The School of Thought Newsletter

Make money with your mind, not your time.

This strategy got Sahil Bloom 1,000,000 Followers

I’ve been a Sahil Bloom fan since I had less than 1,000 followers.

His ability to create insightful content with high viral potential is inspiring.

Not only is he a top tier content writer but he also seems like an incredible human.

The cute pictures with his family never fail to light up my day.

I aspire to be a family man like him one day.

But that’s not what we’re talking about today…

After 2 years of research and hundreds of failures, I have a theory as to how he got to 1M followers in a few short years.

Sahil might say otherwise, but regardless, this strategy is what I’m using to get my first 100,000 followers.

It doesn’t matter if you have 10 followers, 1,000, or 10,000 I promise you this strategy will get you to 100,000 as fast as possible…

1) Use Top of Funnel Content To Gain Followers

Sahil Bloom is the king of top of funnel marketing.

Top of funnel = content that applies to your niche’s broadest possible sphere of influence.

In other words, content that applies to a lot of people.

❖ Life advice
❖ Writing tips
❖ Health advice
❖ Exercising content
❖ Productivity and focus

The list goes on.

These topics work for growth because they have a high degree of viral potential.

The more people that find your content relevant, the more viral potential your content has.

The more people that find your content relevant, the more potential followers you have to attract.

It’s hard to grow writing niche, VC funding content because only a small handful of people care to read and share it.

With life advice content the opposite is true.

Sahil is king here because almost everything he writes is ‘universal.’

It applies to ‘everyone’ while also signalling that he values a high agency elite lifestyle.

So how does this relate to you?

First, get good at creating persuasive top of funnel content with broad appeal.

To do this effectively, borrow a tip from Dan Koe…

2) There Are No Low Quality Followers

When I first heard this tip, I rejected it.

I’d been sharing writing tips for a year and was growing at a moderate rate.

If I was growing, how could this advice be true?

Well, I hired Dan as a mentor. And all it took was a 60 minute call to realize I had been creating content wrong the entire time…

At my ghostwriting agency, almost all our clients have unrealistic expectations.

They want fast growth from hyper niche content - tech, VC, sales advice, etc…

The problem?

Growth comes from top of funnel with broad appeal.

⇢ Write about sales, you only apply to sales people.
⇢ Write about tech, you only apply to tech enthusiasts.
⇢ Write about VC, you only apply to venture capitalists.

This led to my big ‘red pill’ moment.

Actionable ‘how to’ content often leads to slow growth.

It builds authority but only applies to a small group of people.

I spent an entire year sharing actionable writing tips.

Not realizing, I was growing slow because my content only applied to writers!

Now, I know what you’re thinking….

… “But Taylin, sharing writing tips positions you as an authority in your niche.”

Yes, it does.

But posting only writing tips comes at a critical expense…

… No top of funnel growth.

Sure, you could do both. But you still won’t grow as fast as someone like Dan.

Which leads us back to the advice he shared with me…

To grow fast, post primarily top of funnel content.

People who don’t understand content marketing will tell you that you’re attracting low quality followers.

In reality, low quality followers are just followers you haven’t turned into buyers yet.

This is why Dan’s advice is so brilliant…

… By consistently sharing ‘why’ someone should do something, you’re slowly persuading them towards seeking your actionable advice.

But that advice isn’t on the timelines.

It’s in your newsletters and digital products.

The point isn’t to create no actionable content. It’s to save your actionable content for longer formats.

Create your future customers by doing this consistently over long time horizons.

Need an example?

Here’s an actionable writing tip from me that only appeals to writers:

The engagement for an account of my size at the time - around 50,000 followers - is terrible.

Compare that to Dan’s tweet about ‘why’ his audience should start writing:

His engagement is 5x!

He’s indoctrinating his audience into adopting the belief that writing will change their life.

Overtime, a % of his audience will trust him enough to start writing.

When that happens, who do you think they will ask for advice?

Dan!

He gets the credit of introducing them to a life changing skill.

And helping them learn that skill with his digital info product - the 2 hour writer.

This is genius marketing.

Creators like Dan and Sahil understand this concept well.

But how does this apply to you?

1. Create top of funnel content that applies to your niche’s broadest sphere of influence

2. Funnel your audience to a newsletter or YouTube channel where you share actionable advice

3. Offer qualified prospects your systems in the form of digital products

❖ Top of funnel = why you should write (Ideological change - you’re starting to change their mind)

❖ Middle of funnel = how to write (Behavior change - now they’re starting to write)

❖ Bottom of funnel = a system that will teach you to write (Identity change - they see themselves as writers)

This leads to dollar exchange - now they’re paying you to learn how to write better.

Do this and your following will grow fast without you sacrificing authority or money along the way.

You don’t have to be an amazing writer to do this.

Be consistent.

Seek to improve 1% daily.

3) How to Get Your First Viral Post

Follow steps 1 and 2 of this guide, your contents quality will be better than 99% of content creators.

Not joking.

Most writers on X don’t know how to crack the growth formula.

That’s why so many of them are moving to LinkedIn.

But if you’re paying close attention, you’ll notice I only gave you half of my viral growth formula.

What’s the other half?

You can write the best content in the world.

But if no one sees it, you’ll never grow.

To crack giga viral growth, you still need distribution…

Pay for Distribution

A lot of people hate the idea of paying for shares.

Which is why they never grow.

The cold hard truth is that almost all top creators on X grew by paying for shares.

“But Taylin, isn’t paying for shares the same as paying for fake engagement?”

No, it’s not. Not even close.

Paying for shares is no different than Wal-Mart sending you a flyer in the mail.

They pay to get your eyes on their promotions.

Then you decide whether to buy them or not.

Social media content is no different…

Paying for shares is not paying for engagement, it’s paying for impressions.

