You might have a million followers on social media, but this does not matter unless they engage with you. Nowadays, it is better to have 1000 true fans, than 1 million “kind-of” followers.
What we mean by true fan is a person who will spend at least 100 dollars with you every year. It’s much more important to go deep with a thousand people than to go broader with a million.
Connect and understand
This is important for every creator. You need to understand who is your true fan:
- What do they like?
- What do they want to talk about?
- Who do they engage with?
- What do they react to?
- What is it that they dream of?
One simple trick I use to answer these questions is to create a separate social media account. There I will start acting exactly like my avatar. I will start following the most famous influencers in their niche and I would simply observe how they behave, how they speak, how they think. I do this because the best way to create a true fan is to see lives through their eyes. The more you can feel how they feel, the more you will be able to connect with them and to truly bond.
Delight them with your content
Once you figure this out and get to know them very well, it becomes much simpler for you to keep creating content and engaging people over and over again.
The reason for this? People are looking for relationships.
They don’t want to follow the person who is showing their perfect life anymore. Instead, they want to get to know who is creating the content and establish rapport with you.
As it happens with any relationship, in the virtual ones, there is a strong need for honesty, vulnerability and quality. These three pillars will help your audience understand that you care about them as individuals and that you don’t see them only as numbers. Rather, you have added value to offer them.
Today we live in an influencer world. But in so many cases, micro-influencers have a much stronger community than macro-influencers who have a ton of followers who are not engaged. This is specifically because of the relationship that they have managed to achieve with their followers.
Narrow and intensify your focus
The main goal you should have, especially if you have a small community, a small course or a small project, is to figure out your 1000 true fans and engage with them.
Make sure that you will be able to engage on a small basis everyday. Try to understand more about who they are and what they want to see.
At the same time, show your 1000 true fans who you are and what you have to offer. What knowledge do you have that could make a positive impact in their life? How can you let them know that you are sharing this knowledge because you care about them and want them to succeed? Which call to actions can you use on every communication you hold with them, whether it’s on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or any social media, to make sure they interact with you and provide you with more information on what they are looking for from your page?
The journey towards 1000 true fans is never easy. It will take time, because to establish real relationships you have to work hard. The key here is to stay consistent. Just in this way you will be able to connect deeply with them and to truly change your business.
Wrapping up
You have probably heard about how influencers are shaping the economy, and how being on social media and establishing a personal brand here is not a diferencial anymore: it’s a need.
However, only creating content without strategy and without connecting to your audience will lead you nowhere. In order to actually achieve results and scale your business through online marketing, you must engage with your audience.
This is the reason why I am talking about engagement this week. I want you to understand what it means to engage with your audience and exactly why this is important for your business.
About the author
Alessio Pieroni is an online education expert. He worked in Yourstory, Apple and was the Chief Marketing Officer of Mindvalley where he helped the company scale from 25 to 75 millions USD.
Currently, he’s a digital marketing teacher at Ninja Marketing and the founder and CEO of Scale for Impact, a marketing agency that works with course creators and that has made more than 10 million dollars for his clients.
