The most common advice for building an audience is “just be yourself.”
This is terrible advice.
Sarah spent 6 months testing it. Posted every real struggle. Every unfiltered opinion. Every messy process photo. The vulnerability everyone said algorithms reward.
Result: 247 followers (64 were bots), zero client inquiries, one LinkedIn message asking if she was okay.
Next 3 months, she changed approach. Started building an audience through strategic authenticity – curated struggles, tested takes, scheduled posts that looked spontaneous.
Result: 847 followers, 2 client inquiries worth $18K combined, newsletter with 156 subscribers.
Same person. Different performance. That’s what building an audience actually requires.
The “Just Be Yourself” Lie
The most common advice for building an audience is “be authentic” or “just be yourself.”
This is the social media equivalent of “just make good work” – technically true, completely useless, ignoring how anything actually works.
Sarah’s first 6 months proved it doesn’t work:
Month 1-2: Posted real struggles as they happened. “Client just rejected 3 weeks of work because they ‘changed their mind about the direction.’” Posted at 11pm when it happened. 3 sympathy comments.
Month 3-4: Shared unfiltered design opinions. “Most SaaS dashboards are just database pukes with rounded corners.” Posted because she believed it. 7 defensive replies from people whose dashboards she’d just insulted.
Month 5-6: Vulnerable about imposter syndrome. “Sometimes I Google ‘how to make a button’ and panic that I’m a fraud.” Posted mid-panic-attack. Zero engagement. Later realized people thought she was genuinely incompetent.
All authentic. All real. All terrible for building an audience.
What She Changed (And Why It Worked)
Month 7, Sarah started treating social media marketing like a design problem instead of a diary.
Changed: Share struggles after solving them, not during.
“That client rejection from 3 weeks ago taught me to ask one question in discovery: ‘What would make you change your mind after we start?’ Post at 9am Tuesday when people are actually online, not 11pm when it happened.
Result: 47 shares. 12 DMs asking about her discovery process.
Changed: Test controversial takes with 3 designer friends first.
“Most dashboards are database pukes” became “Why your dashboard confuses users: you’re showing data schema, not user tasks.” Still critical, now constructive. Posted after confirming it wasn’t just her opinion. Same product design principles – test before shipping.
Result: 134 likes. 8 people tagged their PMs (not defensively).
Changed: Vulnerability with context and resolution.
“I Googled button basics yesterday – but that’s because design foundations compound. The basics still matter when solving complex problems.” Posted after processing the panic, not during.
Result: 23 comments from designers sharing similar experiences. Positioned as experienced, not incompetent.
Same core truth. Different framing. Building an audience through strategic authenticity instead of unfiltered chaos.
The Performance Nobody Admits
Here’s what building an audience actually looks like when you’re honest about the process:
The “Spontaneous” Post That Took 2 Hours
Sarah’s most successful post: “Quick thought on design systems…”
What actually happened:
- Monday 3pm: Had the insight
- Monday 3:15pm: Wrote draft
- Monday 4pm: Rewrote to sound less preachy
- Monday 4:30pm: Tested with design partner
- Monday 5pm: Rewrote again based on feedback
- Tuesday 9am: Posted “just had this thought”
Total time: 2 hours and 45 minutes for a “quick thought.”
The “Messy Desk” That Was Carefully Staged
Sarah’s behind-the-scenes desk photo looked authentic. Notebooks scattered, coffee cup, Post-its everywhere.
What she didn’t mention: Spent 10 minutes arranging it. Moved the pile of unopened mail. Angled the coffee cup (clean, not the one with mold ring). Made sure Post-its were readable but not revealing client names.
Relatable messy. Not “I found a sandwich from March” messy.
The Contrarian Take She Tested First
“Stop doing daily standups – they’re design theater” looked bold.
Reality: Discussed it with 3 designer friends first. All agreed. Knew it wasn’t actually controversial in their circles. Performing boldness while minimizing risk.
Still valuable. Still true. Just not spontaneous.
This is building an audience through design thinking applied to content – understanding your audience’s needs, testing before shipping, iterating based on feedback. Like any good UX design process.
What Actually Grows Audiences (The Numbers)
Let’s compare Sarah’s two approaches with actual data:
6 Months “Authentic” (Unfiltered):
- 247 total followers
- Average engagement: 8 likes per post
- Posts created: 73 (whenever inspired)
- Time spent: ~90 hours total
- Client inquiries: 0
- Followers per hour: 2.7
3 Months “Strategic” (Curated):
- 847 total followers (600 net new)
- Average engagement: 34 likes per post
- Posts created: 36 (Tuesday/Thursday schedule)
- Time spent: ~72 hours total
- Client inquiries: 2 ($18K combined value)
- Followers per hour: 8.3
3x better results in less time. Not because she was more authentic. Because she was more strategic about which authentic parts to share.
What specifically worked for building an audience:
Consistency beat spontaneity: Posting every Tuesday/Thursday at 9am with moderately useful content > brilliant insights whenever inspiration struck.
