Who are you and are you qualified to write this book?

My name is Eric Lee. I am an idiot, a convicted felon, and a college

dropout. I am most definitely not qualified to write a book, but I have
grown an Instagram page to 450k+ followers and a YouTube channel
to 195K+ subscribers.

And no, I am not an “influencer” or a “YouTuber”. However, I am an

entrepreneur who runs a wholesale apparel business that equips
creatives with the tools to help bring their ideas to life.

Our company, Superline Wholesale, can be broken

down into two parts. The first half is a media
platform that educates people on how clothes are
made, marketed, and sold. We then leverage that
following into the other half of the business which
focuses on selling blank garments. Imagine if
Home Depot provided educational content on how
to build homes and then sold the raw materials to
contractors. That is essentially what we do in the
apparel space.

Why should I read this book?

I started my journey as an entrepreneur because I
made mistakes at an early age and did not have
many career options. It’s hard for a college dropout
to find a career, but it’s even harder for convicted
felons. I was guilty of both.

At the time, the only option I had was to work for my

parent’s dying wholesale business. I was hungry
and desperate to make a name for myself but
lacked the skills and resources to grow the
business.

There was a time when the business was doing well

but my parents had aged out and lost passion.
When I joined, they had 2 employees who spent
most of the time hiding in the warehouse to take
naps.
With little to no resources, I knew that creating a social media
following was our best bet to grow the business. Most of the
larger companies in the industry were not well-versed in the
social media space nor did they care to build it. It was the only
white space where I had a fighting chance. It didn’t take a lot of
money or risk to build, and the upside for growth was endless.
Social media was the equalizer.

This book is designed for the underdog. It’s written to help

those understand how they can leverage social media to
jumpstart their career or business.

1. Find your why.

When I started the Superline Wholesale page, my goal was to get lots of followers and sell them
products. What I quickly learned was that no one was interested in buying more stuff online. There
was too much noise.

I started asking myself difficult questions. Why would anyone want to follow me? What is the purpose
of the content I was putting out? Was I providing any value? In my pursuit of answering these
questions, I found a passion to help the younger version of myself – the failed clothing brand owner.

After my arrest, I spent the many years putting

all my efforts into creating a clothing brand. I
went to every tradeshow, talked to every printer,
and researched every clothing company. I made
a lot of mistakes and ultimately failed multiple
times at creating my own brand.

However, I realized that there were thousands of

other 22-year kids interested in creating clothing
brands. Instead of trying to sell them my brand, I
started sharing my experiences with them. I
shared what I learned, what mistakes I made,
and what I would’ve done differently.

Slowly but surely, I found my why. Everything

we do on the Superline Wholesale page is to
empower and educate that 22-year-old version
of me.

Whether you want to grow your business online or want to be a famous influencer, the most important
element is finding your why. The why is what gives your content purpose, meaning, and conviction.
2. Good artist copy. Great artists steal.
During my time on house arrest, there was a brand
called God is Dope. At the time, they were at 30k
followers and starting to buzz in the city. It was the
first major clothing brand out of Atlanta that had real
mainstream success.

Sharod Simpson was the owner, CEO, and lead

creative behind the brand. Prior to God is Dope,
Sharod worked for 2Chainz, a successful Atlanta
rapper. Sharod had a lot of experience shooting
photos, videos, and creating graphics for 2Chainz.
Those skills later helped him create the biggest
clothing brand to come out of Atlanta.

Jealous of his success, I studied his every move

and stalked all his social media accounts. As a
former drug dealer, I didn’t have any creative
skills. I had never used Photoshop, Illustrator, or
Premiere Pro. But because I was on house arrest,
I had nothing but time. I spent that time trying to
copy Sharod’s content.

He dropped a “Just God” shirt, and I literally

copied the exact same design with the same font,
but it said, “Just Trap”. If Sharod took a picture
with a green background, I took that same picture
a week later. Although I’m not proud of being a
copycat, I do acknowledge those exercises helped
me learn creative skills.

If you are want to create a social

following but do not have the creative
skill set, the best way to learn is to copy.
Copy the type of content that inspires
you and is aligned with your community.
As you copy, you will develop skills and
eventually copying will turn into stealing.
The art of creating great content relies
on your ability to steal tastefully.

To clarify, copying is distasteful and

usually happens within the same
industry. Stealing on the other hand, is
pulling references from another
industry, and can be done with respect,
appreciation, and taste.
3. Be your audience.
What you envision your social following to be
will change as you post more content.
Initially, I wanted to create a brand, so my
first target audience was a consumer facing
audience. I wanted to communicate to a retail
audience why they should purchase my
brand. As the brand failed, the content
changed from convincing people to buy my
products to what I learned from that process.
The target audience shifted from a retail
audience to people who wanted to create
clothing brands.

When I began to understand who my

audience was, creating content became a lot
easier. I understood what they wanted to
consume because I was part of that
audience. I understood what questions they
had because I had those same questions.
Essentially, I was creating a platform for
myself.

