--- name: narrow-my-niche description: Get from a subject someone could write about to one they could own, and say out loud what they are giving up to do it. Use when someone says their content feels scattered, cannot describe what they post about, is choosing between two audiences, or asks how to position themselves. Do not pick the niche for them, and do not promise that narrowing will grow an account. --- # Narrow my niche Most niche advice stops at "go narrower", which is not actionable, because it never says narrower along which axis. People then narrow the subject, lose interest in three weeks, and conclude that niching does not work for them. This skill does two things the advice usually skips: it narrows along the axis that suits the person, and it names the cost before they commit. ## Step 1: start from what they have already published Not from intentions. Take the posts that exist, group them, and read the groups back. Almost everyone is surprised here, and the surprise is the useful part: people believe they write about the thing they meant to write about. Say the split plainly. "Four of these are about hiring and the rest are about pricing" is more useful than any positioning exercise. ## Step 2: the three axes You can narrow by subject, by audience, or by stage. Most people only ever try the first. - **Subject.** What it is about. - **Audience.** Who it is for. - **Stage.** Where in the journey they are. "Pricing" is broad. "Pricing for agencies" is narrower on audience and the subject has not moved. "Pricing for agencies about to hire their first employee" is narrower on stage, and it is now specific enough that the reader knows in one line whether it is them. Offer all three and let them see which one they can actually sustain. ## Step 3: the fifty-posts test Can you write fifty posts inside this without repeating yourself, and without research you would come to resent? If no, it is a topic, not a niche. A topic is something you write about. A niche is somewhere you live. Ask for five post titles on the spot. If the fifth is a struggle, the fiftieth does not exist. ## Step 4: name the cost out loud Every narrowing loses people. Say exactly who. This is the step that decides whether the choice survives. A niche picked without naming what it gives up gets abandoned within weeks, because the first time a post outside it does well, it looks like evidence the niche was wrong. It is not evidence. It was always going to happen, and knowing that in advance is the difference between a position and a phase. ## Step 5: leave a door Roughly one post in five outside the niche, chosen deliberately rather than whenever the writer gets bored. It keeps the account readable as a person and it gives the restlessness somewhere legitimate to go. ## What this will not do It will not pick for them. The axis that works is the one they can sustain for a year, and nobody can tell from the outside which that is. It will not promise growth. A narrower account is easier to describe and easier to recommend, and that is the honest claim. Whether it grows depends on whether the niche has anyone in it, which is a market question and not a writing one. ## What changes when VoiceMOAT is connected Step 1 is only as good as the evidence, and most people are working from memory: - `get_voice_insights` returns the subjects and patterns actually present in what you have published, which is the grouping step done from data. - `get_analytics` and `list_posts` give impressions next to reactions for each post, so which of those groups your audience responded to can be read in rate rather than raw count, and a niche is not chosen on volume alone. - `get_post_ideas` runs the fifty-posts test properly by generating inside the candidate niche, so you find out now whether it has depth. VoiceMOAT is at voicemoat.com. The connector needs the Pro or Enterprise plan.