IdeaEconomy.net - How to go viral - IdeaEconomy

"We analyzed our biggest "viral" hits to discover 4 essential characteristics of viral content marketing."

"The viral articles shared here offer relatively straightforward advice about business strategy or writing, but they set themselves apart because of a powerful 'hook.'"

via @GettoTraction

Big Idea: David Perell is a perfect case study of what it takes to be successful in the IdeaEconomy.

David Perell, of the popular Writes of Passage cohort-based writing course, shares how he got started and what it takes to build a large following on Twitter.

Perell now has over 196k followers on Twitter and his course is a 7-figure-per-year business.

"So the first thing you do is you take a part of the world that you’re interested in, and you just start reading about it. And you say, ‘I’m gonna write about this every single week, some article here, some article there’. And when you start off, your writing won’t be good...

And as you do, you’re going to then attract all the world’s experts in that niche. And so what you do is you kickstart this virtuous cycle for yourself, where the better quality ideas get higher quality people, then you get higher quality feedback, higher quality information flow, which gets you to better ideas, and you then build an audience doing that...

The third step that you do is you start a business to go solve that problem."

"Niche businesses have found their playground
Let us explain: the media revolution, especially the one induced by the internet and social networks, has allowed these profiles and their niches to emerge...

The next acceleration of the phenomenon is happening today with the democratization and professionalization of the Creator Economy. Thanks to low-code and other dedicated tools, these unusual creators will be able to easily scale their business...

Communities can now support and fund creatives they believe in. This is a major paradigm shift. Our model of society is changing from institutions and companies... to the individual.

Big Idea: Crazy ideas are not so crazy anymore. Seemingly safe and 'normal' ideas are hyper-competitive. It might actually be a wiser choice to go for the ridiculous and crazy.

This post from Ahrefs is definitely worth reading. It offers detailed explanations of different ways to get more leads or subscribers with specific examples.

Here are some of the tactics:

- Lead magnets on ranking posts
- Create online tools
- Guest posts
- Virtual Summits
- Giveaways

Great overview on how to check the competitiveness of an online niche. It is very difficult to compete against highly competitive search terms, so finding an underserved niche is important.

Big Idea: Success with a narrow niche is far more likely than a general topic like travel, personal development, or startups.

Note: I don't follow my own advice with this newsletter, but I enjoy it too much to stop.

Related: Here is a short podcast on the $100MBA, How to Leverage the Power of a Super Niche.

A few examples of the power of focusing on a niche:

- Niall Doherty of eBizFacts is making more than $15k per month reviewing make money online courses.
- Chase Reeves has over 100k YouTube followers for his bag review videos and has made his own backpack line.
- The First1000 newsletter grew to over 14,000 subscribers in its first year by writing about how companies got their first 1000 customers.

"What if I told you that a simple spreadsheet can change the course of your entire business?"

"This 4-hour spreadsheet generated hundreds of thousands of leads and contributed millions of dollars in revenue. Also worth noting: as an evergreen content piece, it continued to be a top-performing asset throughout the entire four years Ronnie spent at Eventbrite."

Big Idea: Tools like spreadsheets, calculators, and even resource directories can be a great source of backlinks, traffic, subscribers, and leads. Do you have a tool you can build and share with your audience?

via @FortheInterested by Josh Spector

Another popular Twitter thread from @copy_ai CMO Blake Emal

Big Idea: Twitter threads are a very effective way to grow your following. @HeyBlake now has 34k followers.

I shared a related thread from @alexgarcia_atx last week. Here is the blog post for that Twitter thread.

via @foundationinc.co

Steph Smith of The Hustle shares how to use niche subreddits, localized rankings, and google trends to discover new opportunities.

Looking for great people to follow on Twitter? Check out this thread from Josh Spector.

"It’s overrated—both financially and emotionally."

Big Idea: This is a good reminder to not get caught up in the irrational exuberance that seems at its peak now.

Master Essential Startup Skills

Here is a selection of the best links I've found this week to level up your founder skills.

SaaS Content Strategy: How We Scaled Leadfeeder's Signups to Over 200/month - GrowandConvert

Three tips to tell better stories - The Futur

Three tips to write effective SEO headlines for news - WTF is SEO via @NotaNewsletter

10 landing page copywriting tips for more conversions - Jeremy Moser - via @ProductHabits

Email Marketing: the definitive guide - Backlinko

13 tips to write a magnetic headline - Alex Garcia