Building Authority Without Chasing Virality
Chasing virality is killing creators
You’ve just posted something brilliant. It flops.
Meanwhile, someone’s dancing with a questionable outfit across the screen — and they go viral.
Why does it always feel like depth loses to drama?
Most creators wrongly believe they need virality to become a respected name. They take the fast and easy path to becoming an authority in their niche. On the other hand, successful creators focus on building trust, staying consistent, and creating strategic organic content.
Everybody wants their 15s of fame without realizing the great potential is wasted.
🔍 The Myth of Virality
The concept of going viral is the best strategy, might be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, lies of our generation. Period.
First of all, it is not natural. If you were a new creator, how would you feel if one day you had to talk in front of 3000 people when your channel only has 20 subscribers? It would be too much, right? By constantly chasing trends, people can’t tell what your brand actually stands for:
What’s your niche?
You are not serious.
You can’t formulate your own analysis and opinions.
Second, it might get you a lot of followers. You can one day go from 100 to 3k subs. However, if you’re a serious creator, you might get new subscribers interested in the trend and not the content you create. You can get the right people to watch your content, but also get a ton of random new uninterested followers.
Who will rapidly forget about you and won’t ever interact with your content as much as you would like.
🧱 Authority vs Visibility
These two concepts are often confused in the world of content creation, but they lead to very different outcomes.
Visibility is about Eyeballs on you. It’s about how many people see your content. It’s the reach, impressions, and virality — all the surface-level metrics. It is posting a piece of content and getting 100K+ views with thousands of likes and comments. But, do you think people are going to remember you next week? Probably not.
Visibility is like a flashlight in the dark — bright but temporary.
Authority is about Trust. It is when people trust you deeply in a specific niche.
You consistently talk about one focused thing (e.g., indie game dev, AI writing, digital minimalism). People begin to see you as “the go-to” for that thing. Your content might not always go viral, but it creates impact and loyalty. You solve people's problems, address their pain points, and position yourself as someone who deeply understands their day-to-day struggles and desires.
You build trust by sharing your expertise consistently with your target audience.
🛠️ Foundations of Building Authority
Break down the real strategy:
Clarity: Who do you help, and how?
Proof: Share wins, testimonials, and lessons learned.
Consistency: Show up regularly (even if it’s not daily).
Depth: Go more profound than most. Explain, teach, and share insights.
To become a real authority, not a random trend sicker, you first need to know your audience, the problem they are facing, and a solution they can quickly implement.
It might be easy to select a topic and post hundreds of posts about it without a clear direction or intention, but it rarely works. By first defining who you’re helping, you can cut so much noise. You might think helping everybody is the solution, but you’ll quickly realize you’re not helping anybody. Look, I get it. It’s really hard to stand up in today’s social media landscape but the truth. The secret? Show up consistently, post, have conversations with people, and iterate to improve your content.
Most people on the internet post generic/basic information about a topic.
Going beyond what’s expected from you tells people you’re not like the rest of the random accounts posting about topics as if they were real experts.
Break complex topics into blocks of information easy to understand. Educate your audience by sharing insights and personal stories; write in-depth guides or case studies so your audience can see your expertise. Share your lessons and your journey because what you know might change the life of somebody 1, 2, or several steps behind.
Most of us think the knowledge we gain over the years is mundane and irrelevant. We think surely most people already know what we know, but the reality couldn’t be far from the truth.
💬 Use Slow Content to Your Advantage
Slow content is the antithesis of viral bait. It’s intentional, timeless, and built to last for eternity.
Rather than chasing the next big trend, slow content is made to:
Educate,
Inspire,
Solve a real problem —with a focus on depth over speed.
📌 Examples of Slow Content:
📊 Case studies — unique and real examples educating how something worked (and why).
✉️ Evergreen newsletters — with valuable insights people can return to again and again.
🧵 High-value Twitter/X threads —great for in-depth breakdowns, lessons, or frameworks.
🎥 Long-form YouTube videos — tutorials, deep dives, reviews, or storytelling with substance.
🧠 Why Slow Content Wins
It compounds. One good post can bring value for months or even years after it is posted.
It attracts the right audience. People who stick around aren’t looking for a dopamine hit — they want to learn, grow, or invest in what you offer.
It builds authority. Not through loudness, but through clarity, repetition, and depth.
Authority builds from accumulated depth —not from momentary attention.
⚠️ The Ignored Problems With Fast Content:
While it is loud and helps you get a lot of views and attention, the content’s life span is as long as an average American marriage.
It trains your audience to only engage with short, shallow bursts. The format doesn’t allow you to go so deep into a topic to showcase your expertise. The attention span of these “followers” is low and can affect the performance of your longer pieces. This format feeds the algorithm but not your mission. Your priority should be the creation of real and meaningful connections, which, in the long run, will help you more than a viral trend.
If you want to be remembered, not just seen, slow content is the way.
It might not pop in 24 hours, but it will position you as a leader in your niche over time.
Want help mapping out your slow content strategy?
🧭 Focus on Connection Over Reach
Engage with the right people, a.k.a your target audience, not more people. Study them, talk with them, and make some friends along the way.
Listened to their stories, ups and downs. Don’t try to sell them something — instead, help them with your expertise. You’ll see they’ll be more than happy to work with you and only with you. To start on the right foot, I recommend building an audience of 100 True Fans vs 10,000 random followers. Let me explain.
People used to do marketing and authority building the same way email marketing was used.
This means having the mentality to get as many people as possible with industrial quantities of content. Thankfully, the game shifted a few years ago, and now, users are more interested in topics rather than brands or personalities online.
That’s why it is very important to have meaningful conversations via DM with your audience, make thoughtful comments, join communities, and keep showing up.
✅ Ready to succeed the right way?
Keep showing up with substance. Stay known for what matters. Authority will follow — and it will compound faster than any trend ever could.
Are you making content to position yourself as an authority in your niche?
Tell me in the comments how you’re building authority right now.
Or better yet — if you’re serious about standing out with premium content that builds trust and converts, book a call with me to learn how we can work together to help you stand above the noise and generic content created by AI.
Let’s make your voice impossible to ignore. 🚀