Why I Don't Believe in Growth Hacks (But I Do Believe in This..)

Story-driven authority the most.

Growth-hacks…

Those were the days…

I remember back in my Twitter (X) days in 2015, where I would see accounts skyrocket from 10 to 10k followers in a matter of hours. This same trend ran rampant on Instagram for a while, too. It seemed as if all you had to do was become a fitness model on Instagram and your following would blossom to 100k followers overnight.

I saw so many different accounts with thousands of followers, I felt like I started at negative twenty instead of zero.

But the more I wrote on those platforms, the more I noticed the secret sauce to those follower counts—growth-hacking…

Ahhh, that HAS to be it, right?

I saw it on Twitter (X) so many times that I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.

So I did it.

I reached my hand into the growth-hacking cookie jar, hoping to get a taste of the “influencer” lifestyle.

There were tons of growth-hacking experts on Twitter. So I found one and paid him to grow-hack my account. I struggled to break 400 followers at the time, and my frustration had reached a boiling point. I paid this guy about $500 per month to get me more followers on Twitter (X) AND more email subscribers on my old email list.

I felt AWESOME about my purchase. I was about to blow up and become the talk of Twitter Town. I was about to build a strong enough following to monetize my writing for eternity…

Or…that’s what I thought.

Long story short, the whole plan was a bust.

Sure, I grew to about 4k followers on Twitter (X) and got over 1700 email subscribers, but it all felt hollow. Every time I sent an email to my subscribers to gauge their interests, I received zero feedback. It shocked me. So I spent 6 weeks promoting a product I thought my audience would like (Twitter Templates on Gumroad) and took my shot in the dark.

Lo and behold, I made $40 after all of that promotion and growth-hacking.

I never felt so defeated in my writing career in that moment.

That moment taught me a crucial lesson about life as a writing expert:

Followers mean nothing without retention.

I don’t even like calling the people who support me “followers” anymore. They’re real people who value my work. Plus, I don’t want people who agree with any and everything I say. I love it when people challenge me on things I write.

It lets me know there aren’t a bunch of bots saying “yes” to everything I write.

Now, I’ve recovered from my growth-hacking disaster and built a solid group of supporters who are real people who love my content. And they don’t just love my content; they also buy and love what I offer.

So, how do you get that level of reader retention for yourself as an expert?

Use Story-Driven Authority to Increase Your Audience Retention

Here’s the thing.

I made my first big break as a writer ghostwriting for other experts, such as fitness gurus, life coaches, energy renewal specialists, and more.

What did they all have in common?

A lack of story-driven authority to monetize and scale their business. Heck, they barely knew how to write about their expertise in a palatable way for the general audience online.

I don’t need to tell you how crucial storytelling is for experts like yourself to master.

I mean, it’s so important that growth hacking is obsolete now. With AI in the picture now too, it’s super easy to growth hack these days without even paying someone like I did. People have grown tired of the growth-hacking pyramid schemes, and now they crave something more real and authentic.

With story-driven authority, you get:

• Realistic growth over time

• More reader retention and trust

• Better chances of monetization

What’s the main lesson in all of this?

Growth-hacking sucks, but storytelling doesn’t.

Storytelling is your one-way ticket to monetizing your skills in the most authentic way possible.

So please growth-hack like I did.

It’s wack :)