Alex Llull: How an entrepreneur actively built his own audience for a profitable business

Transcript of episode 22

Hello, dear listeners, good morning! This is Matthias again, with another episode of the Audience Explorer. Today, I’m happy to have Alex Llull here from Spain. He’s a social media consultant, content creator and writer. And he helps creators and entrepreneurs to leverage social media content so that they can grow their business, their brand, their audience. And I’m so interested in how he does it.

So, Good morning, Alex. Nice to have you here!

Alex Llull:
Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Matthias:
That’s nice. So, to get into all of this audience building stuff that you do that your customers do. So, tell us a little bit about yourself and your backstory.

Alex:
Yeah. So, I’m Alex. As you said, I’m based in Spain. For the past four years, I’ve been working on advertising agencies. Basically, I was helping like other people build. Mostly, I was focused on the digital marketing side of it and on social media, especially. So, I was helping build brands on social, like content influencer marketing; all that kind of stuff. I’ve been doing that for four or five years.

And then when COVID came, I got fired basically because the agency couldn’t sustain the Spanish office that we had. So, we had one in Madrid and one in Barcelona. I used to be based in Madrid. And they just decided to close the office because the numbers didn’t add up anymore.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Alex:
So, at the same time, that was when I started creating content on Twitter as the main output. And then from there, I started sharing my thoughts around social media, like building all these things; everything that I did basically on my corporate job, I tried to switch it to my, let’s say, thought sharing and content creation.

And that led to people starting to reach out to me for freelance opportunities; interested to work with me. And little by little, that’s how I started growing the freelance business and my Twitter profile at the same time. So, basically right now, I am like a mix of creator/consultant, as you said.

Matthias:
Oh, okay.

Alex:
So, it’s a bit of both worlds. But it has been super fun and challenging at the same time. But it has been great.

Matthias:
What is it that you talk about to your clients when you say you are consulting with social media stuff? What typically are the topics you are talking with them?

Alex:
They usually come to me for various reasons; one of the first ones is that they usually don’t have enough time to implement content creation, like social media. They are aware that it’s a really interesting channel to be in, but at the same time, it requires a lot of time and content, too. So, they basically come to me for help on like on the strategic side, so they can optimize their efforts in that sense.

And also, some of them even ask for help on the content creation side of things. So, they look for a more complete package. So, there are those two things; strategic but also implementation.

I do a bit of both; I’m trying to move a bit away from the implementation side of it because, as I said, it’s super time-consuming.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Alex:
And I have more fun on the, let’s say, strategic side of things, but I like both. Anyways, those are the two main things that they ask for me

Matthias:
Strategy and implementation. What would you say are some good elements of a good social media strategy? How do I differentiate between the good and the bad strategy?

Alex:
Yeah. So, probably the first one should be, what are you trying to achieve with social media? Because if you are looking for followers or something like that is, I mean, it’s cool, but there should be like another goal after that. For example, some people are looking for more signups to their products. Or, for example, sign-ups is one thing. Sales on the backend, not like on the frontend, but on the backend.

Because, for example, establishing yourself as a thought leader, as people like to say, it’s easier to get sales on the backend; like people asking you for consultancy gigs, for example, in my case, or for other founders, it’s like investment rounds; stuff like that. Having a lot of followers, apparently is a good signal.

So, even if followers is not the most important, still for the majority of the audience, for a majority of the public, it means like when there is like ten thousand people following someone, it must mean something. Or at least that’s the thought process that people have.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Alex:
That’s the thing that they are looking to build mostly.

Matthias:
And the strategy, what would you say? What is a good strategy to do that? Or does it completely depend on the context?

Alex:
It really depends on the person also, too, and on the industry they are looking to grow. For example, I mostly work with startup people and marketing agencies; on that niche. So, basically, it’s a lot of thought leadership about getting your opinions out there and your thoughts out there in the most clear way. So, that’s basically one of the things.

One of the things that I always tell people that we should aim for is clarity and simplicity. Those are two really good things. Because nowadays, information is super-fast paced. People don’t have time to browse social media. I mean, they have time to browse social media, but if they don’t get hooked on the first four or five seconds, then it’s super difficult for them to engage and keep reading and so on.

So, I try to always prompt and help my clients get that; how can you say your message, but in the most simple and direct way possible and still be like a good message and insightful. So, I mean, it’s a tough balance to get, but once you get there, it’s like super effective.

Matthias:
That’s cool, so thought leadership would be one thing and clear messaging is the other thing. Two elements of a really good social media strategy. Yeah, thank you.

