Why and How to Nurture Your Audience

April 3, 2013

I’ll be honest, I work really hard at getting people to subscribe to my blog, but I rarely subscribe to others. I don’t have a connection with them when they auto send me their most recent blog post, which I am also guilty of. I can’t remember where I read this, but the tip said to go through your email list and send a personal message to a subscriber thanking them for subscribing. At first I thought, who has the time to do that? My answer now is…make time! This simple task of sending a personal email will go a really long way.

It’s not all about the sale

Your fans will keep coming back if you provide them value, not if you continuously try to sell them. You don’t want them to ignore your emails if they always think they will be pitched by you. I have found success in creating relationships with Twitter which I’ll go into more below. I’ll make a note of what someone tweets about and set a reminder to tweet at them at a later date as a follow-up. What if you don’t have an email list? Get one.

Create relationships with Twitter

Earlier today I posted on Facebook “Twitter is awesome because it’s instant, not because of what you ate for dinner”. If this isn’t your mantra as you try to build upon your social media strategy, you’re missing the boat. Don’t just utilize Twitter as a broadcast medium, use it to interact with your fans in real-time and to meet new ones. Don’t forget to nurture those new fans too.

Create relationships with Facebook and personal emails

Now that Facebook is rolling out the direct reply function, it’s easier to maintain those relationships with your fans. If you noticed that a fan of yours was vocal on one of your Facebook posts, send them an email with a similar article that they may enjoy. Not many people will take the time to do that, and your fans will appreciate it. You can use this idea with Twitter as well. Send a follower a tweet with an article they may enjoy based on a past interaction you had. This is a fancy description for community management. You’ll also find success in managing your community and not just talking at them, talk to them.

Why creating relationships are important

When you plan an event, what’s important? The NUMBER of people at the event, or the TIME the people have AT the event. I would rather have a party with 20 people who had an unbelievable time, then a party with 50 people who have a so so time. Those 20 people who had a great time are likely to come to your next party, the 50 so so people are less likely. Make sure your audience is always having a great time, and they’ll keep coming back.

Do you have any tips for nurturing your audience? Let us know in the comments.

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