Let Your Content Tell You How To Grow Your Audience

30-minutes per week studying your analytics will save you from publishing into the void.

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There’s never been a better time to be an independent creative. These days, we have tools that can show us what we're doing right and wrong that we didn't have before.

To seize this opportunity, you just have to become a bit of a data scientist.

I know, “just” feels like an oversimplification. But keep reading. I’ll make it as easy as possible for you. Even if you don’t have a PhD in computer science (like someone I know *cough*).

Getting a little more comfortable with data will prevent you from publishing into the void and help you grow an engaged audience.

This is what we’ll cover:

• what metrics are important,

• how to draw the right conclusions from analyzing them,

• how to validate your conclusions,

• how to improve your content and grow your audience based on data.

Data saves creators’ dreams (?!?)

Almost every day, I read a cry for help from someone who’s publishing into the void. I know what it feels like.

I tried to grow my profile on X in 2023. I poured hours every week into it. My best posts received just a few comments. I felt so stupid. (You can read about my failed experiment here)

It’s like swimming into quicksand. The disappointment drags you down until it suffocates your creative spark and you quit.

You can prevent this by:

• regularly looking at your analytics (without getting addicted),

• understanding what they say about your content,

• doubling down on what works and dropping what doesn’t.

And you can do this in about 30 minutes per week. Is it too much to stop publishing into the void and keep your dream alive?

The minimalist data-driven creator

The process looks like this:

• study your analytics,

• find what works and what doesn’t,

• make a hypothesis about why it happens,

• run experiments to test your hypotesis.

To keep the process short, focus on three categories, when looking at your analytics: views, engagement, conversions.

These three feed into each other, based on an annoyingly named, but apt, model: the funnel.

If you want to make a living from your content, you need conversions (aka email subscriptions and sales). These usually come from a small percentage of your most engaged followers. And these followers are only a small percentage of your total casual audience (people who consume your content at least once).

That’s why it’s called a funnel:

Keep this model in mind as we dive deep into what these categories mean and how they show you how to improve your content.

Views

This metric tells you how many times your content has been viewed, of course. For podcasts, you can replace views with downloads (but don’t get me started on how unreliable podcast analytics are…)

This is the least significant metric. All platforms count a user opening a page as a view. It doesn’t mean that the user consumed the content to the end, much less engage with it or take action. So, you can have tons of views but barely any subscription or sale.

I’m not saying “views don’t count”, though. Usually, much less than 10% of your audience engages with your content. So, with just a bunch of views every month, you won’t get substantial results (remember the funnel).

Views become less important once you’re getting a satisfying and reliable stream of subscriptions and sales.

Engagement

Engaged users are more important for your growth because they’re the ones who most probably convert. They also give you more feedback and often become evangelists.

But “engagement” is a bit of an overused buzzword. What does it actually describe?

Users who actually consume your content

Someone can click on your content but immediately bounce. They don’t even see how you can help them.

Others, instead, read your articles or watch your videos (almost) to the end. They get to know you and see your CTAs. Even if they don’t take action, they’re still more engaged than those who bounce after a few seconds.

Users who like your content

It’s too easy to click on the thumbs up icon. Many do it without even consuming your content, just because they are hooked by the title.

So, take this metric with a grain of salt. Only the outliers may be meaningful, posts getting a lot more or a lot fewer likes than your average. They may show something you should do more or less of.

Comments

Comments are almost the best kind of engagement. But they are not all created equal.

Quick appreciation comments like “Thanks” or “Nice article” are good for the spirit, but they don’t give you useful information. Rushed replies, showing that the author hasn’t consumed your content, are also useless. And, of course, we shouldn’t even mention trolls.

Valuable comments add something to the conversation. Questions, additions, personal experiences that support your content are the strongest evidence of engagement. They also give you the opportunity to build even more credibility by replying. And they can inspire new ideas for content.

Emails

Sometimes, very rarely, a follower will take the time to write an email inspired by something you published. When this happens, you hit the nail right on the head.