Without high quality content, those impressions won’t get you any followers.

To put this into perspective, I once had a ghostwriting client who wanted 1000s of dollars per month put towards distribution.

With the same spend:

Some threads got 20k+ likes.

Others got under 500.

What was the difference?

Quality.

Whether you’re paying to get eyes on it or not, you still need to create content that makes people want to follow you.

Find a few ‘statue’, ‘anon’ accounts, or theme pages that are adjacent to your brand.
↳ Make sure they have similar followers to the audience you aim to attract.

Pay them to share your long form content.

Don’t let them trick you into paying for shares on short form content.

It’s a waste of money; It rarely converts to followers.

“But Taylin, these theme pages have low engagement and low quality followers. Won’t this strategy lead to low quality followers?”

No it won’t.

A low quality follower is a follower who hasn’t been nurtured into a buyer yet.

Use shares from these accounts to get your first 10,000 followers.

While nurturing your audience with ‘why’ content along the way.

Soon enough, you’ll have the influence to play in the big leagues with other top creators.

But what are these big leagues I’m talking about?

Well, it involves faster growth than you can even imagine.

And going viral for free…

4) Connect with Thought Leaders

Cross around 10,000 followers, and other accounts around your size will trade shares with you.

This will lead to insane follower growth without the need to pay for shares from other accounts.

Not to mention, you’ll attract high quality followers sooner.

There’s even an added bonus…

… The follower difference between you and other top accounts doesn’t matter much.

Not sure what I mean?

An account with 10,000 followers won’t trade with a 500 follower account.

But an account with 25,000 followers will trade with a 10,000 follower account.

They both have big enough audiences that the trade feels mutually beneficial.

So the bigger you get, the easier it is to get free distribution on your content.

This makes growth easier overtime due to free distribution and an increase in your organic reach.

If it takes you 1 year to get 10,000 followers, so what?

It might only take you 3 months to get your next 10,000.

Growth isn’t linear, it’s exponential.

Never lose sight of this bigger picture.

Play the long game.

Now back to Sahil…

I believe he was able to grow so fast because he has a growth network of influential friends who shared all his content.

His network saw the quality of his content.

And couldn’t help but share it.

You can try this strategy too…

You don’t even need that many ‘big accounts’ to share your content.

Seriously, 3 to 5 big accounts is all you need.

Whenever a big account shares your content, it accomplishes a few things:

❖ Provides social proof - audiences see credible people supporting the content

❖ Gives you an initial engagement boost - likes, retweets, and comments act as social proof

❖ You reach critical mass - you have enough initial impressions for a piece of great content to go viral

So what should you do?

Expand your ‘thought leader’ network one influential creator at a time.

As more influential creators support you, it becomes easier to network with others.

My account experienced rapid growth when Dakota Robertson shouted me out.

This got me followed by Dan Koe, Dan Go, and Alex Finn (NFT God).

I call this phenomenon “being lifted up.”

Where your perceived influence increases when influential people support you in public.

The same is true for Chris Williamson who hosts the Modern Wisdom podcast.

His podcast started really growing exponentially once Jordan Peterson shouted it out.

(This got me interested enough to check it out. Now I’m a super fan).

Starting to see the bigger picture yet?

I hope so.

Follow these steps you’ll grow faster than 99% of people on X or LinkedIn.

But make sure you understand this last step or else your growth may stop after 3 or so months…

Author Seth Godin keenly identified the 6 types of consumers.

All with varying degrees of consumer behavior when buying products.

Turns out, this model also applies to growing on social media.

The Innovator Adoption Lifecycle:

Godin explains that only 2.5% of the population are early adopters.

They’re the hipsters who adopt the newest ideas, technology, and fashion trends.

A new brand, influencer, or technology only gets adopted by the masses after enough innovators and early adopters support it.

How does this apply to you?

If you’re still a relatively small account:

Only around 2.5% of another creator’s audience will follow you from a retweet - the innovators.

Put simply, when you trade retweets with another creator, you’re only going to attract 2.5% of their audience.

As you grow:

You’ll begin to convert that extra 13.5% of another creator’s audience - the early adopters.

This number grows as you get bigger, because innovators will have exposed you to early adopters, and so on.

This is part of the reason growth is exponential.

But here’s the important part:

After 2-3 months, the retweets don’t lead to many new followers because you’ve converted most of those creators’ innovators and/or early adopters.

See the point yet?

I made this mistake in 2023, leading to stagnant growth for around 3 months.

All because I kept trading with the same people.

To avoid this growth trap, trade with different groups of people every 3 or so months.

Tell them the reason you aren’t trading with them anymore.

They’ll understand and appreciate it. Since their growth will benefit as well.

Give it a good 6 to 9 months.

Once you’ve both grown, you can start trading again to get the same exponential growth benefits.

Overtime, you’ll attract all the early adopters from multiple influential creators audiences.

This will give you the power to attract more traffic organically without trading at all.

According to Dan Koe, this happens around 200,000 followers on Twitter.

There you have it.

I firmly believe Sahil used some form of this strategy to hit 1M followers.

Repeat this process for not just months, but years.

I mean 3 to 5 years.

Your content quality will improve.

You will grow faster than almost every account on Twitter or LinkedIn.

It’s only a matter of time until you hit your first 100,000 followers.

I’ll race you there…

See you in the next issue,

-Taylin John Simmonds

PS. There’s more “goodies” below ;)

Oh. Are you still hungry?

If your mouth is salivating for more goodies, check out these free courses and cheat sheets (more coming soon):

❖ The Ultimate Content Creation Hub ($999 But You Get It for Free)

❖ The viral hook writing cheat sheets I use to get millions of likes and impressions

❖ My free video course on how to make $10,000 / month with high ticket services (less than 2 hours to complete)