Okedoke, so this is the second time I’ve committed myself to growing a following. The first time I reached 125,000 on TikTok but stopped because it felt like the difference between 100,000-400,000 was somewhat meaningless and I wanted to focus on other social entrepreneurial things. I’ll talk about some stuff and go into the process/whys

That following actually declined to 108,000 because I started experimenting more, intentionally making and observing mistakes and generally not letting the machine control what I want to think, say or feel just because there was a benefit to it.

So there’s a few key things to understand:

1. The algorithm is the audience
2. Content-market fit
3. Consistency & compounding.

1. Every algorithm/social media app is a different audience, and sometimes that algorithm/audience will change. We can observe this obviously with Nostr, but you can also see it with stuff like YouTube in 2010 vs. YouTube in 2022.

You’ve also seen it with Instagram as it transitioned from photo to video, with X as it changed owners, and even TikTok because TikTok is not really new or novel anymore.

I grew on TikTok during a different time in 2021-2023, focusing on DEI & Latinos in tech and I fulfilled a niche or interest back then. But times change and TikTok today is more of a current events app similar to Twitter, mixed in with some stream clipping slop and your usual memes.

Tech has also changed, non-technical people are less interested in it because they don’t see as much opportunity in employment and there’s political skepticism around stuff like AI. It’s often the case that when I talk about AI, there are people who unfollow me over it or post antagonizing comments now.

2. This leads us to 2, the content-market fit. Basically, you have to pay attention to what people want to see and then make it. The challenge here is reconciling what you want to make vs. what other people want to see. If you get this wrong, you’ll be miserable and won’t have the energy to perform and play the right character for people to consume.

This is one of the reasons why I lost followers. I was frustrated by the political apathy and disinterest and actively addressed it publicly, which annoyed people. I no longer had content-market fit nor was the algorithm on my side anymore.

So I had to pivot from coding education & encouraging latinos to learn tech skills even though I thought that AI was a huge boon to starting businesses - but as soon as you have to debate your case, you’ve already lost.

During that time, I discovered some adjacent niches, like encouraging people to use AI to build businesses so they can afford to live in Mexico, but it felt icky and I hate selling dreams to people because I like to be honest about hard things can be. So I didn’t do that.

That’s when I moved from TikTok to Instagram, knowing that Instagram has many surfaces (DMs, gallery posts, reels, trial reels, stories, threads) so it’s more of a niche & interest based algorithm rather than a FYP-only news machine.

Then I pivoted to something adjacent to coding education, which was language learning. Part of this was motivated because I thought about what edtechs have product market fit in the first place since selling monetizable skills felt gross and very “buy my course so you can make more money bro” even they were nice little edu apps.

I thought about Duolingo’s success and the first principles of it. Language learning is fun, meaningful, low-stakes, globally important and a number of other positive trends like the ability to connect with people and cultures more deeply.

Then I thought about pain points - I discovered that a lot of Latinos in the US bully each other over language mastery which sucks and I hate, so I wanted to use technology to help people.

Then I thought about indigenous languages and exploring AI’s fault tolerance with them, so I was able to find a niche with Latino media again - indigenous language learning, culture & history, life in Mexico & technology. People want to see people living well in Mexico & they want to learn more about a culture and identity that they’re removed from.

Content-market fit achieved.

3. Then from there it’s a matter of consistency. I love to write about metapolitics but it makes people disengage from me as a person and my work.

So it’s really just playing the same character by making similar content and not diverging too much. To be honest, I hate that a lot, but it’s just the way of the world. When you find what works, you just keep repeating it and eventually it starts to compound in your favor.

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So in short, you need to understand what the algorithm aka audience prioritizes on any given platform, then find a niche in that space by creating content that people actually want to see & consume (not just what you think people want), and then lastly once you have those two ingredients, you continuously repeat what works.

Now there are other things, like “the purple cow” or creating novelty for viral marketing, but I don’t really care about vitality that much, I care about people caring about my work because I’m more mission-oriented and want to see my ideas come to life in some way or another. But those 3 things I listed are pretty much the bread & butter or foundations to audience building.

Yeah this is just video editing that sped it up

Do u want the short answer or the long version

I was jaded by TikTok for some time and posted on nostr because I didn’t care about growth and cared more about learning new engineer skills and maybe connecting with some cool or talented folks.

But I don’t really have a future on nostr, in terms of a social presence. For me, nostr is just a way to improve the user experiences of my apps.

For example, if you click the link in my bio, you instantly create a nostr account and can create a cross platform wallet with cashu. So that means every person on any social media platform that clicks my link is instantly onboarded to nostr in some way shape or form.