincing enough. Many have found it inspiring and a sufficient case to build businesses. With the advent of social media and accompanying marketplaces, a wide range of entrepreneurs, creators, and artists have found the promise to be true.

However, if you are interested in wild dreams of internet riches, then my assumptions, and therefore my discussion is not to or for you. However, if my assumptions hold, I want to put forward a simple strategy for maintaining your reputation and building an audience.

Reputation & Authenticity

The basic math goes: Reputation + Trust + Aligned Offer = Easy Sales

On the internet riches side, some have taken to running ads to gain visibility. If you are like me, you pay to get rid of ads in what seems like extortion. Or you impatiently wait to skip the ad if the option exists. I have little patience for ad myself and want to avoid them as much as possible.

There’s another side of the ad that is relevant to our discussion besides it being pushed on you. That is the aesthetic. There’s an aesthetic that accompanies most ads. Occasionally, some are clever. However, my experience on YouTube, for instance, says there’s a sleazy element to most ads. Particularly, people selling business and entrepreneurial products.

These ads hearken back to the days of infomercials. What feels like a desperate life or death appeal for a hard sale. These get skipped or passed over immediately. In my view, these advertisers and the personalities presenting, take a reputational hit to their brand. I’m sure some have made riches. That goes with the territory. But these businesses fade away as often as fast as they’ve made riches. It would be worth studying this model of business and its long-term financial outcomes. Invariably, issues of fraud, tax evasion, or liabilities cases follow. This, after all, is the archetype of the snake oil salesman.

You have that. There’s a behind-the-scenes aspect to ad-based sales. Particularly, this very aggressive type. That is, the business model it produces. You see, there is a sort of addictive cycle to ad-based revenue. These types of businesses become dependent on constantly running ads to acquire customers. They don’t have a relationship that we built over time established in trust or a good reputation. The sale is usually emotional and provocative.

This cycle produces a condition where to increase revenue, the advertiser has to increase ad saturation. Sales are conditioned on ad reach. The business is not incentivized to have a deep knowledge of the customer. And the customer, in turn, is not invested in the reputation of the advertiser so much as they are in satiating the emotional appeal. That’s usually a promise of fast and easy results or easily earned riches.

This relationship is not based on reputation or trust. It’s a quick exchange based on an emotional appeal to a time-sensitive offer in most cases.

Ads are also costly and if that becomes a fundamental to your business, it’s a fundamental that will endure. It means your cost of acquiring a customer, is what it cost to run ads.

There’s another way, though. It’s not fast. It takes time, upfront work, and probably a good amount of free work. However, it can have a greater and lasting effect on your business over time. Moreover, it can position you to scale in different ways using known models for value, pricing, and education. It doesn’t require running ads. Running ads may be detrimental to your upside.

So, it depends on the type of business you want to build. If running ads is even effective, it seems the cost at the outset is prohibitive for most Social CEOs. There’s also the issue of producing ads, which may be beyond the scope of new entrants to content creation.

As a social CEO, your reputation is a result of your actions and the public perception of your brand, services, and quality. While negotiating your reputation is a social act, it’s best not to do things that will sour the palette of prospective customers.

There are an entire group of consultants, professional, and content creators who deploy strategies to build strong reputations that convey integrity. You will have to make a strategic decision about which game you’re playing. Long or short?

Trust & Authority

The best approach to building a strong reputation is to build trust and authority. Trust can be established by having a consistent presence on social media and providing useful and timely information. Or by engaging by responding and commenting on posts and authentically interacting with people on social media.

Showing up in your metaphorical uniform will be off-putting and most savvy social media users will see through you. If you produce podcasts, you will need to provide a line of communication with your audience. A place where they can ask questions, offer comments, and engage in meaningful ways.

If you produce video or visual content, you will need to spend time engaging audiences of more popular shows and subtly plugging your own without jacking the space. Once we begin to build your audience, you’ll need to spend time responding to comments and listening to the audience. Over time and with consistency people will see you are reliable and trustworthy. There is no sale without it.

Growing an audience organically takes consistent and authentic interaction. Based on successful creators, who’ve learned the ropes over time, once they’ve found their way, it will take about 12–24 months to see results from your engagement. It should be strategic, thoughtful, and genuine.

Part of your social media strategy should be well-crafted messaging: podcast, video, or written that demonstrates your competence in your niche. You should be building a portfolio of knowledge and a referential body of work that is indispensable for your audience. Your evergreen content. It doesn’t mean you bludgeon people with information. Rather, it should be strategically placed.

The combination of showing up, authentically engaging, and providing free valuable content will compound over time. And you will begin to see the fruits of this process soon.

Negotiating Interest (a secret sauce)

The method of building a strong reputation through trust and authority will ease the road to sales.

Remember: Reputation + Trust + Aligned Offer = Easy Sales

If you’ve done basic research and studied your respective niche, you should be in dialogue with prospective customers over this period of audience and reputation building. Hopefully, you should have discovered a market for your offers and have developed a minimum viable product (MVP).

Your MVP should be the product of interaction with potential customers. An iterative process. With a product that has the fingerprints of your audience all over it, it should have resonance in the marketplace. And putting offers out should be relatively easy. You should have built an MVP that has strong appeal. Leading to easy sales.