Useful beat vulnerable: “How to fix your Figma workflow” post: 127 shares. “My imposter syndrome struggles” post: 4 pity likes.
Familiar beat revolutionary: “5 UX principles” format > genuinely novel take on interaction design. People share what they understand, not what challenges them.
This is why design content that goes viral feels samey. Before/afters. Common mistakes. Numbered lists. It’s useful, familiar, easy to consume. Building an audience requires giving people what they want, not what you want to say.
The Calibration Problem (How Much Personality)
Building an audience requires enough personality to be memorable, but not so much that you alienate followers.
Sarah’s calibration lessons:
Too little personality (Month 2): Posted generic design tips. “Use white space effectively.” “Consider user needs.” Result: Forgettable. Just another designer posting same takes as everyone else.
Too much personality (Month 4): Posted stream-of-consciousness rants. Strong opinions on everything. Funny to her, off-putting to 70% of her target audience. Result: Interesting to some, repelling others. Built small devoted audience, but growth stalled.
Calibrated personality (Month 8): Professional but approachable. Opinionated but not combative. Showing enough personality to have distinct voice, calibrated to audience expectations. Like good UI/UX design – intentional choices about what to emphasize.
Result: Steady growth. People knew what to expect without being bored.
Like designing for different platforms – same core skills, different context requirements. LinkedIn gets professional-but-approachable Sarah. Twitter gets opinionated-but-constructive Sarah. Same person, different emphasis.
The Compromises You’ll Make (And Won’t Admit at Conferences)
Here are specific compromises Sarah made when building an audience, then conveniently forgot when asked “how do you stay authentic online?”
Simplified opinions into clickable takes: Real view: “Design systems work well for teams with 3+ designers, established patterns, and technical buy-in. Otherwise they create overhead.”
Posted version: “Stop building design systems for 2-person teams. You’re creating bureaucracy, not efficiency.”
Bolder claim than she’d make in person. But nuance doesn’t perform.
Performed confidence she didn’t feel: Shared “lessons learned” from projects where she still wasn’t sure what the lesson was. Presented experiments as insights. Because people follow confident voices.
Like those UX design skills everyone claims to have mastered – performing expertise while still Googling basic shit.
Recycled content she was bored of: Found a format that worked: “Before/after redesign breakdowns.” Returned to it repeatedly. Long after personally sick of it. Because building an audience means giving audiences what they respond to, not what interests you.
Drafted 3 versions this month while dying inside.
Timed posts strategically, never spontaneously: Had genuinely insightful moment at 11pm Friday. Saved it for Tuesday 9am because that’s when engagement is highest.
Authenticity scheduled for maximum algorithmic impact.
Engaged with people whose work bored her: Commented “Great insight!” on painfully obvious takes. Shared mediocre work because they had 10K followers.
It’s networking, but everyone calls it community.
Since I’m apparently giving tactical advice in a post about how tactical advice is performative:
Share struggles after you’ve solved them. Not while you’re in them. People want to learn from your experience, not become your therapist.
Sarah’s rule: 2-week minimum between problem and post. Gives enough distance to extract useful lessons.
Share opinions you’re willing to defend. If you can’t handle pushback, don’t post the take. Social media rewards boldness but punishes backing down.
Share process, not just outcomes. People want to see how you work, not just what you made. This is where genuine authenticity actually helps building an audience.
Don’t share anything you’ll regret in a job interview. Even “authentic” content has professional consequences. If you wouldn’t say it in a client meeting, think twice about posting it.
Share enough personality to be memorable, not so much that you’re a liability. This varies by industry. If you’re constantly worried about whether you shared too much, you probably did.
Why This Is Harder for Designers
Designers are especially bad at performed authenticity because we’re trained to hate fakeness.
We spend careers arguing against buttons that do nothing and marketing websites that lie. We value genuine solutions over superficial polish.
So performing authenticity feels like becoming the thing we critique. Design theater instead of design thinking.
But here’s the reframe: Strategic authenticity isn’t lying. It’s editing.
It’s showing the parts of yourself that serve your audience, not just the parts you feel like sharing. Like your UX design work prioritizes user needs over your personal preferences.
That’s not dishonest. That’s professional.
The Actual Recommendation
Sarah’s not “just being herself” anymore. She’s performing a version of herself that’s useful, relatable, and consistent enough to follow.
That performance is still genuine. It represents her real values, opinions, and expertise. But it’s curated. Strategic. Calculated to serve both her goals and her audience’s needs.
The designers who succeed at building an audience aren’t the most authentic ones. They’re the ones who figured out which authentic parts to show, when to show them, and how to package them for maximum impact.
Sarah’s 6 months of unfiltered authenticity: 247 followers, zero clients.
Her 3 months of strategic authenticity: 847 followers, $18K in client work.
Same person. Different understanding of what building an audience actually requires.
It’s not selling out. It’s understanding how platforms work and using that knowledge intentionally.
The performance that works is the one that looks least like performance.