"What the cringe is going to bring me is something that I want more." How Liza Belmonte built a huge social media following.

How the Every Body Gets Dressed writer pushed through the cringe to build a devoted social following - and her advice on converting followers into newsletter subscribers.

In S3E2 we talk to Liza Belmonte.

Liza writes one of my favorite newsletters - Every Body Gets Dressed. (And she has a new newsletter, Not Yet a Woman, coming soon.)

I’m not alone in being a huge fan of Liza’s thoughtful take on sustainable fashion. She has:

⚡60,600 TikTok Followers
⚡45,000 Instagram Followers

Our convo covered how Liza built up such a devoted following, her advice on converting TikTok and Instagram followers into newsletter subscribers, and how she faces down cringe.

Check out the full interview on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. And, read on for Liza’s 5 brilliant tips for growing your social media audience.

Liza - thank you so much!

“Sometimes I get people messaging me and saying, ‘How did you do this?’ And they'll go away and shoot a video and send me the video - and ask me for feedback. And I keep thinking: The time that you spent writing this message, making that video, and waiting for me to reply - you should have been posting! Because no one knows how people are going to react and what the algorithm is going to pick up. So spend less time on content planning and more time just posting and iterating.”

“I cringe myself out to no end - every time I post a single piece of content! It's horrendous. I think when I started posting content on Instagram, it was probably the worst. I literally had a pit in my stomach. It was just horrid. But you need to get past it.

I remind myself that what the cringe is going to bring me is something that I want more. And that the cringe is worth it. Am I going to embarrass myself? Are my ex-colleagues going to see this? That sucks, whatever. But is that more important than what I'm trying to achieve with this? Absolutely not.”

“There is a hook that, once I found it, using that hook probably got me 75 percent of all the followers that I have on TikTok. And it was just a phrase - and it was so silly. I think it went something like this. ‘How do the best-dressed girls in the world spend less money on fashion, always look immaculate and consume more mindfully? I stalk them so you don't have to.’”

“I bet everything on TikTok. And it took me 18 months of posting multiple times daily to get to a 60,000-follower base there. It took me three months of posting twice or thrice weekly on Instagram to get to 40,000 followers. 

And, 65 percent of my paying subscribers come from Instagram, whereas only 10 percent of my paying subscribers come from TikTok  

There's so much debate online about - do you need to hone in on one platform, or the contrary, you need to try them all? I can't speak for everyone, but if you're a founder of a premium brand, a premium product, a premium service, if you have a digital product, if you have a newsletter - make sure that you learn and focus on the platforms that are going to benefit you. And in my case, that was Instagram.”

“If you're trying to create a community and create value: virality is not always your friend. What virality means, essentially, is that your video is getting shown to people outside of your audience - people who will never become your customers or your community members. If you're trying to sell a subscription or a product, educating your audience and creating value-driven content might be a better way to achieve your goals than just chasing the numbers.”

Find the full interview on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Content People is produced by Medbury, a social media agency that works with people and brands. Stop by our site.