Is it normal to have
[2022-10-14 06:36:52 PM] : Is it normal to have a lot of trouble finding watering holes? Cause I'm still struggling with it! I feel like I've spent days trying to figure out places to go and it's kind of bust. I really narrowed my audience to women who are aspiring digital product creators. I've gone through a lot of the reddit platforms and there isn't really anything there. It seems like a lot of my audience asks questions behind a pay wall or it's just technical questions like what software to use and stuff like that. I know I mentioned this before but so many of these places are just for thinly vied self-promo. These folks aren't the types to really go to reddit at all so I don't get the fun lists. I went to the blogs but nobody really replies in comments of courses these days. Maybe that means I should pay to be in communities (signing up for courses)? I have a few questions and I did a ebomb but I am not sure how I can make the process work if I don't have reliable places to safari that have questions specifically from product creators. I would appreciate any tips or guidance. I'm wondering if I should make my own? I hate making facebook groups but I'm wondering if that's a good option.
1 Reply
[2022-10-14 07:27:43 PM] : From my experience, it was not too difficult to find watering holes. However, i made liberal use of synonyms and different kinds of platforms (e.g. not only Reddit, not only WWW but also instant messaging platforms, etc.).
It does take a lot of effort and time to review prospective watering holes and eliminate irrelevant ones.
I did not define my prospective audiences in terms of gender or disabilities (besides hearing impairment, which directly affects ability to textually transcribe auditory information.).
Paywalled watering holes may be relevant when one's target audience needs to discuss information, which they are supposed to keep confidential due to contractual or ethical obligations.
[2022-10-15 01:18:02 AM] : I've noticed comments on YouTube videos can be a good watering hole
[2022-10-15 04:38:49 AM] : Just a peer opinion, not an expert - but yeah the point about aiming it at women specifically jumps out. Do you believe there are challenges specific to women about digital product creation? Or would the problems that any digital product creator be applicable and safari-able?
[2022-10-15 04:40:02 AM] : Another opinion - I'd be cautious about signing up for paid course communities. This is a lovely community here, but I assume there are a lot of second-tier courses who have barely active communities, and wouldn't be value for money. if there's any way to check how active the community is before joining, that would help minimise that risk.
[2022-10-15 04:41:32 AM] : (plus a course community implies an active creator doing moderation, so you will have competition - not that this matters in the 30x500 approach, but someone will know what you're doing when you start to share your own content! :slightly_smiling_face:
[2022-10-15 05:12:23 AM] : About aiming at women:
It is notorious that women, who do business, do have their own challenges. However I do not see their challenges as specific to digital product creators. They can be women who belong to other categories of self-employment.
So, when trying to define the audience of women who are aspiring digital product creators and it seems to be too small and uninteresting (as measured by failure to find relevant active watering holes), one can extend it in the direction of self-employed women, or in the direction of digital product creators with less extra labels.
My own audience definition experiment went more or less as follows.
(I am writing from memory, so the actual story may differ.)
• Israelis who do realtime notetaking of meetings held remotely (via Zoom and its competitors) to make them accessible to deaf participants.
• Worldwide realtime notetakers of remote meetings (via Zoom and its competitors) to make them accessible to deaf participants.
• Businesses which provide value added support services to people and corporations, who use Zoom for their remote meetings.
Then I gave up, after seeing too many pains related to inability of people to fix a shortcoming in Zoom's platform without its cooperation.
I am still looking for another audience, which meets enough 30x500 criteria to allow me to be financially successful while serving it.
[2022-10-16 08:13:17 AM] : Rosie Barron where do you hang out online?
[2022-10-16 08:48:26 AM] : I'm very open to digital product creators of all genders but that's typically who I've attracted! I made my search pretty open and I think that generally only freelancers are in more open free spaces. -- maybe I should switch to freelancers?
[2022-10-16 08:48:31 AM] : thank you all!
[2022-10-16 05:15:43 PM] : I hang out on FB a lot - there are heaps of groups there about women in business.
[2022-10-18 09:04:36 AM] : Hi Rosie Barron, which ones do you like?