How did all of this get started? You said the agency was closing. You moved into your freelance role. How did you find the first people whom you were working for; your first people in your audience?

Alex:
So, it was fun because I wasn’t even looking for them. They came to me. And it was around the time that I had around a thousand followers, something like that. So, not even like a big, big, huge profile. It was just sharing the things that I was doing and sharing how I’m building an audience and so on. And one person reached out and said, “Okay, I want to scale my content creation. I need someone to help me with coming up with content ideas” and stuff like that. And that was all the Twitter DM.

We just jumped on a call. He asked me what he wanted to do. I made a proposal and that’s how it happens.

Matthias:
Wow.

Alex:
The thing was, he saw my content, he reached out to me, we had a call and from that call, I sent the proposal. He said, yes. And actually, I still work with that one person nowadays. So, 10 months later, he’s still a client, and we have a really good relationship.

Matthias:
That’s a good sign. When people come from their own point of view and with their own energy. So, you need not have to pull them, but they come to you.

Alex:
Exactly.

Matthias:
That’s a really good sign.

And how did you grow from there; from the first person to more people? How did that happen?

Alex:
Yeah. So, the next thing I did was like, okay, now I need to have like a personal website or something where people can really see what I can provide for them. So, I basically crafted like a quick one on notion, based on notion; on the tool. It’s quite easy to do. It’s no-code and everything. I suck at code; I don’t know how to code or anything, but I can move your blogs; that I can do.

So, basically, I did that. I put a post site on notion, and I put that on my Twitter profile. And I put like a booking thing. So, where people can book like 30 minutes with me for free. But it’s like a discovery call, let’s say. So, people can book it and see if they need my help or not.

So, we have a chat. They tell me what problem they have. I tell them what solutions I can bring, if any. And from there, I started getting more, more and more customers.

But the thing that I’m always super grateful – and I don’t even know exactly how I did it – is that they always come to me because of that funnel. So, basically, my content attracts people to my profile. When they take my profile, they check my website. When they take my website, they see that I offer this kind of service, and then we have the call. And from there they become or not clients. But that’s like more or less the way it works.

Matthias:
That’s how the funnel works. It looks so simple. It’s amazing.

Alex:
It’s simple, but it works. So, for me, it’s more than enough.

Matthias:
It’s amazing. I think that’s a consultants dream, right? When you have a steady incoming stream of new prospects who are interested. And not everyone becomes a customer, but I think the stream of prospects is really important.

Alex:
Yeah, that’s the thing. Because as you said, when they come, it’s because they are really interested. So, I’m not cold outreaching or anything. They are coming to me because they somehow trust my brand. So, it’s way easier also to sell to them because they already have the foot in the door. So, I just need to make it easy and clear for them, in that sense.

Matthias:
Interesting. And can you correlate any of your activities with the incoming stream? Is there any correlation at all? Sometimes I think when I do something, nothing happens. Another time I do something, oh, something happens. And I don’t know why something happens and why it’s not happening. So, can you describe some kind of correlation or isn’t there?

Alex:
Yeah, yeah. There is. Because I try to publish content daily. So, it’s mostly tweets, but every now and then I post the thread. And some threads do just okay, some threads do really bad. But sometimes, every now and then, there’s like a thread that goes crazy; that goes way beyond what’s my normal, let’s say, engagement numbers.

And when that happens, like the next day, I usually have like a few DMs or even like a few booking calls or something that people interested on the subject. So, I guess it’s a thing of they say, like, “Okay, this guy can do this kind of stuff. So, let’s see if he can do it for me.” I think this is more or less like the thought process that goes inside people’s heads.

So, it happens. I feel the uptick when a thread or like a tweet, mostly threads, go a bit viral. So, yeah, I would say that’s like the correlation.

Matthias:
And what made those threads go viral versus the other threads that didn’t go viral? What was the difference?

Alex:
Yeah. So, there is like a few things that every time that I made the thread to go viral, there are the same. The first thing is the hook. The first tweet, it needs to be like super good; like a really good hook. It’s usually a promise to the audience. So, for example, “Here are five things I learned while like spending one million dollars in marketing.”

Matthias:
Okay.

Matthias:
That’s a really good hook because you say like a million dollars? They say, “Okay, this is interesting” and now you get to read it. So, that first tweet needs to be like super, super good. And it’s the key to everything, basically. Because as we said before, the audience, the attention spans are super short. So, if I cannot capture them with the first tweet, they won’t even spend the effort that it takes to read the 10 tweets, which is not a big, of course, but for most of us, I think it’s super like, “Okay, this is not interesting. I’m not going to read” and just keep scrolling.

