What’s more important in a personal brand - education or entertainment?
It's lightly edited but otherwise untouched. I've kept them on the site to show how the journey has evolved.
What's on the menu today:
- Is personality or education more important in a personal brand?
- A strategy for how to find copywriting clients on Twitter
- The best time to start writing threads (even if you have no followers)
Let’s dive in.
QUESTION 1
Yousef asked:
What’s more important in a personal brand: education, or entertainment? |
I used to think being a creator was about getting people results, but I was wrong.
Sure, actionable advice is important.
But the internet is full of people telling other people what to do. Which makes it incredibly hard to rise above the noise.
…Unless you change the game.
Which is where entertainment comes in.
Your success as a creator is directly related to your ability to hold attention.
Instead of trying to be 'better' than your competition, the easier way is to be 'different'.
You do this through:
- Quirks
- Humour
- Writing styles
- Bold points of view
- Recurrent themes in your content
This is called ‘world building’.
It's the reason people hang around.
So yes, teach your audience.
But make sure you entertain them too. Your business depends on it.
QUESTION 2
Abdullah asked:
Would you recommend any strategies for finding copywriting clients on Twitter? |
Let's start with the truth.
I failed at becoming a copywriter.
Partly because I worried no-one would pay me to write. But also because of a mistake I made when doing outreach.
I lacked specificity.
Trying 'to find copywriting clients' is like going to a football match and trying to find fans.
Yes, they're everywhere.
But what the hell do you do with that information?
(I went to my second match ever whilst on a stag in Hamburg last week. I couldn't even find my seat. I drank beer instead).
You need to narrow your focus if you want your search to be a success.
We do that in two ways.
- What you do
- Who it’s for
It might be you write ads, emails, content, or salespages.
Then pick a market. For ease sake, stay in the big 3:
- Health
- Wealth
- Relationships
So my friend, let’s say you write email copy for the health industry.
Good enough?
No way.
I’ll say what I say to my girlfriend during Massage Mondays.
Go deeper baby.
I want it to hurt.
Wait, sorry - the last bit was for me.
You need a clear avatar and a specific offer.
For example:
- Newsletters for crossfit gyms
- Welcome sequences for weight loss coaches
- Sales emails for protein food e-comm stores
This specificity creates authority and makes the search much easier - increasing your chances of finding clients by 97.9%.
And remember:
You’re not getting married to the niche.
Pick one, pivot later.
If you want help finding clients, I’d recommend Chris Orzechowski’s book. He covers everything you need to find clients, and it’s only $5 - so a pretty sound investment.
QUESTION 3
Joonas asked:
I saw someone saying you should steer away from writing threads until you’ve established an audience. What do you think? |
There’re factors at play that make thread writing both stupid and smart.
If you spend 2 hours on content no one sees, that’s stupid.
It's time you could’ve spent commenting on awesome creator’s stuff, like my tweets.
But this leads me to the counter-argument.
It’s only stupid if no one sees.
If you have a network who will share your content, threads work better.
Alternatively, you could buy retweets.
Now that’s against Twitter’s rules - but if you decide to be a bad boy or girl and break the law, please don’t pay someone with hundreds of thousands of followers who can’t get more than 200 likes per tweet.
Their audience ain't reading their shit.
They won't read yours either.
But here's what people don't discuss:
Asymmetrical bets.
The downside of writing a thread is small.
But if you do it right, there's a huge potential upside.
If you curate ideas of popular and famous people, there's a chance they'll share it.
That's potentially hundreds of followers in one fell swoop (or thousands - I've seen it happen).
The secret to this tactic is quality.
Don’t just gather threads.
Any monkey with Twemex can do that.
Instead, dive into their newsletter. Podcasts. Content.
Piece together their story.
And please, write it well.
I love when people curate my ideas. But I can't share it if it's the wrong information or littered with poor grammar.
So sure, you could avoid threads.
But personally?
I’d take the risk.
Kieran's Killer Resource of the Week
I've learned pretty much everything I know about personality-based writing through studying great email writers.
Recently, I stumbled across a guy I can't stop reading - Olly Richards.
He runs a $10 million/year education business, and his emails are funny, interesting, and incredibly useful.
A Quote for You...
“Trust cannot be copied. You can’t purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you’ll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world.”
- Kevin Kelly
Trust is the backbone of your business as a creator. People will trust you the more you help them. So if you’re not getting the results you want, keep putting in the reps. They’ll see you in a different light if you keep shining.
![Kieran Drew](/assets/kieran-avatar.png?v=cddfc38073)
About Kieran
Ex dentist, current writer, future Onlyfans star · Sharing what I learn about writing well, thinking clearly, and building an online business