You don’t need a following of thousands to build an online community.
If that’s correct, then when do you have a community?
When you have one person listening.
The day you realise you have someone, even just one person, reading (or watching if you use video formats) you should pat yourself. Celebrate. You have an audience!
What’s even cooler is when it slowly dawns on you that that someone has spent their time to find out what’s going on in your mind, or world, or business.
But don’t get over excited. And definitely don’t take them for granted.
That one person should be just as valuable (probably more valuable) than the multitudes you are aiming to get for your site.
To solidify your base, pay attention to your reader.
Especially if it’s just that one.
Listen to them – tell them your stories – and if you’re good at it they’ll come back for more. They’ll subscribe.
And then they’ll tell their friends and they’ll come, and where their friends and they go, the credibility and influence will slowly follow. Remember though it shouldn’t become a numbers game.
Don’t get obsessed with how many ‘friends’ or fans or followers you have.
Always remember that everyone started with one, and one day you’ll yearn for that single digit and the closeness or intimacy that came with it and your readers.
At one you can get to know them really well.
Of course your longer-term goal is it to get stickier and create more opportunities to communicate. Suddenly your little community of one will then explode into a major city.
But always remember that what’s most important is the depth of your interactions, their quality and intensity.
If your site is inspiring people to share, talk, or make noise, then the number of readers will eventually grow. Just keep doing what you are doing. Really well.
Each day, just try one more little change to make today’s post better than yesterday’s. Take it one step at a time.
The power of word-of-mouth (WOM) is enormous when even just one person is interested and wants to share what you’ve said. And it has unbelievable reach. Even with one voice.
One day you have one set of eyes, the next, a gazillion.
Photo via stock.xchng user spekulator