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Audience or authenticity? Why building an audience strains your soul
We desperately want to be heard. In one way or another, every brand and every person posting on social media is building an audience.
If you’re creating a brand, trying to make change in the world, or simply creating content on Snapchat, You. Just. Want. To. Be. Heard.
To be heard, you need an audience, and an audience rewards authenticity … but it can also take it away.
Let me explain what I mean …
Content creates us
At the recent SXSW festival, I attended a fascinating panel that featured a young writer named Diego Perez. As Yung Pueblo on Instagram, Diego drops tiny bits of wisdom that have made him a minor New Age guru:
Honestly, I don’t understand a lot of his deep thoughts … but I’m not his target audience, and enough people love him to make him an Instagram star.
During his presentation, he explained his tangled career that involved coming to America as an immigrant, forays into philosophy and psychology, and eventually, his success with self-help journalism.
“I never thought about becoming a writer,” he said. “But now I have an audience who is rewarding me for my writing … so I’m a writer.”
His first book is coming out soon.
This is a great example of the principle I’ve described here on the blog and in my books — We create content, but content also creates us. As we step out and explore the world with our content, we’re rewarded by an audience who helps define and optimize our online persona.
Has Diego’s audience helped forge his transformation from student to Instagram philosopher?
We want to be heard. And if you’re humble enough and patient enough, the audience will tell you how to reach them.
