This is How You Get Your Audience to Trust You (Even When Using AI)

Do you feel like AI use is reducing the trustworthiness of your content? Or really just struggling with building your audience base? Here’s what to do.

At some point, every creator hits this wall.

You’re writing. You’re publishing. You’re putting things out into the world with real effort. And still—no real traction.

People scroll past your posts, your your subscriber count moves like molasses. And the occasional “like” from your cousin isn’t exactly what you’d call audience trust.

What’s going on?

This is why your audience don’t trust you

Let’s name it plainly: you don’t have credibility yet.

And it’s not because you’re not good enough. It’s just that—at least to the internet—you’re still a stranger.

That’s the thing about building in public. No one’s going to hand you the benefit of the doubt.

If you’re like me, you’re starting from zero. No track record or flashy results. No fancy testimonials or media features. Maybe all you got is work experience that’s difficult to translate to content, or a drive to learn like no one else.

And if you do use AI in your workflow, there’s this additional layer of doubt:

“Did they actually write this?”

“Is this just another GPT-generated rehash?”

“Can I even trust this advice?”

It’s exhausting, honestly. Because you're trying to do things well—you care about your message. You’re writing with integrity while building something well.

It’s just that … from the outside, none of that is obvious.

And here’s the kicker: without trust, none of your efforts will land. Not fully.

Trust is critical for the mission-driven writer

Without trust, your best ideas won’t get read, your offers won’t convert, and your mission won’t resonate.

That’s not an exaggeration.

Are you writing on Substack? Congratulations: you’re competing with other 35 million active subscriptions. Even if divided into hundreds, even thousands of niches, industries, verticals, etc., that’ll still amount to hundreds of thousands of other writers.

Global opportunity equals global competition. And in this competition, the only way to stand out is through trust. Without it, you’re just another digital ghost—momentarily passing, gone into the void.

But the good news is: if you’ve ever felt like your ideas are solid but no one’s listening…

You’re not terrible. You’re just early in the game.

Here’s what you can do to catch up.

1. Make your mission obvious.

People trust clarity.

If your audience has to guess what you're about, you’ve already lost their attention. You can have incredible insights, but if your content doesn’t align with a clear and repeated message, it won’t stick.

This doesn’t mean adding a cheesy tagline to your bio.

It means weaving your mission into the DNA of your content—subtly but consistently.

It should show up in how you open stories. How you end them. The metaphors you use. The patterns in your recommendations.

It should be unmistakable: “This is what I care about. This is who I serve. This is what I believe.”

When people know what you stand for, they know what to follow you for.

2. Speak to the right people—not everyone.

Not everyone will get it. And that’s okay.

One of the most frustrating things early on is talking to the wrong crowd and wondering why nothing’s resonating.

If you're talking to people who don’t care about the problems you're solving, even your best content will fall flat.

Find the people whose worldview overlaps with yours. The ones who’ve felt the same tension, who want the same change.

Your content doesn’t need to go viral. It just needs to land with the right people. The ones who think, “Wait… how did they put this into words? This is exactly what I’ve been feeling.” That's the beginning of trust.

But how do you find them? Here are some tips:

• Search the "Discover" tab for newsletters in your niche and engage in the comments.

• Use tags when you publish to help Substack recommend your post to the right readers.

• Shout out other writers with overlapping missions and start cross-promoting.

• Ask your early subscribers where they found you and double down there.

• Drop thoughtful responses on popular posts (don’t promote—connect).

3. Show up. And stay up.

This one’s not sexy, but it might be the most important.

If people see your face or name one day and never again, they’re not going to follow you, even if your content was great. Because trust isn’t just about value—it’s about familiarity.

It’s seeing someone again and again and slowly realizing:

“They’re still here.”

“They’re consistent.”

“They didn’t just post once and disappear.”

And no, this doesn’t mean churning out five posts a day.

It just means being consistent enough that your presence becomes a familiar signal. Publish once, twice, or thrice a week. Do one Note/post everyday.

Respond, ask questions, shout people out. Engage your community like you’re a new neighbor eager to get to know the neighborhood.

4. Let time do its thing.

The hard truth: some of this you just can’t rush.

People need time to see you show up again and again. To see your ideas evolve. To see your wins, your progress, your changes in direction.

Reputation isn’t built in a month. But you can make that month count by being intentional about how you show up.

And if you keep showing up in the same direction, with the same care, the trust will come. If your people see you consistently showing up for 3-6 months, they basically have no choice but to follow you.

As an extension to this: you have to grow sustainably. You have to publish content and engage with people every day -- so doing so shouldn’t be too taxing to you. You must have a system.

5. Automate creating high-quality content

Most creators don’t struggle with ambition—they struggle with output.

You know you need to create high-quality content. Consistently excellent content that positions you as a credible expert and actually moves your audience. That’s a tall order.

Especially when creating content becomes the bottleneck. Content creation is usually the first thing to fall off the list when the going gets rough.

So what’s the move?

You automate it. But do it mindfully.

Not by chasing the next “AI hack” or “super prompt.” That’s just outsourcing your voice to a robotic tool. But by building a system that supports your creative flow—so you can publish faster, better, and more authentically.

My method? I use a hyper-customized GPT that mirrors how I think and write. And you can build one too, starting with four foundational documents that serve as its “core modules”:

• Personal Profile. Who you are, what you care about, your unpromptable opinions.

• Writing Profile. Your tone, style, structure preferences

• Business Case. Your audience, offers, goals

• Content System. Your ideas bank, frameworks, templates, formats, and personal writing rhythms.

Once these are in place, your AI assistant isn’t just generating words—it’s collaborating with you to scale your best thinking.

When you automate this way, you don’t dilute your authenticity. You amplify it, at scale. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

If you want to learn how to do this for yourself, I’m currently refining an ebook that solves exactly that problem. It’ll give you all the steps you need to take to create a hyper-customized AI writing assistant that thinks and writes like you!

It’ll be available for everyone! But Buy Me A Coffee supporters will receive a whopping 50% discount to the final price (15-20 USD).

To get your audience to trust you, become someone worthy of that trust

There’s no magic sentence that makes people believe in you. No AI prompt that manufactures connection. No hack that replaces the work of building something real.

But there is a process.

And if you’re doing the work, you’re already on the right path.

The trust might not be there yet. But it’s growing in the background.

And when it finally clicks, it won't be because you gamed the system. It'll be because you became someone worth trusting. Something no algorithm can replicate.

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If you loved this, you’re going to love my ebook, Authentic AI. Buy Me A Coffee Donors will receive 50% off from the final price.