If you’re not familiar, Midjourney is one of the first and best AI image creation apps, and it’s probably my #1 AI tool - there’s just nothing else like it. And like the headline says, I'm in issue #34 of their very cool magazine.
Out of all the podcasts, interviews etc that I’ve done, this is one of the coolest because I respect the Midjourney user community so much. They’re some of the most creative, visionary people on the planet and it’s genuinely a huge honor to be included 🙏
But enough of my little victory lap! Let’s talk about what YOU can take away from this:
If you want to work with someone, just talk about them. There’s a very good chance they’ll notice.
I started posting some of my Midjourney experiments about 6 months ago, just for fun. I had no expectations or goals… just love of the game, like when I started doing design 20+ years ago.
Maybe half the time, I tagged Midjourney in the posts - again, not with any goal, I’m just a genuine fan of the product and wanted to give them a nod.
They never replied or anything, which didn’t surprise or bother me since they don’t typically engage on social. I figured they just didn’t look at their mentions, and didn’t really give it any more thought.
But I guess they did notice because I got a DM asking if I wanted to be in the magazine. Of course, I said yes in about .0005 seconds and that was that… a few months later, the magazine ends up in my mailbox.
Similar things have happened to me tons of other times in my career with clients, collaborators, podcast guests, etc etc.
It works!
But there are a few important details:
You have to be genuine
People can smell it a mile away when you’re clout chasing or otherwise being transactional.
Like when someone sends you a LinkedIn message that says “Hey [name], just curious how you approach lead gen at your company” as though it’s some kind of casual question you’d just ask a random person at a party.
“Wow, this DJ is great… so, any thoughts on marketing attribution platforms for SMBs??”
I posted about Midjourney because I wanted to support them and their community... that’s it. I had no goal in tagging them, and I honestly didn’t even know they had a magazine until pretty recently.
Don’t make it weird
There’s a fine line between being persistent (good and necessary) and punishing (annoying and cringe).
There’s no formula for this, because it depends so much on the specifics.
Be gently persistent. These are probably busy people with a lot of noise in their lives, so you might need to keep it at it for months before they notice. Don’t give up after one post.
But don’t do desperate things like tagging them every day, showing up in their comments and begging for a reply, etc.
Just be a normal human, or whatever “normal” looks like for you. If you’re genuine, and keep showing up, it’s only a matter of time before things go your way 😊
Buy this issue here if you want (#34)