Building an audience is a much better way to generate revenue these days and it’s the primary goal of inbound marketing.  The way the Internet works for you is allowing you a platform to build an audience, an online community, surrounding your goods and services. The traditional method of push messaging just doesn’t work as well in the online environment these days and sometimes not at all so your efforts online must reflect your understanding of this difference.

The shock most people receive is at how hard it is to build an audience when others seem to effortlessly develop a huge following in one or more social media neighborhoods.  Why is it that some seem to find instant success in attracting an audience while others struggle?

Several factors are at work in building an online audience.  Businesses and business people who have always been aggressive at networking will sometimes have a large audience fairly quickly since they can leverage that network to get the word out about their presence online.  This will not necessarily translate into sales or even increased business since the reason for the audience is not due to the products and services as much as it is the relationship with the business owner. Although the audience may be very large, the conversion rates can still be quite low in this setting. It really hinges on whether or not the audience is truly engaged with the content being generated.

In building an audience online, it is much more important to attract people who are there for a genuine interest in what your business has to offer.  The reality is this will take a considerable amount of time.  It’s kind of like the courtship phase of a romance, some take longer than others to fully materialize.

Many give up on Social Media as a marketing tool when they don’t see the magic happening right away.  We’ve all heard about the monster success stories out here and for some of us this has become the benchmark.  The reality is the average business Facebook page has fewer than 5,000 members.  Sometimes a gigantic Facebook or Twitter following is there but the sales aren’t because of the type of content generated by the page.  Fun and popular might not get the bills paid when it comes to translating audience size to actual generation of business.

Does this mean the effort should be abandoned if the sales or the audience just aren’t there?  As a marketing strategy consulting professional, I would offer an emphatic no since this is more the norm.  Using tools like Facebook and Twitter to generate business is a process.  As I’ve said over and over throughout my career in selling advertising services, there is no one-size-fits-all formula.  Each business is unique and will have to craft a unique formula for promoting its goods and services.

The size of your online audience is affected by numerous factors. Here is a list of questions to consider:

• Is your brand already soundly established?
• Do you know a lot of people that you can immediately connect with online?
• Can you advertise your presence online with PPC ad campaigns in various channels?
• How much time can you invest in promoting your online presence right now in relationship to just getting your work done?
• Are you already affiliated with a large, well known company or brand that will offer instant recognition and credibility?
• Is your existing network filled with people who carry a lot of social media influence themselves?
• Is your target demographic here yet? Click here for a look at some statistics.
• Are you moving into new territory, trying something new and different?

Some take the approach of capitalizing on every opportunity to create a large online presence thinking this is the path to instant success.  The reality is, even with a very large audience, it may not impact the bottom line much if the audience is there for some reason other than the organic merits of the brand, service or product.

If your business is very small or your resources very limited in terms of how aggressively you can develop the online resources needed to build your audience, understand it will likely take some time to actually generate revenue from an inbound marketing strategy.  It takes quite awhile to build but the beauty of it is once the momentum reaches a certain level much less effort will be needed to keep it going.  If you set things up correctly, your efforts should be cumulative.  The actual work your doing today is often merely a building block.

Sometimes, less is more.  The goal, ultimately, is some type of conversion that results in more business.  Operate on a win win philosophy and you will find that your conversion rates are higher and the need for a giant audience just isn’t there.  When you truly seek to help other people with your time and talent they will naturally seek you out when they need your services.  If your goal turns into making the audience bigger instead of investing in content that offers value you may find your efforts are wasted.

Resources you might find helpful:

• The value of a Facebook “fan” in cold hard cash.
• 11 Good reasons to have a Facebook Page for your company.
• Measuring the Value of Social Media
• Size doesn’t prove influence on Twitter

~Lisa Isbell, Marketing Strategy Consulting, Inbound Marketing Professional