Let Your Audience Celebrate You
A celebrity is simply someone being celebrated — so build the ways your audience gets to celebrate you.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 78%
Let Your Audience Celebrate You redefines celebrity as simply being celebrated, which requires an audience and a mechanism for that celebration. Vinnie argues that a core part of your brand identity is deciding how you let people celebrate you — through merch, through information, or through emotional access to your wins and human moments. When you build a good ecosystem, fans feel rewarded and even disappointed when you don't give them a way to celebrate you (like missing merch). The secret to longevity is an emotional setup where you give people the opportunity to celebrate you rather than asking them to on demand.
Origin
Vinnie articulated this reflecting on how social media collapsed the distinction between people we celebrate and people we're merely watching, and on how podcasting lets creators own their media and design their own audience-celebration ecosystem for the first time.
Core principles
- 01Being a celebrity means being celebrated, and that requires an audience.
- 02There are more places than ever for an audience to congregate.
- 03Part of your brand ID is deciding how you let your audience celebrate you.
- 04Celebration can be financial (merch) or emotional (wins, fails, human moments).
- 05Giving people the opportunity to celebrate beats asking them to celebrate on demand.
How to run it
- 1
Reframe celebrity as being celebrated
Understand that a celebrity is someone being celebrated, which requires an audience — not innate star quality.
- 2
Locate where your audience congregates
Find the platforms and spaces where your potential audience gathers, since there are more than ever.
- 3
Design the celebration mechanisms
Decide how you'll let your audience celebrate you — merch, information, or access — as an explicit part of your brand ID.
Pro tip If your audience expects merch and you don't offer it, they feel denied a way to celebrate you.
- 4
Reward emotionally, not just transactionally
Let people in on your wins, fails, and human moments so you give them the opportunity to celebrate rather than demanding it.
Pro tip An emotional setup is where the longevity secret lives.
Watch out Constantly asking them to celebrate or buy erodes the relationship.
In the wild
Vinnie describes creators whose audience feels good buying their merch and feels rewarded because that's the ecosystem the creator built. If such a creator doesn't come out with merch, the audience is disappointed because they're being denied the way they were invited to celebrate the brand financially.
→ Creators who intentionally design how their audience celebrates them build a rewarding ecosystem and greater longevity.
Common mistakes
Only asking, never giving
Constantly asking the audience to celebrate or buy, rather than giving them the opportunity to celebrate your wins and human moments, makes the relationship transactional and short-lived.
Is it for you?
Best for
Podcasters, creators, and public figures building a long-term audience relationship.
Not ideal for
People who don't want a public audience or to monetise a fan relationship.
From the transcript
“what makes a person a celebrity is being celebrated and you need an audience for that”
“you're just giving them the opportunity to celebrate you and your wins and also theirs”
From the episode
Vinnie Potestivo: How To Shine
Vinnie Potestivo