The Best Audience Development Tips of Your Life
Cultivating visibility online as an Introvert even if you go viral.
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When did that dream turn into churning out a book a month to feed whale readers? Thanks, I hate it.
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I’m delighted to be here guesting for Russell’s community here at
.In case you didn’t know, we co-authored a pretty awesome book together called ‘How to Build a World Class Substack’. It came out last year and has been read by thousands of people. It’s available to buy wherever you get your books.
I hope you enjoy my observations on visibility online as an introvert and I’d love your thoughts on this topic! I’ll meet you in the comments…
Growing up online
I’ve not always had a public online presence, but I’ve always been fascinated with using social media tools for connection. When I was in my twenties, I worked at an American summer camp in the Pennsylvanian mountains for nine weeks.
Facebook was the logical next step for keeping in touch once the camp wrapped up. I adored being connected to my colleagues and seeing where their careers took them.
One is a famous actress these days. You might not believe me, but deep down in my gut I always knew she would be.
Back in my festivals and events days, the internet and social media really helped us connect and get the word out there, but they didn’t do so in a bubble. They worked in concert with physical marketing.
Yes, there was online media, but at the same time we used to pay thousands of pounds to a promotions company to distribute event-specific leaflets with a short shelf life.
At the same time, I sat and scheduled hundreds of Facebook events knowing the two-pronged approach of physical and virtual promotion would see thousands of audience members pour into my events.
They were incredibly successful because people had multiple touchpoints, both online and in the physical world. It was that tactile reminder combining with the “always on” vrtual reminder that got the snowball effect working.
One year, I was managing a young people’s arts festival. It was a monstrous 10-days of events inside and outside of venues that brought a new vibrancy for my city.
In the middle of our promotional period, we had a Facebook event go “viral”.
We were hosting a finale parade called ‘The Monster’s Parade’ and inviting families and teens to parade along the river with huge bright blue papier maché ‘monsters’. I mean just look at this and tell me you wouldn’t want to come if you were in the area.
And that’s the reason behind why it went viral. We had used a compelling image of the parade from the year before to get people excited. Plus, we had a fun hook by inviting participants to rock up in their pyjamas.
It caught attention because it felt thrilling and even on the verge of breaking rules. Back then people didn’t leave the house in their PJs.
By doing something “against the rule”, the invite caught hold of something out of the ordinary, which made it exciting and fueled its virality.
In fact, it went so well that when I mentioned its success to my boss, there was slight panic because we hadn’t risk-assessed for tens of thousands of people turning up for a music fuelled river crossing.
It was the first time in my career that I really understood the power of community sharing online, of catching attention, and of being ‘liked and shared’. I’ve been pretty geeky about it ever since.
As it happened, even though we had good virality, we ended up with just over 2,000 people at the event and it all ran smoothy. It was a good crowd, but far from being overwhelming, despite how it felt online.
I’ve learnt this to be true in almost every element of online business, too. The people who say they are coming to a live online event versus the people who actually show up is probably around 5-10%.
Perhaps you’ve found the same?
What you’ll notice from that story is that “influencers” did not appear in any of that virality. Nobody “tiktoked” about it or “did a sponsored post” or “spoke from the heart on camera”.
Thousands of people showed up without doing anything viral marketers say needs to happen for anyone to care about your event.
We are taught that we need to be present, but that event went viral without me having to be on camera once.
I’ve manufactured my share of virality in my day, but I’m not an extravert. I’m an introvert who manages ‘big’ online spaces well. There’s an element of showing up that feels ‘easeful’ now that I’m a few years into doing this work. (I started in 2020). It wouldn’t be my preference, but it’s part of the job, and I have found ways to enjoy it despite it draining me.
I can feel passionate about a topic and whack out a social post, talk to Instagram stories, or go live on Substack without fretting about it. I meet my members on zoom calls, voice note in telegram groups, work in flow with my energy.
As long as I have some manner of control about the when and how, I feel confident there’ll be support and I can handle the odd non supportive or inflammatory comment.
It wasn’t always this way.
Rewind to pre-2020, I struggled to share photos of myself on my website, felt self-conscious when I was called to do presentations or speak in a group. I met lots of authors and creatives who are.
The biggest change and confidence shift wasn’t booking photoshoots and engaging fancy filters. That stuff just made me feel like I was hiding.
The biggest change came when I put myself in charge. I curated the activity, my position in it, and in some ways the outcome.
How? I made it less about me and focused on what my readers needed. Sometimes that means I need to be on camera, but it doesn’t always. It all depends on surfacng their needs.
I started to get traction when studied my readers, the participants in my classes, the people who bought my courses, the audience who showed up for me, and figured out what moved the needle for them.
I understood why they were attracted to my work, I asked them questions, I learnt more about their hobbies, their work, their passions, their values, their likes and dislikes. We bonded over milky cups of tea across the internet airwaves.
Communication felt easeful as I met them on a level as my colleagues and (sometimes) my friends online. I listened when they complimented me and noted the words they used.
I often think this is the missing piece or a block in ‘showing up’ online.
Without realising it, you are missing the connect – the piece between what you say, write, or teach and where it lands for the people receiving it.
Top Tips for understand who you meet online to increase confidence.
Here are my top 3 tips to glean the best audience insights of your life online so far…
Understand your most engaged people – the people who have been with you the longest, the people who reply, write comments, buy into your offers. These people are often your colleagues, your equals – people doing what you do but in a different way. You can learn a lot from them and understanding the place you meet.
Understand the people who lurk but open emails and read – for me these people are often inspired by me and want to better understand how to grow in confidence or they want to work with me. It can take years to build relationships.
Understand how and why you polarise people – for me sometimes my energy is ‘too sparkly’ – people find it unobtainable or think they have to replicate it to be successful. That’s on them not me – I’m not for everyone and polarisation is the biggest gift of your authentic self – lean into it. Don’t be tempted to dilute yourself to ‘fit’.
Above all, please know there is much space for introverts to be visible in their own way online. Self expression first, connection second.
Claire Venus is an Audience Development Consultant and Substack Expert. She lives on the Northumberland Coast in the UK with her family. She’s passionate about you finding ways to grow and cultivate an audience for you work joyfully and sustainably and has many tools, courses and a membership to help you.
IG - https://www.instagram.com/creatively.conscious/
Specially for you - you can access Claire’s brand-new Audience Alchemy class for free here and sprinkle magic on your audience development plans across platforms for the coming months.
What do you think?
How can you use your strengths as an introvert to get attention?
How often do you really dive into your audience and see what they need on a deep level?
Let us know in the comments.
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Thanks for inviting me to guest with you Russell - this was so fun! I'd be so happy to chat with people in the comments if you are leaning into how to NOT feel exposed as you flex your writing muscles online.
This…….
for me sometimes my energy is ‘too sparkly’ – people find it unobtainable or think they have to replicate it to be successful. That’s on them not me – I’m not for everyone and polarisation is the biggest gift of your authentic self – lean into it. Don’t be tempted to dilute yourself to ‘fit’.