Setup guide: creators, newsletter writers and podcasters

Who you are reaching

Two groups. The audience you want to reach, found through the bigger accounts they already follow. And the people you want something from: sponsors, guests, buyers of whatever you sell. Make them two audiences.

Audience 1: reach

• Their Job Titles: the roles your readers hold. If you write about sales, VP of Sales, Head of Sales, Account Executive. If you write about founders, Founder, CEO.
• Words to Watch For: your three or four recurring themes, as phrases.
• People to Skip: Creator, Influencer, Ghostwriter, Newsletter (as a title word), Content Strategist. Peers are not readers.
• Watchlist: the twenty biggest accounts in your niche. Being early and sharp in their comments is where new followers come from. Allen's "already buried" check skips posts with hundreds of comments, so it favors posts that are fresh.

Audience 2: sponsors, guests and buyers

• Their Job Titles: Head of Marketing, VP of Marketing, Partnerships Manager, Founder at companies that sponsor your category. For guests: the senior titles you want on the show.
• Words to Watch For: launch, sponsorship, partnership, new book, hiring (for sponsors expanding), plus your category.

Train Allen

Creators already have a voice, so give Allen five to eight real comments and strict rules: "never flatten my voice", "no hashtags", "never promote the newsletter or show", "short sentences". Goal: add insight. Length: short. The comment should be as good as the post.

Sample comments

On a big account posting a contrarian take about personal branding:

• Respectful pushback: "Half agree. The 'just be authentic' advice fails because most people's authentic self at work is cautious and boring. The ones who grow are authentic about one specific thing, repeatedly. That is a craft, not a personality."
• Add insight: "The piece people miss: consistency is not posting daily, it is being predictable about what you will say. Readers subscribe to a point of view they can anticipate."
• Ask a question: "Which came first for you, the audience or the opinion? Every creator I know with real reach had the opinion years before anyone listened."

Autopilot

Five a day, weekdays, both audiences plus the watchlist ticked. Posting hours in the morning, when your niche's big posts go out.

The first DM

To a sponsor who replied: "Thanks for the reply on the branding post. Separate from that, I write a weekly piece for about [number] [roles] and your team's work on [thing] would land with them. If a one-paragraph note on what a sponsorship looks like would be useful, say the word." Clear ask, no deck, easy no.