This is why you're not making money from social media

It was September 17th of 2020. At the time, I was entering my 2nd year of college to become a English/Psychology teacher.

I was also on Twitter to keep up with the crypto news.

One day when I was endlessly scrolling, I came across a Twitter guru promoting their course. It promised to show people how to grow their own following on Twitter.

For the past 3 years leading up to that point I was looking for a way to work for myself.

I tried dropshipping, Amazon FBA, eBay flipping, repairing iPhones, etc. I failed at all of them.

So when I saw this opportunity, I figured “Why not give it a shot?” I bit the bullet and invested the whopping $40 on the ebook. The possibilities ran through my mind…

I was going to grow my following by thousands every month with my new found knowledge. That night, I began reading.

Within the next 24 hours, I read through the whole ebook. It told me all the “secrets” I needed to grow my brand.

Pick a theme for my account

Go on Canva and create a fancy banner

Comment on other peoples accounts

Say polarizing things to get attention on my account

Write generic content that appeals to everybody

And watch the followers roll in.

With my newfound knowledge, I excitedly prepped my account to begin my journey. I threw on an anon picture, named it “Philosophy of Fit”, tweeted 5 times a day, and commented a bunch on bigger accounts.

The result?

Within 3 days, I got ratio’d for commenting a polarizing take criticizing socialism.

Within 5 days, the original account I bought the course from blocked me for commenting “generic stuff” he taught me under his tweets.

And the first week I grew to around 50 followers (minus the 27 who already followed me).

And in 3 months? I only grew to 750 followers.

Hundreds of hours studying and applying… and nothing to show for it.

While I was growing a couple followers a day, I’d watch others skyrocket past me. I was frustrated. So I did what any logical person would do…

I bought more Gumroad courses.

As you can expect, it didn’t change much. I’d spend HOURS writing single threads, only to watch them get 3 retweets.

A “high-performing” tweet for me would be 11 likes. At that point, I probably spent $1000 on courses and hundreds of hours “learning”.

I knew I had the drive and potential, but I didn’t know how to channel it to get real results.

Then, one day, I came across an account on my timeline. He was teaching copywriting and had a playful style in his writing. And although he was new, he grew to 1000 followers within 30 days.

It didn’t seem possible to me. I spent months on this platform, yet he blew past me like it was nothing. It completely reframed what I thought possible.

So I studied what made his account different than mine. Hell, I even hopped on a couple calls with him. We talked, and he told me he used to be in a similar position.

He would tweet his thoughts every day but barely grew his account. Then… he started studying copywriting. After about a year, he started teaching it on the timeline and blew up.

The biggest takeaway I learned after our call?

You need to provide value.

I was trying to be valued without giving value.

I tweeted what I thought would get good engagement. The generic content everyone else was tweeting.

I didn’t stand out, so it didn’t give people an incentive to follow me.

In contrast, he was giving copywriting tips every day. He gave people a reason to follow him because he had a specific purpose and gave value.

That was the moment I understood the power of giving value.

I cannot stress this enough… the value you provide is the foundation of your account. Everything else is built around this core principle.

So I created a new Twitter account, focused my account to strictly writing, studied writing/copywriting, and gave actionable tips on the timeline.

And where it took me 3 months to get to 750 followers, it only took me 40 days to get to 1000.

And in under 2 years hit 400,000+ engaged followers across Twitter + Instagram + LinkedIn.

How to become valuable

So, what is value?

Value is created by solving someone's pain:

These pains fall into 3 areas:

1. You make people healthier

2. You make people wealthier

3. You improve people’s relationships

For example:

If you give actionable advice for fitness, that’s valuable because you’ll make people healthier. 

• You solve the pain of feeling insecure, low energy, or chronic pain

If you give actionable advice for writing, that’s valuable because you’ll make people more money.

• You solve the pain of feeling financially unsafe, unfulfilled, or low self-esteem

If you give actionable advice for dating, that’s valuable because you’re improving people’s relationships.

• You solve the pain of low self-esteem, loneliness, or non-existent sexual opportuntities

Your action steps

1. Pick one of those three areas that interest you and there's demand for

2. Find accounts in that domain that are successful

3. See what works for them (branding and content) and emulate it + add your own spin

4. Give actionable advice that solve's people's pain points

5. Offer a product or service

This was a brief overview, but I hope it helps. If I knew this early on, it would've saved me hundreds of hours and countless dollars.

Much love and happy Thursday.

Your Canadian friend,

Dakota "Just Go Viral, Bro" Robertson