Matthias:
So, capturing their attention with a – you said with a promise. That’s interesting. You make some promise in the first tweet?

Alex:
Yeah, I try to have like a promise to the audience in the sense that you will learn five things that I learned while spending one million dollars, for example. I mean, that’s not that’s not my case. But if I read that, I know that, “Okay, this is super interesting. They’re promising me that I will learn from someone that spent one million dollars. That’s super interesting.” And that’s like a good value proposition for the audience.

Matthias:
That’s really interesting. I get that. Yeah, I catch myself, when I’m scrolling through my Twitter feed, I can watch myself seeing those promises from time to time, and I think, “Oh, this must be interesting. Yeah, that’s a good way to do it. Are there any other?”

Yeah, I saw you create this brand called the Twitter Thief. I find that very interesting; “stealing something from someone”. What is that about?

Alex:
So, that came from when I read the Steal like an Artist book. That’s a really good book about creativity and where ideas come from and stuff like that. And basically, the whole point of the book is that there is no original idea; everything is built upon previous ideas and so on, even if you are not aware of it. Everything you read, everything you consume all gets in your head, gets mixed and then it gets out. But it’s basically like a compound of other ideas.

So, I realized that when I started tweeting, I always try to be super original with my thoughts or at least, try to come up. So, I was just opening a blank page and try to write 10 tweets. And that’s like barely impossible for me; just come up with an idea.

But then I realized that when I had more ideas was when I was reading other people’s tweets. And not in the sense that I just copy/paste the tweet, but that reading one person’s tweet about marketing, for example, sparks like one idea in my head. And then it’s when I get to write a tweet or a thread.

So, that’s where the Twitter Thief came. It’s a bit of a mix of my process of stealing those ideas and converting them into tweets. So, that’s one thing.

And also, at the same time, the way that I got followers at the beginning – what I call stealing followers – but it’s really just going to someone who has a bigger audience, going to their profile. And when they post a tweet, you give a reply with the highest value you can give. So, in the sense that it complements their. And when you do that, it usually puts a lot of attention in yourself because you are leveraging that person’s attention and audience.

So, for example, if he has ten thousand followers, you post a valuable comment, and it gets a few likes, then the algorithm puts it at the top. And when someone else visits that tweet, they see your reply on the first tweet, and they check your profile, and they follow you because what you said makes sense. So, that’s the way of how you can get a lot of followers early on. And so, I call that stealing followers, but you can call it whatever you want.

But it made like a good sense on the branding of the stealing things; stealing ideas, stealing followers. So, those tactics that I used early on, on Twitter, I basically compiled them on an e-book called the Twitter Thief that I actually am looking to rewrite and expand because right now, I change to really be my methods, but the basics are the same. So, I want to expand on it, but basically that’s where the whole Twitter Thief thing come from.

Matthias:
So, that you turn that into an e-book. Is it already published or is it still in the works?

Alex:
Yeah, yeah. I actually published like one year ago or something like that.

Matthias:
Oh, okay. I have to buy that. I have to look into this because I always find it super fascinating what you can do to grow your audience, to expand your audience. And you said the Twitter algorithm puts your valuable tweets, if it gets some likes, higher?

Alex:
I mean, I don’t have like proof; like Twitter confirm this. But like when you take someone’s tweets, and you see the replies, it’s not like the likes were probably like the engagement that they get. So, if you get a lot of clicks, it probably gets put higher. And then if you go scroll down lower, you see tweets with no likes and no retweets. So, my intuition says that if your tweet gets a bit of engagement, especially if it’s early. So, if you post it, and you comment 10 minutes later, it’s cool. If you comment, probably like two days later is not going to get the same effect.

Matthias:
Interesting.

Alex:
But if you are fast and with value, it’s easier than your tweet gets shown above the others. And then when people come to three or four hours later, they see the main tweet. But the first reply or the second reply they see will be yours. So, you are like kind of stealing part of that person’s audience.

Matthias:
Interesting. Are you active on more than one social network or is Twitter your main network where you’re staying?

Alex:
For now, it’s just Twitter, but I would like to expand soon. I’m a big fan of first focusing on one platform; really squeezing the most that you can out of that platform and then start funneling part of that audience into the other platforms. But right now, it’s just Twitter. And I don’t think I’m yet at the point that I could afford to switch to other platforms because I barely can even keep up with Twitter right now because I have like a few projects going on and so on.

