Avoid these eight subtle things when building a thriving online audience

Don’t do these things if you want to grow a large, engaged, happy audience online.

I’ve been creating and sharing writing, images, videos, and audio for over a decade.

I do this firstly because I love to create, and creating keeps me sane. Secondly, I do it to help people that matter to me. My life is 10X better when I know I am helping cool people.

Thirdly, I do all this to grow an engaged community, audience or following or whatever you want to call it.

These people support me, mentor me, provide a sofa to sleep on, and they buy my stuff.

Here’s what I learned to avoid if I didn’t want to continually come up against annoying blocks in the road:

Trying to impress.

Every Tom, Frank and Jane is currently writing flat, lifeless words on the Internet.

They write out of a sense of what they assume their audience would want to read. Writing based on assumption is like putting a thick black bag over your head when running a marathon.

You’re blind and at risk of banging into bystanders.

Write from your heart.

Be vulnerable. Speak the truth.

Write what takes courage to write. That’s the only way to build a loyal audience.