Use this opportunity to deepen the relationship. And maybe make a sale.

Conversions

Often, your content has a goal—to get the user to take an action, such as signing up for your email list, supporting a cause, or making a purchase.

Every action taken is a conversion.

Monitor your conversion rate, that is the percentage of users who convert. It’s the ultimate measure of the effectiveness of your efforts:

• if someone subscribes to your email list after reading an article, the article resonated,

• if someone buys or joins after reading an email, the relationship is ripe and the copy is effective.

Don’t be fooled by numbers

I see creators constantly celebrating absolute numbers: total subscribers, views, revenue…

They mean (almost) nothing.

Think about it. If you make 50 sales when you launch a course, congratulations! But if a million people received the launch email, the conversion rate is abysmal. Probably your product isn’t right for the audience. Or, if you get 5,000 views in a month but no one replies or subscribes, your content isn’t resonating.

It’s much more important to look at relative data:

• Trends. Your metrics need to be growing, or at least stay consistent.

• Percentages.

  • What percentage of your users consumes your content entirely?

  • What percentage engages with your content?

  • What is the conversion rate of your email subscribers?

  • What is the conversion rate of your customers and clients?

• Outliers. These are pieces of content that perform much better or much worse than your average.

These numbers give you the most bang for your buck. They allow you to get the most useful information to improve your strategy, without spending hours every week poring over your analytics.

Now, let’s turn observation into action…

What do you do with this data?

Your metrics are signals:

• when they’re positive, they show that you’re doing something right in your content and you should keep doing it,

• when they’re negative, they show that you’re doing something wrong and you should stop it.

But this is not an immediate translation. Here’s how to turn signals into insights.

Views

The most important factors affecting views are

• topic,

• title (aka headline or hook),

• visual packaging (the featured image, or the thumbnail),

• excerpt or description (when applicable, for example on your site and YouTube).

When you notice a strong positive or negative change in views, you need to investigate these aspects. For example, if a piece of content gets more views than usual, you might have found a topic that interests people more. If it’s a usual topic for you, probably you wrote a more attractive title, and so on.

Engagement

This is mainly influenced by:

• topic,

• content quality,

• explicit invitations to engage.

Some topics naturally have a stronger emotional pull. For example, it’s easier to get intense engagement if you talk about politics. But, of course, not everyone can make these topics part of their content calendar.

Measuring quality objectively is impossible. Essentially, if your content keeps the user to the end and provides useful and original information, engagement will happen organically.

Finally, there’s plenty of “engagement hacks” online. Like, for example, explicitly asking people to answer a question in the comments. These hacks can work, but quality and topic still dominate. It’s almost impossible to get good engagement when the content isn’t attractive.

Conversions

Three main factors affect conversions:

• engagement,

• offer,

• copy.

As I told you earlier, the more engaged followers are usually the ones who follow your calls to action. So, if your content isn’t converting, check if it has low engagement.

But your offer needs to be attractive in the first place. Is it something you think your audience needs, or did they already show interest for it?

If you know the offer is good but the conversions are low, check the copy. It must show you understand your audience’s problems, show the benefit of the offer and possibly connect with the content.

Donn your white coat

Almost done! You studied your analytics, you found something that works and something that doesn’t, you made an hypothesis on why it happens. It’s time to run some experiments.

Change something in your content to test your hypothesis. Apply it for a few weeks. Then go back to your analytics and evaluate the results.

For example, a couple years ago, my YouTube channel growth was stuck. I tried making a couple of videos about Notion, and they got many more views than average.

So, I created more tutorials about Notion, and views started growing again. Since then, Notion has become a recurring topic and we shifted the entire channel focus towards “productivity tools for businesses and freelancers”. Our email list started growing again, together with consulting inquiries! (More about this in this article)

I hope you’ll embrace this experimental mindset. It will help you grow your audience and save you from painful disappointments.

If you need more help, ask in the comments!

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