3 ms·

A similar but I think simpler approach is to just act like a celebrity or a brand. When X celebrity joins a social network, their fans follow them on that platf

A similar but I think simpler approach is to just act like a celebrity or a brand. When X celebrity joins a social network, their fans follow them on that platform. When the celebrity leaves and goes elsewhere, the fans follow. The value follows the celebrity because the celebrity’s value isn’t in the content on the social network, it’s in their personal brand itself. Therefore if you’re going to invest in creating valuable content on TikTok/Instagram/Bluesky/X/wherever, make sure you’re publishing it from a specific brandable name - and not generically posting good identity-less content. It doesn’t need to be your real name, as there are plenty of successful pseudonymous individuals out there. It just needs to be reasonably memorable and consistent.

JKCalhoun 2y ago
The blog post (and your comment) presumes someone is a celebrity, has a kingdom. A lot of us are just busking on the street corners.
- keiferski 2y ago
  Not necessarily. I think it’s perfectly possible to be a random non-famous person that builds a following because they have insightful tweets/images/content. But the risk is that if you don’t give yourself a reasonably memorable publisher name, you won’t be able to transfer that audience to another platform, because no one is going to see your name and recognize it from elsewhere.
  - bookofjoe 2y ago
    I'm an exemplar of the person you describe above. I started my blog on Typepad in 2004 and am in year 21, with things pretty much as they were in the beginning. When/if Typepad collapses (there are those who say it already has, since they stopped adding new customers in 2020 after being sold and posting is VERY janky and broken since then), I'll find a new home under the same brand name. Back in the day, around 2010-2012, I averaged 15,000 page views and 10,000 visitors/day. In recent years it's been around 500 page views/day, so about 3% of where I was at maximum blog. The nice thing about being this marginal is that I can easily respond to each comment/email.
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
>their fans follow them on that platform A percentage of their fans, and it can be a small percent. You see this phenomenon all the time on people leaving X to Bluesky they expect their audience to just follow them and the engagement to be comparable and when it just isn’t you see them either quietly come back or just cross post and pretend they’re not back.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  Network effects are real huh? Geez, who knew?
kurayashi 2y ago
I‘m not sure if this actually works. In 2019 the live streaming platform mixer tried this and payed several of the biggest streamers a lot of money for exclusive contracts. The userbase didn’t follow and the service was shut down a year later.
- glenstein 2y ago
  I don't think that was a specific repudiation of that model in particular, I think there's a bit more of a fundamental strategic misunderstanding from the people trying to make Mixer into a thing. To the extent that bringing big streamers onto the platform had an impact, it was a positive one I would say. But even with them there was too much inertia.

JKCalhoun 2y ago

The blog post (and your comment) presumes someone is a celebrity, has a kingdom. A lot of us are just busking on the street corners.

keiferski 2y ago
Not necessarily. I think it’s perfectly possible to be a random non-famous person that builds a following because they have insightful tweets/images/content. But the risk is that if you don’t give yourself a reasonably memorable publisher name, you won’t be able to transfer that audience to another platform, because no one is going to see your name and recognize it from elsewhere.
- bookofjoe 2y ago
  I'm an exemplar of the person you describe above. I started my blog on Typepad in 2004 and am in year 21, with things pretty much as they were in the beginning. When/if Typepad collapses (there are those who say it already has, since they stopped adding new customers in 2020 after being sold and posting is VERY janky and broken since then), I'll find a new home under the same brand name. Back in the day, around 2010-2012, I averaged 15,000 page views and 10,000 visitors/day. In recent years it's been around 500 page views/day, so about 3% of where I was at maximum blog. The nice thing about being this marginal is that I can easily respond to each comment/email.

whywhywhywhy 2y ago

>their fans follow them on that platform A percentage of their fans, and it can be a small percent. You see this phenomenon all the time on people leaving X to Bluesky they expect their audience to just follow them and the engagement to be comparable and when it just isn’t you see them either quietly come back or just cross post and pretend they’re not back.

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Network effects are real huh? Geez, who knew?

kurayashi 2y ago

I‘m not sure if this actually works. In 2019 the live streaming platform mixer tried this and payed several of the biggest streamers a lot of money for exclusive contracts. The userbase didn’t follow and the service was shut down a year later.

glenstein 2y ago
I don't think that was a specific repudiation of that model in particular, I think there's a bit more of a fundamental strategic misunderstanding from the people trying to make Mixer into a thing. To the extent that bringing big streamers onto the platform had an impact, it was a positive one I would say. But even with them there was too much inertia.