When I started writing on LinkedIn daily in October of 2023 I didn’t quite know why I wanted to do it, I just knew that I wanted to try something out and share things I found interesting within the film industry. Along the way, I figured out what I was most interested in talking about and I really learned why I wanted to do this and that was to grow a community, or a tribe as you may have heard me say in LinkedIn posts.

The film industry is a collaborative industry. Sure you can start alone with a camera and a microphone and then also be the actor. Eventually you need more people and you need people every time you make a film. Often times they aren’t all the same people you worked with the time before when you made your film, from shorts, commercials, music videos, it doesn’t just have to be a feature film.

That’s what I began to really appreciate and love about what I was doing on LinkedIn, I was growing a community of filmmakers, one thing I did not expect to happen was to also find more collaborators. One thing I wasn’t looking for but came my way that changed everything, was opportunities - but I’m not going to jump into that just yet, you’ll find a section below that talks a bit about that.

I first want to talk about the process and strategies to how I got to where I am today and then talk about the benefits that came along.

Last week I talked about WHY it’s important to grow your community, it’s a great supplemental read to this article.

How did it go and grow

I started posting daily on LinkedIn in October 2023. During the first month I was gaining on average 1-2 new followers a day. Pretty much nothing for writing EVERY single day for a month. November was a little better but slow, and December the same thing. By January, after 90 days is when I felt like it may not be worth the stumbling. 90 days writing every day and maybe gaining a total of 300 followers feels like the amount of effort put in his not worth the payoff. Then it starts to tip and change. 

2023

October: Avg. 1-2 new followers a day

November: Avg. 4 new followers a day

December: Avg. 5 new followers a day

2024

January: Avg. 10 new followers a day

February: Avg. 22 new followers a day

March: Avg. 35 new followers a day

April - October: Avg. 55 new followers a day.

From April to October of 2024 the numbers really went up and down because of the term many of us have heard thrown around about social media platforms, “the algorithm”. It’s a term I never really thought about or even considered until I started treating LinkedIn as a place to grow my community. In recent months something has changed on LinkedIn and that has affected growth & reach for every “creator”.

For example one day I could see 90 new followers and then the next day only 30. That spike and dip has been happening for the past few months now. No matter what though, it’s all growth.

In the course of a year I went from 1,000 followers when I started to now 15,000 followers.

If I do that for two years what happens? Does it double? Maybe even triple.

What about three years?

Now the goal isn’t to just gain followers but to build a community. With all of those numbers above I also have probably lost on average of 5 followers a day. At first that bothered me. Why don’t you like me! But then I realized that didn’t matter, because those people aren’t part of my community, and that’s okay. They are looking for the community they want to be with.

Every now and then I share things I am involved in or that my close collaborators are involved and so that I can drive a new audience to that item. Just like the Horror Movie Report.

Let’s dive into posts, impressions, and engagements.

I want to talk just briefly about what to take note of when you start on your own community & audience growing path.

Impressions which just means that is the number of times my post appeared on a screen. Over the course of a year my posts have appeared 2.6 million times on a screen. I like to think of this as awareness. Before you grow an audience or community you have to make them aware that you even exist. It’s not uncommon for someone to randomly see your posts pop up in their feed a couple of times before they decide to follow, or in essence become part of your audience. This is one of the big keys of constant sharing of content, to build continuous awareness.

Engagements on the other hand is how many times someone liked, commented, or reshared a post. This is actually interacting with the content. This is far more important than impressions because it shows people care enough about what you are making to leave an opinion on it, even if that opinion is just a like. Over the course of a year my content was engaged with 38,000 times. There is actually a drop in there because I deleted a post that was causing a lot of negative debate and decided to redo the post that would encourage more constructive debate.

The unexpected opportunities.

Now let’s talk about something I didn’t expect. I was not looking for opportunities or work. I was just looking for a way to share knowledge and just test out being a “content creator” with now business angle in mind.

However, when a handful of messages appeared in my inbox for big opportunities, I was completely blown away. I knew LinkedIn was the professional networking platform but I never experienced in such a real way. Also what I found interesting is that a couple of those opportunities I am working on right now were from people that never engaged with any of my content, meaning they never left a like, a comment, or a report. I say this because you never know who is actually seeing your content, this is why awareness is so important.

Every single thing I am working on at this moment is from opportunities that came my way on LinkedIn. I have to now say no to anything new because I have no time for anything else. Probably not the best strategy, its always good to leave a little time open in case something pops up.

This is really what I want you to take away from this. As a filmmaker you can grow your community and audience which is the first most important element, but then you never know who is looking at your content that could open doors to bigger things for you.

Newsletter

LinkedIn is wonderful, but I like to have a more direct way to connect with my true community, with my tribe. That’s where this newsletter comes in.

I use my newsletter as a direct way to connect with my community (YOU who are reading this right now) so that I can dive in even deeper into topics that I am passionate about BUT that I also believe will help you in your filmmaking career.

Below are just a few screenshots of stats, so I won’t dive into it too much. It’s just to show that growth no matter how slow is growth. That is what it is to build a community and audience around your work as a filmmaker.

Final thoughts

One of the things I have never really talked about on LinkedIn are the opportunities that have come my way from posting on LinkedIn, the reason I haven’t talked about it is because I’m more interested in sharing knowledge than anything else. Though from time to time I have talked about things I am working on and I am sure I will do more of that in the future.

There a few things I really enjoy doing which are podcasts because its a way for me to reach a new community. I’ve only been asked to appear on podcasts because of my sharing on LinkedIn…again, awareness.

I only sell one thing to my community and that is my template package. It’s not something I really advertise or market on LinkedIn because I really just want to provide value more than try to sell something. With that being said, I have sold about 30 of my template packages which has been nice, but the feedback I get has been amazing. So far everyone that has purchased it has been THRILLED by the content and of course the price.

There is more I plan to do, I want to make a course, I want to write a book (non fiction), I have mapped out the storyline for two fiction books. I have a community to share it all with and inside that community I have an audience that will be interested in what I create.

Thats the great thing about creating a community. Some people will be collaborators, some people will be opportunities, some people will be your audience, and most people just want to be a part of your community and enjoy consuming(reading/watching) what you share.

None of that happens without creating and sharing.

One last thing, I prefer speaking over writing, but I knew that if I wanted to make video content (which YouTube is next on my slate) then I need to get better at writing. The better you are at writing the better you become at conveying information. I believe that if you want to jump right into YouTube or video community building, then just take 90 days and write daily online only to hone your skills and also figure out what people most connect with in your writing, because that is what they will most connect with in your videos.

I would suggest going ahead and launching a newsletter. It doesn’t mean you have to share weekly like I do, it can just be a way to keep your audience up to date with things you are working on. Remember growth can be slow and it’s best to start now.

I use beehiiv as my newsletter platform and if you use my affiliate link you’ll receive a 30-day free trail and 20% OFF for 3 months.