So, if I just start writing on LinkedIn, for example, that my attention will be even more focused, and for now, I think I will just stick to Twitter. But maybe next year, like sometime early next year, I can switch to somewhere else.

Matthias:
What do you see as the main differences between the different social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and so on?

Alex:
For me, the good thing about Twitter is that the organic reach is super easy to get impressions on your content because of the retweet system and so on. It’s super easy to like get a lot of impressions quick and fast. That’s not the case with Instagram, for example. Like, it’s super hard to get impressions on your content if you don’t have already an audience. Even if you have a bigger audience, it’s hard to get it. The impressions are not very high. Hashtags don’t really work that much. If you are not like a hashtag master, it’s super hard to make it work.

Another social platform that has really good organic reach is LinkedIn. Even if people on Twitter like to bash LinkedIn a lot. They don’t like LinkedIn that much. But from what I’ve seen, I mean, I’ve not experienced in my own flesh, but from what I’ve seen from other people that I follow and they have an active LinkedIn profile, the organic reach is there, and it’s really high.

The good thing about LinkedIn is that everyone that’s there probably like the profile. It’s better, for example, if you want to sell a course on something. You will get more sales from LinkedIn than Twitter because the people there are people who have a job or they are looking for this kind of growing their skills or whatever. So, maybe it’s easier to sell there. And I know a few people that do really, really, really well on LinkedIn.

Matthias:
Hmmm, interesting. Yeah, because who people are on LinkedIn are more of the professional side of the world, right?

Alex:
Yes.

Matthias:
They want to advance in that job. They want to go on with their career. So, for example, selling courses could help them to advance their career. Yeah. So, it’s always a matter of bias intention, right? I recently talked to Justin from Transistor, from the podcast hosting service. And he said first thing that you should do is study where there is real demand, real bias intent, and then go into a market, if you can feel it. Don’t try to create bias intent. It’s not happening.

Alex:
Yeah, I think that’s one mistake that I’ve even seen a lot of startups founders do. I mean, I’m not a startup founder, but I see a lot. I follow all of them. The main mistake is that they try to create new markets when it’s way easier to build on an existing market.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Alex:
I mean, they already have proof that the demand is there and everything. And creating a new market, if you hit the jackpot, I mean, you get to billionaire. But like 99 percent chances are that you are not going to hit the jackpot. Because for me, it’s super difficult to believe that if it doesn’t exist already, it’s probably because there is no demand for it. I mean, we are a lot of people in the world. So, if no one came up with an idea already, it’s difficult to think that you will be the one coming up with that idea.

Matthias:
That’s right. It’s so amazing when I see people creating and recreating stuff. For example, how many Kanban Boards, how many Task Boards are out there? There are gazillions. How many email auto responder systems are out there? People are still creating them. So, I always wonder if I was a startup founder, I would try to create something new, but maybe it’s not so good to create something new.

Alex:
Yeah, exactly. I think it’s more about how you execute those things and also what your expectations are. Because if you’re trying to build a billion-dollar company, then you need to look for the new thing, probably, and not build an existing market. But if you want to be like a small, but sustainable business, maybe you can build like an email client and make 20k a month, and that’s more than enough for you to live a comfortable life. Maybe you will not become like a super millionaire, but you will have like a really good life, probably.

Matthias:
Yeah.

Alex:
So, I think more people should probably lower their expectations of building a trillion-dollar company and maybe just build a million-dollar company, and that should be more than enough.

Matthias:
Yeah. Maybe even the 20k would give you a lot of confidence to go on and develop another product, for example, that would give you possibility.

Alex, when you think about your audience, these people who want to grow their audiences, can you think of some measure that you will take to grow this number of people for yourself?

Alex:
So, you mean like growing my own audience?

Matthias:
Yeah.

Alex:
So, basically, the recipe I have been following up until now, and the one that I will keep following, is just share everything that I learn and know for free, as much as I can. So, consistently sharing everything that I know. It’s basically what I’ve been doing up until now. It’s working. People like it. And also, especially when I mix it with my own personal experience.

So, sometimes you can tweet something a bit more general and people react to it, but it’s not the same that if I tweet something that comes from my own experience as a creator or as a consultant or something like that. So, that’s when it really works and people really like to see those kind of personal stories because everyone knows how to start a startup. You can just Google that. And there’s a bunch of resources, but people like to see these stories from you building that startup or from me or from the neighbor, not from general advice like, “Startups are cool.” You know, that’s general advice. But if you are more focused, and you can fit your own story there, then that’s when real growth and real audience affinity happens, which is like the thing that I’m after, actually.

