NATHAN BAUGH: FROM JOBLESS TO MASTER STORYTELLER

Morning!

Over the last few weeks, I have been obsessing about how people build huge audiences online.

We live in an age where the economy is fueled by attention.

Those who are able to grasp it (and keep it) are slowly becoming the most in-demand people on the planet. Today I am breaking down one of the best to ever do it.

He’s got:

- 210,000 followers on Twitter.
- 40,000 followers on LinkedIn.
- 50,000 newsletter subscribers.

And you’re about to find out exactly how he “Grew Viral” (see what I did there.)

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Breaking Down The Strategy

For years, when I saw people with a huge presence online I would think that it was impossible to be them.

They’d all built billion-pound businesses, wrote a best-selling book, or just had their tech start-up acquired by Facebook (do we call them Meta now?)

Either way, it always felt like they were cheating.

They leveraged something that I don’t have, to get something I want to have.

But then I came across Nathan Baugh.

He had no billion-pound business, no tech start-up that had just been acquired, and no best-seller (at least not yet).

In fact, in 2019 Nathan Baugh didn’t have much at all:

- He had just graduated from Clemson
- Had 5,000 followers on Twitter
- And no one had any idea who he was

Today, Nathan has:

- An audience of 300,000 people
- An agency making $500,000 per year (according to this)
- And a reputation for being one of the best storytellers on the planet

What the fuck happened in 3 years to get him to where he is today?

That’s exactly what I wanted to know, so I got to researching, and his story was really something to behold…

2019: Graduates from Clemson
2020: Gets a job as a consultant for EY
2020: His wife wants to do her MBA in Europe
2021: Quit his job to go to Europe with his wife
2022: Went all in on himself

I had no excuses when it came to Nathan, no reason that I couldn’t emulate exactly what he’s done.

But how did he do it? How did become this storytelling sensation?

It all came down to 3 things:

- Creating his own category
- Giving first
- And of course… great storytelling

1) Creating his own category

When Nathan first started posting on Twitter he was posting about sports stories.

He would break down threads around athletes’ lives or particular interesting topics he had recently read about in sports.

The thread on the Refugee Olympic Team is a great example of his early work:

However, as time went on he realised that his curiosity was more in the storytelling rather than the sports.

At this point most people would have done one of two things:

- Stuck with what they were posting about and “grinded”
- Or panicked and made a huge pivot

Nathan did neither.

Instead, he just began talking about other types of stories and things he was curious about. He created a “category of one” as he puts it.

This genius mindset did 2 key things for Nathan:

- It made him renowned for one thing (storytelling)
- And it made him the “go-to” person when it came to that category

Plus, I’m sure it was much more sustainable writing about a topic he was actually interested in rather than pigeonholing himself into a specific niche.

2) Giving First

99% of people trying to build an audience online just start pumping out content and expect people to like and support it.

The other 1% like and support other people’s content before even thinking about posting.

That 1% win - and Nathan is one of them.

The below screenshot shows all of Nathan’s tweets (that I could find in 2020).

Notice how all of them are replies to other people’s tweets.

Yep, Nathan didn’t just join Twitter and expect support from people. He spent months supporting others, studying what they did, and kindling relationships with them.

But that wasn’t just in the early days, here is another screenshot from 2021:

And another one from 2022:

And one from 2023:

Okay, you get the point.

However, as much as this is “Giving first”. This engagement technique is also a cheeky little growth tactic that a lot of people use on Linkedin.

It’s essentially stealing people’s audiences.

Because what Nathan is really doing is:

1. Picking 10-20 top creators in the space

2. Dropping insightful comments when they tweet

3. Pushing thousands of the creators’ followers to his profile

Just look at that 2nd to last reply! 6000 views, 14 likes, and 3 retweets. You can bet that brought over a few followers.

3) Great storytelling

This is the home run hit in Nathan’s locker (yes that’s somewhat of a baseball reference - horrendous I know).

But seriously.

Forget the category creation, forget the engagement tactics, if there is anything that has got Nathan to where he is today…

It’s storytelling.

The one thing he does better than everyone else is capture your attention and keep you there.

There is no better example of that than his thread on The Last Dance.

He starts by creating this amazing cliffhanger that stirs up so much curiosity in just 3 lines.

He then sets the scene beautifully in his second tweet:

- Time
- Place
- Situation

He brings it all together, draws you in and boom, you’re hooked within 3 tweets.

It’s like the beginning of an actual fiction novel but wrapped up into a tweet thread.

True storytelling and that’s what has helped Nathan build such a large and loyal audience.

Bonus point

He also does an amazing job of documenting his personal journey which has really helped me personally become invested in his work.

In the below screenshots, you’ll virtually see his whole newsletter journey documented across 3 tweets.

All documented. All online.

Honestly though, if I was going to summarise how Nathan “Grew Viral” in one sentence, it would be this:

He wrote about what he liked, consistently, to a stupidly high quality.

It almost seems too simple.

It is.

The problem, however, is that simple is not always easy.

TL;DR

1) Create your own category
2) Start by giving
3) Write great stories

Right, that’s it for today.

I hope you enjoyed this breakdown, a tad different today - let me know what you thought!

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of how Nathan Baugh grew viral. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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