The Technium: 1,000 True Fans

I first read the original version of this in 2019 and enjoyed this updated take on the same concept.

Now here’s the thing; the big corporations, the intermediates, the commercial producers, are all under-equipped and ill suited to connect with these thousand true fans. They are institutionally unable to find and deliver niche audiences and consumers. That means the long tail is wide open to you, the creator. You’ll have your one-in-a-million true fans to yourself. And the tools for connecting keep getting better, including the recent innovations in social media. It has never been easier to gather 1,000 true fans around a creator, and never easier to keep them near.

If there is only one thing to take away from this to me it is to focus on the level of engagement. It is really easy with any project we do to get focused on growth, and get discouraged if we don't see that. What if the growth is in depth versus breadth? Might that be even better?

People love to highlight how many followers or subscribers they have. Those are the numbers that social platforms give you. When folks jump out of that caustic ecosystem they often feel lost in a blog with less engagement. The thing to focus on, is the quality of that engagement.