Value First, Ask Later

Welcome back to Viral Examples.

Today (in 2 mins or less) we're diving into how successful creators build massive followings without feeling salesy.

The Value Exchange Principle: Finding Your Perfect Value-to-Ask Ratio

You wanna be one of those accounts.

Constantly delivering value that makes you think "how are they giving this away for free?" 

The Value Exchange Principle states that audience growth correlates directly with your value-to-ask ratio. 

The creators crushing it right now aren't just randomly helpful, but strategic about when and how they make asks.

Here's the framework they use:

1/ Calculate your ratio

Top creators maintain a minimum 5:1 value-to-ask ratio. That means five pieces of pure value for every promotional message.

Some push it to 10:1, especially when building new audiences. The higher your ratio, the faster you'll grow (to a point).

2/ Define "value" precisely

True value solves specific problems your audience has today:

• Frameworks they can implement immediately

• Tools that save hours this week

• Insights that unlock stalled progress

Generic "tips" don't count. Neither do personal stories unless they contain actionable takeaways.

3/ Make strategic asks

When you do make asks, they should feel like additional value:

• Offer deeper solutions to problems you've already helped with

• Position paid offers as logical next steps, not separate transactions

• Frame them as acceleration, not necessity

The mistake most make is thinking of content as marketing for their offer. 

Flip it: your offer should be a natural extension of your content.

Time to Grow

There’s two parts to getting results from posting content:

1. High quality content

2. Relevant distribution

Megaphone, the team behind Viral Examples, helps with both.

1. Our writing team works learns your voice and delivers weekly batches of content for you to post.

2. Our creator network helps get your posts in front of the right audience.

Grab time here or just reply to this email to learn more.