Ever heard of Dr. Andrew Huberman?
He’s a professor of neurobiology at Stanford. He also runs a successful podcast and a Twitter account.
Andrew’s been around for a while now, but he went viral a couple weeks back for a podcast episode where he discussed the dangers of drinking alcohol.
Why’d Andrew go viral? Because he presented a fresh, counter-narrative argument: Not only is alcohol unhealthy, but even what most people consider to be “moderate” drinking causes serious health problems.
There’s a pattern among people like Andrew Huberman, Lex Fridman, Tim Ferriss, and James Clear: They’re all professionals in complex fields who’ve gained broad mainstream appeal.
And they all rely on two principles:
- To hook people, lead with novelty. Most people bury their best insights midway through a Twitter thread or an essay. People like Andrew use their best ideas as their hook. They provide the biggest “wait, what?” moment upfront. And it works.
- To grow an audience, create thoughtful, long-form content, then distribute the highlights. Creating long-form content, increases your surface area for finding special insights. And distributing those special insights, like in this section of our newsletter, is how you get a larger audience to your long-form product.
Why it matters: Lots of marketers talk about “content,” but few use the two principles above to grow their audience.
These principles are common traits of popular content creators for a reason—they work!
Use them, and you’ll increase your chances of growing a loyal audience… and maybe revenue, too.