The Audience Audit. Find your people in 30 minutes.

Five steps. One written plan.

Work top to bottom. You need a search engine, Reddit, X, LinkedIn and something to write in: a notes app or a spreadsheet is fine. Each step ends with a checklist you can tick off, and every item is something you can do today for free.

1. Define your ideal reader

Most creators describe their audience as "everyone interested in my topic". That is a guess, not a plan. Pick one real person you could picture in a room, and write down everything you know about them. Every decision later in this audit flows from this paragraph.

• Write a paragraph about one real person you want to reach: what they do, where they work, how old they are, what they read.
• Write the problem they would describe to a friend, in one sentence, in their words not yours.
• Write the outcome they want: what do they look like six months from now if your content actually helps them?
• Write what they already know, then what they are missing. Your content fills the missing part, not the known part.
• Give them a name. From now on, write every post to that one person.

2. List 10 places they hang out

Audiences cluster. Your job is not to create a new room, it is to find the rooms they are already in and show up there. Brainstorm fast, then cut hard: a place only counts if your ideal reader would be the normal person in the room, not an outsider.

• List 10 places: newsletters they subscribe to, subreddits, Discord and Slack servers, podcasts, YouTube channels, LinkedIn groups, forums, local meetups, conferences, industry press.
• For each place, write one line: what do people do there, and what do they read while they are there?
• Delete the places where your ideal reader would feel out of place. Keep only the ones where they are the normal person in the room.
• Circle the top 3. These are the only places you need for the first 90 days.

3. Check competitor audiences

You do not need to invent demand, and you do not need to copy anyone. The creators and brands already serving your niche have done the hard part: they proved the audience exists. Your job is to read the room they built and find what they left on the table.

• Pick 3-5 creators or brands in your niche whose audience matches the person from step 1.
• Open their last 10 posts on their most active platform. Read the comments, not the posts.
• List every question that appears more than twice in the comments. These are content ideas with demand already proven.
• Note what those creators never cover: topics, angles, formats. Their gaps are your openings.
• Note who else shows up in the comments: other creators, adjacent niches, potential partners for cross-promotion.

4. Find where they actually engage

There is a difference between where your audience is and where they engage. Millions of people follow accounts without ever commenting; the rooms worth your time are the ones where replies happen. Find those rooms and borrow the exact language people use in them.

• Search your topic on X, Reddit and LinkedIn. Sort by top posts of the month and read the threads with the most replies.
• Copy the exact words people use when they ask about your topic. Those words become your headlines.
• Find the 3 newsletters that keep coming up in your searches and in comment sections. Subscribe and read two issues of each.
• Follow the 5 most-engaged accounts you found. Watch what they post for a week before you post anything yourself.
• Note the formats that get the most replies: threads, questions, stories, data, hot takes. Match your first posts to those formats.

5. Turn it into a 30-day plan

An audit you do not act on is a diary. The point of this page is a plan you can start tomorrow. Keep it small: one platform, a steady cadence, and fifteen minutes a day of replying. Consistency beats intensity for the first month.

• Choose ONE platform from step 2. Focus beats spread; add a second platform in month two.
• Commit to posting 3 times per week for 4 weeks. Every post answers one question you collected in steps 3 and 4.
• Spend 15 minutes a day replying to people in your niche. Replies start conversations; posts start impressions.
• Take one long piece you already wrote (a newsletter issue, a blog post) and repurpose it into 5 posts: a quote, a thread, a question, a story, a tip.
• Every Friday, write down what got the most replies, shares and follows. Next week, do more of that.