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Lesson 10: In the Internet Game you don't ask, you give!
Lesson of the Week:
The Internet Game: Give vs. Ask Ratio
Social Media is a lot like real life but taken to its extremes.
To succeed wildly on Social Media it's important to give way more than you ask.
But first, let's get into what is giving and what is asking?
Giving is adding value. According to Ed Latimore, there are three ways you can add value to other people:
Educate
Inspire
Entertain
Educating is giving. It is one of the simpler ways to add value because you're fixing problems and teaching someone to do a skill.
Inspiration is giving. Inspiration encourages someone to do something they aren't inclined to do. Chris was inspired to go to Hawaii after a friend told him about the amazing things he did there. You can inspire people in a lot of different ways. You can inspire them to take action and exercise; you can inspire them to start a business; you can inspire them to start something they would have never thought to do before they saw you succeed with it.
Entertainment is giving. We all value things that put a smile on our face, make us feel awe, or just grab our attention. Just look at how valuable companies that entertain us like Netflix and Disney are.
What's asking?
You can think of asking as anything that's not giving. That sounds ambiguous so let's get more concrete.
Asking ranges from asking people to buy a product to take some action, doing some research, and so on. Asking can also be talking about things you know nothing about. It can be talking about things you aspire to learn but have not learned yet. Why is that asking? Well, because you are asking your audience to do their research to determine if your statement is accurate.
That's why giving is when you truly know the thing you are talking about. And you genuinely want to give it away so others get something without expecting a return. Most people are reluctant to do this, but Social Media is just like real life taken to its extremes. The more you can give, the more you will succeed.
So what's a good ratio of Giving vs. Asking on Social Media?
After all, we all get on Social Media because WE want to get something out of it. But people on Social Media care very little about what you want and very much about what they need.
Gary Vee and Sahil Lavingia, two very successful Social Media entrepreneurs, will tell you that a good ratio of Giving vs. Asking is 20:1. That is, give twenty times before you ask for one thing. But, the better your relationship with your audience, the lower that ratio can be. This is why the newsletter has a different Give vs. Ask ratio than traditional Social Media. You can succeed at much lower ratios in a Newsletter because you already have high credibility with the people there.
That is, you can ask more frequently; the better you know your audience. So it's easier to ask in your newsletter than on Twitter.
If you want to learn more about these concepts and growing on Social Media, Daniel Vassallo's course on how to build a Twitter audience is the gold standard, and at $25, we highly recommend it as a baseline. It will help you even with newsletters because the concepts apply to all social channels.
Newsletter of the Week:
In For the Interested, Josh Spector shares five items every week. In the last two weeks, these are the 10 items he’s shared.
How To Get The Right Clients
A Master Class In Content Creation Systems
34 Ways To Make Money As A Creator
How To Overcome Your Fear And Make Authentic Video Content
10 Frameworks That Make It Easy To Write High-Converting Copy
How To Sell Without Feeling Fake
How To Define Your Niche
How Amanda Natividad Went From 1K to 60K Twitter Followers In A Year
8 Questions To Help You Get Clarity About Your Business
How To Sell Your Newsletter
Notice that six starts with “How,” obviously educating the reader. In fact, Josh uses “how” seventeen times in these two newsletters. Three other items are lists, which provide solutions, and the tenth is a “Master Class.” Every single item Josh shares is Giving.
In the two newsletters, Josh had one Ask, which was to subscribe to his new podcast. And if you’re a regular subscriber who loves his content, you might not even consider that an Ask; you might think it’s another Give!
Tip of the Week:
Differentiate your newsletter by having an emoji in the Subject Line! Sometimes it’s hard to stand out in an inbox; a colorful emoji is an easy way to catch someone’s eye.