Get Out of the Fishbowl

I overheard an author friend talking about how weird author-to-author networking is, and how he was amazed at how much time so many authors sink into it.

It reminded me of all the ways I see people in my primary industry (financial advice) talking to others in the same world on social media.

Not that peer-to-peer networking is bad. It can be super useful and helpful in tons of ways. I am very much in favor of having a network of peers for this.

BUT.

They’re the fish in your fishbowl.

Those fish are your peers.

They are not your audience.

So if your goal is trying to get - in the case of the aforementioned author - new readers of your works, or return-readers of your work, you need to get out of the fishbowl level of thinking(!).

I’ll say it again: Your peers are not the same category as your audience.

That creates a way more interesting problem. It makes you ask: How do you get people to show up at the aquarium?

And, why do they show up in the first place? To see lots of fish. Not just you and your fish. The variety. The scale. The show.

And they pay a little something for it. And they in turn know there’s a cool place that collects and curates so many interesting fishbowls.

I think this is what the author friend was talking about.

He moved on in his comments to say he wanted to focus on his readers and community more, which - that’s aquarium thinking if I ever did hear it.

It’s a very safe feeling trap to only focus on the fish in your fishbowl. You all have the same wants, desires, and problems. You can learn a lot of lessons AND waste a lot of time if you only talk to those fish.

It’s a big world out there. Don’t let the glass distract you. Look out, look up.

I’ve caught myself on more than one occasion in a fish bowl. Social media is a very simple place to spot it. Look at who you’re interacting with and what they do.

If you’re trying to broadcast your message to an audience, you have to make sure you’re not narrowcasting to (only) your peers. Engagement algos don’t always help with this. You literally have to look for it.

In my case, I’m always looking at non-connections or subscribers or followers to gauge if a message is resonating beyond the fishbowl. When it comes to marketing, I’m building in anti-fellow fish logic wherever I can. It requires an extremely deliberate shift.

When I wrote about the 4% rule last week - it was a rare occurrence of when I was speaking at least partially at other advisors. However, even though it was modestly directed at the fishbowl, my focus was how or where I could push the conversation beyond the normal advisor friends I deal with.

I knew the idea had legs - because we tested it on a podcast that did numbers with a non-fish audience. The post was an experiment to link them all together. As comments and shares came in, watching new people join the conversation was proof we broke through to the broader aquarium, and out of the fishbowl.

I would have known if it was failing because the only commenters or sharers would have immediately felt (pun intended) chummy. If the audience didn’t make me go “I don’t know these people” I would have been completely in the fishbowl. The metaphor helps me think through it.

The fishbowl will always be comfortable.

But the work is in the aquarium.