Your Online Audience

“When you find online niches where your company fits naturally, there's no reason to be hesitant about joining the community and making it aware of your products or services, as long as you do so gracefully and politely, focused on what you can add to the discussion rather than on making a sale,” (http://tinyurl.com/4nrffbl).

Marketing and even general communication have different rules of engagement on an online platform. When online, we make an extra effort to find a group to belong to so that we may share our opinions freely with one another and create an interpersonal online relationship that bonds us by commonalities. It’s important to find the correct audience; otherwise, your message may go unnoticed or be shunned. In this instance, the product you bring to an online conversation may be the informative content you have to share with the group or your original ideas. The key to building a positive reputation in an online forum is being informative and punctual while maintaining integrity. You will lack in the success of sharing your content if you do not achieve a conversation with the correct audience for your product while also being ethical.

Business Week believes that finding an intended audience will take some time but it is a fairly straightforward process; “Start by entering your industry and product keywords on Google and other major and specialized search engines. Follow the links that show up, bookmark the interesting ones, and lurk until you've got a feel for the community” (http://tinyurl.com/4nrffbl). While this may seem a bit simplified, it is important to find the appropriate audience that will understand why you are delivering the content that you are, so you make take your time researching your audience. Become well informed of the platform that exists before you join so that you don't change the format but add to it instead.

The purpose behind the online audience’s support within these platforms is to grow the strength in unity behind the shared idea, so you must be sure that you find the right audience that matches your necessary demographics. The stronger the idea becomes with support and exposure through the correct audience, the more likely it is to be picked up by someone who may be likely to make a difference beyond just the online group. This person is a part of the target audience we all strive to reach, and this person creates the “tipping point” for your cause; this person could even be you. Ideally, your information will become imperative to the others within the audience, and this will allow you to achieve total success in educating your audiences and building your necessary online support.

References

Klein, K. E. (2006, September). Finding Your Online Audience. Business Week. Retrieved February 26, 2011 from http://tinyurl.com/4nrffbl