My world on the web
As we create, it’s important to identify and speak to a specific audience.
Colin Walker (colinwalker.blog)Posts can have meaning and purpose even if there is no audience, it’s all down to the intent of the author. If they do happen to land “with someone in some useful way” then that’s a bonus.
Just as we now live in public, so do we think in public. And that is accelerating the creation of new ideas and the advancement of global knowledge.
In the end – and here is where the modern masters of metrics and data will roll their eyes – I think you can only go on instinct: on the idea of telling stories that seem meaningful and affecting and only ever wanting to talk to one person – one audience member – and trying damn hard to make it connect. It’s like your best friend is drunk and distracted at a really fabulous party and you very much need to tell her something extremely important, right now! How do you get their attention? That’s the whole job. You can be the judge of whether that’s working here or not.
My only concern was your comment from Guy Kawasaki to just write great posts and people will find them. I disagree. Not because I think that I write great stuff that has not been found, but rather because I do not think that it is that simple.
I really liked a post Bill Ferriter wrote on this topic, in which he said:
Audience is a function of the content that you create, the consistency of your creation patterns, the length of time that you’ve been creating, the opportunities that you have to be in front of audiences in the real world, the relationships that you have with people who have audiences larger than you do — and, as frustrating as it may seem, serendipity.
His answer is instead to ‘Bring Your Own Audience’. As he explains:
The most powerful members of your audience are those people that you ALREADY have an intellectual relationship with. Maybe they are folks in your school that you have lunch with every day. Maybe they are buddies from other schools in your district that you meet for beers a few times a month. Maybe they are colleagues that you hang with once per year at teaching conferences around the country.
Those are the people who are the most likely to stop by your blog or respond to your Tweets and challenge your thinking — so instead of trying to build a huge audience of strangers, concentrate on building a small audience of peers.
I think that whether it be blogging in the classroom or starting a professional blog, the best thing that you could do is find a few people who you really want to share with and start there.
The other day I observed that whenever a new issue of the Noticing newsletter goes out, a bunch of people unsubscribe. When this h
Just because you’re putting images on Instagram doesn’t mean they’re any good.
It’s not about just doing.
It’s about doing with purpose.
So, here are some things to think about as you continue building your brand online–and why people might not be paying attention to you in the first place.