I can't remember how many times my friends tried to start their blogs, youtube channels, instagram profiles or tiktok accounts and get discouraged after 5 days because "no one is watching my content, even if I'm better than X". 

We, as humans, constantly think there's something special in us that others don't have. 

The harsh reality is that humans are more similar than they think they are, and even unique human beings, such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Stephan Hawking didn't thrive because of their knowledge alone. 

People won't read your articles or watch your videos because you're better than X. That may be the reason they first saw you, but it won't be the reason they'll remain.

They will read the articles because you wrote it. They will watch the videos because you recorded them. They will like your pictures because it shows what you can do.

Everyone is a influencer to a certain group of people nowadays. I have around 10k people that follow my work, some of you may have 1k, some 100k, and macro influencers may have 1 million. 

But what distinguish us is not what we know. A guy with 1 million dollars in the bank account has the same access to knowledge as me. 

I have Wikipedia. I have Youtube. And I have an internet connection. That's all I need to know more than what every human on earth could think possible 100 years ago. For 25€ per month (my internet bill).

So, why do I have 10k followers, Kim Kardashian have 30 millions, and my friend has only 3? 

What's the real difference between people, when the quality of content is the same? 

The evil MARKETING

A sizeable portion of what we do every day is dictated by how society work and how brands advertise to us. 

The most common example of why marketing is so impactful is the beauty industry. 

The beauty industry is worth 532 billions and has created countless millionaires (even some billionaires) selling the idea of looking better to other people.

If people liked themselves starting tomorrow morning, the entire industry will collapse. But we all know it will get bigger and bigger, since people will never stop trying to look better, be perceived cooler and take hotter selfies.

And I'm actually into that scheme. I don't like my face, so I cover it up with concealers, use several creams to remove spots and try to look nice in front of the camera. 

So, when we talk about real life, it's clear to everyone that how we look and present ourselves matter.

If I have to get clients, I have to portray myself as a professional. I have to talk in a certain way, behave in a certain way, schedule my day in a certain way and share my thoughts following a precise pattern. 

I can't just be good at what I do. 

When you have your own business, being it a freelance business or a brick-and-mortar store, you'll notice 40% of your job is to do your job, and 60% of it is to present your job. 

When you become bigger, one of the two sides can delegated to your employees, but they're still both present. And sure, you can create astonishing content tha markets itself. But it won't happen every day.

I'm a marketer, so my job is actually 100% promoting myself and/or my clients, but if you're not you'll always have someone looking after your promotions or you'll need to run them yourself.

Just like marketing yoursef, marketing your content is way more important than you think. What you share is likely not unique and can be found
elsewhere. So you need people to get attached to you for some reason or another, and that's usually personality.

Why Personality is your Biggest Strength

I know how to create performing Facebook and google ads campaigns, I can create several types of sites and handle SEO properly. I know how to speak English, Italian and a bit of Spanish, and I'm married.

Great.

50 millions other people look like that description. 

50 millions people know how to run Facebook ads. Maybe even better than me. And the same goes for the other skills I have. 

There's nothing unique about a skill. Sure, you may be better than the competition... but how can you prove it? 

By marketing yourself. There's only one thing that no one can do as good as you: be you. 

No one can be me because my personality is the only trait I can fully describe as my competitive advantage. Everything else can be copied. They can copy my strategies, my site can be hacked, they can steal my profiles. 

But what no one can stole is my knowledge, that can be reprised forever, and my attitudes, friendships, views, ideas, opinions. My personality. 

And the same goes for you. 

Stop thinking you should only write good content*, and start writing about things you enjoy and interact with your community, use the right hashtags, and promote yourself by using your personality. 

Don't promote yourself as something you're not. It will become exhausting over a long period of time.

*that's still crucial. No one will follow you if you don't provide value.

Respect the platform!

I'm not a guru, and I likely won't ever be. The reason I'm fond about marketing, and digital marketing in particular, is because I'm curious about human reactions and I like to help small businesses grow when they have excellent ideas.

But one thing I notice is how many people (especially old people) bash on new platforms and then want to grow on them.

Let me be clear: you can't grow on Publish0x if you think all writers here are stupid.

You can't grow on TikTok if you think only 12yrs old girls can have a following. 

You can't grow on Instagram if you think people will only follow shirtless models.

You HAVE to respect the platform you're posting content on, and by respecting the rules you'll learn how to gain more traction.

One example may be to follow the trends here on Publish0x without thinking they're all trash.

Conclusions

I wanted to share my view on this since a big influencer in the designer community spoke about how most people see marketing as something evil.

Something they have to do, but hate.

And I really don't want you to think of it like this. Marketing can be beautiful, and we do it every day, anyway. 

If you have the money to delegate this task, go ahead.

But if you don't, consider the tips I gave you on this article, and let me know if you'd like a more specific guide on a platform. Maybe we could create a collaborative resource on how to publish on Instagram :) 

I want to do the same on Publish0x, but I'm very new here and my tips would be irrelevant. I'll write about how to grow on Publish0x if I grow here myself ;)

NOTE: I'm not a native speaker. I'm sorry about the excessive use of the "I" pronoun, it's my biggest problem right now.