We put a lot of pressure on ourselves as business owners to build a large online and digital following, sometimes resorting to tactics that aren't effective. When you find yourself getting excited because you have 1000 new followers, yet sales are down, it’s easy to become disillusioned with what’s working and what’s not working—but that’s valuable insight you need. 

Instead of aiming for thousands of likes and followers that may not engage, let alone purchase from you, you should focus on creating quality, targeted content that will convert your engaged fans into loyal, paying customers, and encourage paying customers to become brand advocates.

Building a quality audience 

Growing your social media following on any channel is a vanity goal and means nothing if you don’t get sales. When building your audience of fans, set goals that will convert into sales instead of simply building your audience for numbers' sake. 

One way to do this is to create audience segments and offer tailored products or services at varying price points. Build content with the intention of drawing in and engaging your fans, building customer loyalty and retention, and inspiring brand advocates.

If people who buy from you are true fans, they will buy from you again and, ideally, become advocates for your brand. You know what they want because they have purchased from you, and should be able to build on this with other content, perhaps at higher price points.

The math and method behind building an audience of fans versus passive followers

Understanding why it’s important to create content for your smaller number of engaged fans versus appealing to people en masse will also help you focus your content marketing efforts on the people who are more likely to buy from you. If you start with the total revenue you want to bring in and allocate percentages to different products or services, you will get an idea of how many fans you need to sustain your business.

The idea of building a small base of true fans was originally proposed by Kevin Kelly in 2008. The overriding point is that you don’t have to have a huge audience to achieve what you want. You just have to have the right audience.

“Those who will "buy anything you produce"—to the tune of $100 per fan per year (for a total annual income of $100,000)” are your true fans.

Whether you build 1,000 true fans or 100 true fans or even just 10, you need to be clear on who you serve, the problem(s) they have that you can help with, and who you don’t serve. Without this underlying clarity in your business and marketing, most of the people who follow you won’t ever get to the status of “true fan.” 

Building relationships with your audience of fans

Building relationships with true fans has never been easier. In addition to engaging with fans on social media and email, crowdfunding platforms have enabled entrepreneurs, small businesses, and artists to raise money for various purposes, interests and fields.

Always remember, though, that building relationships—true fan relationships—doesn’t easily scale. Nor should it. That’s the whole point. Build the right product or service for the right people and communicate with the right message to attract those people. It’s a simple concept, but it’s not easy to do in practice. It takes more work in the beginning, but the return is worth the effort.

Your true fans know and trust your business

They’re the ones who will subscribe to your emails and follow you on every social media platform so they can make sure they see what you’re sharing. They’ll support your business because they know they can rely on your business for something they can’t get from someone else. True fans know you understand them and their needs.

While building a list of true fans takes time, remember, a thousand paying customers is better than one million unengaged followers. Instead of broadcasting to everyone, you’re intentionally working with smaller numbers create an audience that wants to buy from you and brand advocates who will help you sell your product or service by touting how incredible you are. You don't need to reach everyone, you only need to reach the ones that count.

Do your marketing efforts appeal to your audience of fans or to passive followers?