"Grow a following on social" has become the go-to advice for most people who want to get in front of more people.

It's a risky game, and here's why.

You don't own the audience.

I was checking some stuff out on Facebook this AM after launching some new ads and saw this post.

55,000 followers, and this creator's relationship with them gone.

Poof. Just like that.

All that hard work for nothing.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be using social. It's an easy way to get in front of new peeps.

But it ain't the core of your relationship management.

You've got to move people from social - your rented audience - to your email list - your owned audience.

You own that relationship and it can't be stripped from you by Zuck or Musk.

The cool thing is that, when you have people in your owned audience you can incentivise them to help grow your rented audience.

I've written about this extensively in the past.

Ask people on your email list to engage with a social post and it boosts its reach - which adds mor epeople to your rented > owned funnel.

The problem a lot of people have is that there's this cold start issue.

They don't have an audience on either, so how can you get going?

Do you start with social? Or begin by building your email list.

If you build on social, how do you get people from there to your email list?

Personally, I like to start with the owned audience and work back from there.

Why?

Cause it's easier to monetise an owned audience.

I recommend you do the same.

And if you want to know how you can get your audience-building strategies off to a flying start WITHOUT having to post twice a day on social, join me when I chat to Adriana Tica next week.

She'll be running us through her method to grow an audience without using social.

And not just any audience, but an audience of people who are ready to buy so you don't have to wait around for months to see the cash rolling in.

It's an hour long workshop being held on Friday next week.

If you sign up but can't make it, don't worry as there'll be a recording I'll shoot over.

​Learn more about the workshop here.​

happy audience growth,

Pete "owned or nothing" Boyle