A lot of my business friends now ask me

about how they can create a social media
following for their business. They have a hard
time coming up with content or they have a
hard time hiring the right people to run the
content. The most common mistake I see is
that they are not part of the audience that
they are trying to reach. Therefore, the
content sucks.

Imagine a basketball player trying to create content for football. No matter how much they try to
relate, all the content will be created from another sport’s perspective. The only way they can create
relevant content is to have played football. They would be much better at creating content about
basketball because they played it.

4. Kill your ego.

There’s nothing that will kill your ego more than putting out a piece of content to only get 3 likes. But
this is a necessary process to build your following. I know the kids nowadays are more interested in
“curating” a feed and posting less but that is not the formula for creating an engaged social audience.
It may be the formula to looking “cool” but if you’re reading this book, you should be beyond that
phase in your life.
 It takes maturity and a lot of self-worth to put out
content consistently. You must have security and
validation in who you are outside of social media.
When I started, I used to get insecure about
getting 3 likes and it was difficult to stay
consistent. But when I started to look at the
metrics objectively, I was able to see why the
content sucked and what I could do to make it
better.

Think about this way. Your middle school and

high school yearbook pictures are probably
disgusting. It took many years of terrible
hairstyles and outfits to find what works best for
you.

It is the same for content. It may take terrible

memes, and videos before you can find your
voice. You must kill your ego and look at the
content objectively to figure out what works best
for you and your community.

5. Build a community, not a sales funnel.

This might not work for you depending on what your end goal is, but our end goal was to create a
platform to eventually funnel our products. We weren’t interested in creating a Superline Wholesale
page that only posted our products and our services. We were interested in creating a community of
people looking to create brands.

If you look at our page today, 90% of what we post has

nothing to do with our products or our services. We post
educational or entertaining content that pertains to our
community. Redbull is another great example of this. They
rarely post about the actual drink. Instead, all their content is
about living an exciting and an adrenaline filled life. Your
media strategy should not be to market your products. Your
strategy should be to build a community that aligns with your
products.

In the early stages of our page, we would give out free

vendors lists of our competitors. Imagine if Home Depot was
advertising Lowe’s and how it had better products and
services. It probably goes against most practical business
strategies but that’s why it worked. Our goal wasn’t to promote
our competition. Our goal was to provide honest resources to
our community.
This strategy helped grow our page from 50k followers to 100k followers. Your business should be
separate from your content strategy. Our core business is Superline Wholesale which sells blank
garments, and our social media pages are our platforms to grow our community.

Once you’ve built rapport and trust within your community, you can then funnel your products and
services through different channels like an email list or text list.

6. Find a Vivek.
I’m a firm believer that your company is only as good as the employees you hire. As much as I’d like
to take credit for everything, I have an exceptional team behind me in every aspect. Unfortunately,
this book is only about social media, so today I can only highlight one employee.

Vivek is our director of digital. While he was working at his corporate job, he would call me about how
he was looking for something more fulfilling. I ended up giving him part time work and his first task
was to edit what is now one of our most viral segments, the factory interviews.

Although I was the one who grew

the page to 100k, the underlying
principle still stands: hire good
people, pay them well.

Since his employment, not only

did our metrics grow
tremendously, but I also learned a
lot from him. I’ve learned different
techniques on editing. I’ve learned
how to streamline our content
output and most importantly I’ve
learned that there is a lot more for
me to learn.

Unlike other aspects of business,

social media is a young person’s
game. As I’ve grown older, I’ve
realized how important it is to
keep young people around me.
However, it is more important to
listen to them.

If you are interested in working with Vivek on brand deals or need consultation, feel free to contact
him here.
7. Spam the chat.

Finally, the title of the book, spam the

chat. None of the principles work unless
you spam the chat. Think about the last
time you were talking to a person that you
were interested in. Imagine if you double
texted them or even triple texted them.
Your chances of dating them would
significantly drop. They will probably think
that you are desperate and creepy.

Luckily for you, growing a social media

following is the exact opposite. Social
media is a smoking hot girl who gets
flooded with millions of texts. If you text
her 10 times in a row, she will forget
because there are so many texts in her
phone.

Nowadays, people’s attention spans are

very short. They won’t remember if you posted something and got 3 likes, nor will they care. They are
so many people that are trying to create a social following that your terrible content will get drowned
out and muted. It was the same for me.

When we had 1,000 followers and got 3 likes, nobody cared. But when we got to 100k followers,
people started to reach out. Now that we have 450k followers and have had multiple viral videos,
people come out from the wood works and applaud the success. In the social media world, people
only remember the highlights and do not have the attention span to remember your mistakes.

Spamming the chat is the key to growing a social following. It will help you build your skillset as a
creator, and it will define your audience. There is no such thing as posting too much or too often.
Hopefully this book provided good insight. Now, go spam the chat.