Patreon: Nothing Tops the Organic Creation of a Relationship Between Writer and Reader

Sometimes, creators lose sight of the basics.

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Now, more than ever, companies like our’s are scrambling to figure out how to right the ship. This pandemic has everyone reeling, and in the media, it’s not just that – it’s the protests, it’s the election year and all of the politics that come with it. It’s everything. Sports returning certainly bodes well for us, but I won’t pretend that the last four months have ALL been sunshine and rainbows. We’ve had some good months, but as it stands here in July, the media fatigue is more evident than ever. 

It reminds me of how, in times like these, the higher-ups start demanding answers. I’ve been on teams that had an overbearing manager demand we “figure it out” when site traffic gets low. They spend more money on Facebook ads (that don’t work, but that’s a story for another time). They demand that pageviews get back up as if that’s something people like us can just do. 

I hate that type of thinking, and it generally leads to inflated fake results (if any). That’s part of the reason I started SoBros Network. I didn’t want to be around that – people inflate their website/podcast stats because they think they can take a raw number to a potential advertiser and make money off of it. 

That’s not the play, in my opinion. Think about it – what happens, over time, if you can’t deliver value for your clients

In the above situation – just doing whatever it takes, spending whatever you have to in order to get raw pageviews – what value are you providing your client by selling them a number that includes pageviews from bots or people paid to click on the links by Facebook? 

And, furthermore, if you can’t provide value for your clients, do you think they’re going to want to renew a deal with you

I don’t – and that’s why I believe in doing things a different way. I’ve done the work to know and understand that 40,000 pageviews does not equal 40,000 sets of eyeballs. I can pretty well whittle that 40,000 down to nothing in no time. In fact, I have – in April of 2020, we had over 40,000 pageviews for the first time in a single month. But, those pageviews came at the fingertips of just 12,000 unique users. Of those 12,000 unique users, only about 5,000 had been to SoBros Network dot com before. So, imagine then – quoting a client at 40,000, and delivering at 5,000. Not good.

But, everywhere I’ve worked in this industry, pageviews have been the meal ticket. People look for quick and easy ways to get them (that’s how we get clickbait), and they focus on getting them instead of building good organic relationships with their consumers. It’s almost an obsession to some brands. But, the reality is that building a website into a media brand that you can sustain a living off of also just takes time and good old fashioned hard work. 

A lot of people don’t want to hear that part – or at least, in the conversations I’ve had with aspiring content creators, they just want to talk about how to get more Twitter followers, how to trick Facebook into showing their work to more people, what niche they should be writing about, etc.. When I say, “why don’t you just focus on creating good work first and then creating A LOT of good work?” – that’s when I get the blank stares and the subject changes.

But, in everything I’ve done and have studied, just writing good material….making good content….that has been the basis for positive growth. If you write something that someone somewhere enjoys, and you do so in a way that is authoritative, entertaining, engaging, and/or authentic, that’s the spark that leads to a loyal reader. That’s how you get people in – but you have to do it well, and you have to have plenty of content for them to sift through when you do “meet” that person.

That has been the basis of my strategy with SoBros Network – find those people, introduce them to our work, and then grow that number of people to build community. 

I’d like to touch on a strategy I call ‘creating a non-invasive social media experience,’ too. I hate the incessant retweets, tagging brands in tweets, and asking people to ‘please share’ with every other social media post. That’s not an organic relationship-builder. Maybe it works in some regards, but I can’t say that I can recall ever getting a ‘loyal’ SoBros consumer off of behavior like that. 

Twitter and Facebook have updated their algorithms to weed that sort of behavior out, anyway. I’d much rather have a very naturally curated timeline that only contains SoBros Network content Maybe it’s cost us some exposure, but we’ve avoided having the desperate look of screaming “PLEASE LOOK AT ME” over and over on the timeline. *shrugs*

It’s like a lot of facets of life, people look for shortcuts and end up tripping themselves up. That’s why I think good content and the non-invasive social media experience are the long-term keys to providing value and sustaining good relationships with your readers. And, nothing beats that organically-created relationship. Nothing. Any other successes (as defined by you, mind you) grow from that. 

At least that’s this one Editor in Chief’s opinion. 

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley

Check out the SoBros Shop. Become a Patron. Give us money for no reason. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @SoBrosNetwork. Watch on YouTube.

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