Matthias:
Audience affinity. Yes, people like stories. People like real experience from you; hearing your story how you did it, not how everybody else did it.

Alex:
Exactly. For example, that happens to me when I share. Because at the beginning, I was a bit skeptical about sharing that I was fired, because that’s usually seen, probably, like a negative thing. You know, like when you get fire, people wonder why. It’s like you’re a {indistinct 24:27} worker, or you did something wrong. I mean, in my case, it wasn’t any of that. It was just that the company didn’t have any money.

But still, I was a bit afraid of sharing that I got fired. But with time, I realized that that’s like a huge story pillar on my own story. So, if I’m able to say, “I got fired. But after getting fired, I managed to build this freelance business and this audience on Twitter and this” whatever, then that story clicks with people. It’s not like, “I studied at Harvard MBA. My dad gave me a million dollars. And now I have a startup”, you know?

Matthias:
Yeah.

Alex:
I mean, I don’t want to call myself a hero, but it’s like what you can call like a hero story; like a hero origins story in the sense that you start from really low and then you start building something. So, those kinds of stories, they work on movies, they work on books. They also work in real life.

Matthias:
That’s right.

Alex:
And I’m pretty sure that almost everyone has that kind of story, maybe not getting fired, but you have something that – almost every person has like this thing that they can hone in. And if they can manage to find what that is and share it with their audience, then that’s when you will be like a real audience, I think.

Matthias:
That’s cool. It’s almost like this, yeah, you already said it; the hero story. Who was it, Aristotle or someone who got this concept?

Alex:
Yes, that comes from the ancient Greece or even before. That’s like basic storytelling 101, is that hero stories and how the hero grows and how the hero has the journey and so on. So, that’s basically what I’m trying to do with myself.

Matthias:
Cool. What do you think, if into the future; if you think one year into the future, what do you think would your own brand then be and your own job, then be?

Alex:
So, right now, I’m still like, even if I’m more or less like I started freelancing around one year ago right now. So, I’m still like on experimenting phase in the sense that I try to do a lot of different, in the same niche, but a bit different work and see what I really feel like doing.

For example, as I told you, I tried execution. I also do strategy. I like both, so I’m still trying to figure out what’s really the thing that I really like.

That’s on the one side. And then on the creator side, I released an e-book. Now, I’m working on a cohort-based course. So, that’s something that I don’t know if I will be doing in one year from now, but at least I want to try. I want to see how I feel. I want to see how people react to it. And if people really like it. Maybe people like it, but I don’t. So, I won’t keep doing it. Maybe I really enjoy it and people don’t. So, maybe I will have to rethink how I do it.

So, that’s basically how I see things now. So, it’s a bit difficult to predict what it will be one year from now, because I’m just, all the time, trying to experiment, all the time, trying to build different things.

That’s the fun part of being a bit free to do whatever you want is that you can touch a lot of things and just stick to whatever you want. Maybe in the future, I want to write a book, too, maybe not. Maybe start a podcast, too; that’s something that really interests me always. But I’m not sure if I will do it. So, that’s basically how it looks.

Matthias:
Wow. This cohort-based cause, are you still developing it or is it already out there?

Alex:
No, no. I’m actually working on it right now, because I’m I don’t know if you know the company, Maven.

Matthias:
No.

Alex:
So, it’s like a startup that’s basically focused on helping creators build cohort-based courses.

Matthias:
Ah, okay.

Alex:
They run like a few cohort-based courses on how to make a cohort-based course. And they select a few people. And they have live lessons and resources and so on. So, basically, you build the course as you go. And I’m basically in the middle of it as we speak.

So, basically, I’m building it, and maybe I will aim to launch it sometime like next month or something like that. It will be like super tight-knit, probably like ten, fifteen people tops. I want to try to have a really close experience; like really better. I will be trying a lot of things and it will be way cheaper than what you could probably price a cohort-based course, because I’ve seen crazy prices out there. So, at least, the beta cohort is not going to be like that expensive. And then if I like it and the experience is good, then I will try to do a few of those every year, maybe two or three, every year; something like that. So, that’s the plan for now.

Matthias:
Cool. Very cool.

Thanks a lot, Alex, for today. I have learned so much! It was so amazing to learn from all your strategies and tactics. Thank you!

Alex:
Yeah, thank you for having me!

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