Are You Building a Community, Or Is It Just an Audience?

It’s essential to know the difference if you’re a creator

Short Thread

@realkevinkelly's 1000 true fans model said that you just needed 1000 people to pay you $100, and $100,000 is enough to live a decent life in any part of the world.

The upgraded @ljin18 's version says that if creators can have 100 people paying $1000, why not?

Audience Building:
You can cultivate a large, free audience on horizontal social platforms or through an email list.

You can then convert some of those users to patrons and subscribers.

You can then leverage some of those buyers to higher-value purchases.

So, have you built an audience or community?

Do you interact one-on-one with a small fraction of your Audience?

Does a fraction of your followers/subscribers/ fans interact with each other?

Are at least some of your users motivated by self-interest? (and not by fandom)

Do your followers find value in your content for their improvement or transformation? Or are they just fans?

If some of them pay you, are they paying for their own good? Or is it more like a donation?

If more than 2 out of your five answers were YES,
Congratulations!

You are on the right path.

If not, you have an audience, and that’s what you need to get started.

You’ve just not found out that set of people from your audience's superset that loves you the most.

Do communities even matter so much?
Discord just turned down a $12 Billion offer by Microsoft.

So Basically;
Communities are the best way to find out your set of 100 true fans as a creator. https://twitter.com/gregisenberg/status/1384591933851508736?s=20

But on the flip side, they are equally rewarding for the members. They can network, grow and improve their own life.

This was not the case with your normal Audience that paid or donated as fans. https://twitter.com/shl/status/1119260516629696512?s=20

How do you build your Community?

You can take the first step by interacting more with your most engaged followers. Reddit, Discord, Slack, you choose your platform. https://twitter.com/gregisenberg/status/1339222591656108033?s=20

If you’re going beyond content for the first time, interact with your followers, which will now become your community members.

What do they expect from you?

Would they be willing to pay if you can bundle a more filtered community with exclusive content, AMAs, etc.?

What is the overall quality of engagement of the Community — with you & amongst themselves?

How much do they know you? Your work/content?

Find out the answers to these questions, you’re well ahead of the place where you started. https://twitter.com/polina_marinova/status/1375811762205962240?s=20

Learned all of this from @gregisenberg, @ljin18, @realkevinkelly, @shl, and @polina_marinova! Amazing people here on Twitter.