The Quest For Audience

If a blog/vlog/podcast/tweet/update is posted on the Internet, and no one is around to read/see/hear/re-tweet/like it, does it make an impact? Well…no. Clearly not. What many of us do on the ‘net is meant for an audience. For some, it’s a small and private audience. For the most part, though, the hope is for people to flock, in a moth-to-flame-like-manner, to whatever sort of content we produce.

I’ve had highs and lows in my time on the web. In the late 90s, when I built and ran The Xuxa Web, I was getting between 200,000 and 300,000 visits a month. My art site currently gets under a thousand. This site, T I B, finds itself somewhere in the middle.

“Think about it! I just found out that my cable show only reaches 12 people . . . Wanting to rock the world, but having zip power like me – now, that’s a nightmare.”

–Lilly, The Princess Diaries (screenplay by Gina Wendkos)

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t crave a return to TXW-like numbers again…or more. Why? Well, it certainly goes a long way toward having the website pay for itself — which actually does happen some years. (No…I’m nowhere near those bloggers who complain about “only” getting a few thousand dollars of blog revenue a month.) Also, when you write all the content for your sites (save for comments and forum discussions), you sort of like people to read them.

But I find myself in a weird position with this. It’s not my job. Despite the amount of time spent creating content and administering my sites, I don’t devote full working days toward growing my audiences. I simply don’t have the time to do that sort of marketing–now being called “branding”. Also, my sites tend to not be conducive to building large followings. I don’t tend to specialize, and my posts tend to be too long.

I place some of the blame on my upbringing. There was great stock placed in not “blowing your own horn”–of letting your own abilities speak for themselves. Consequently, I don’t market myself well. I never have. It not only limits me with the blog traffic, but it sometimes limits me professionally.

The bulk of this situation is easier to label: choices. In the end, the results of our lives are largely the sum of the series of choices we make. I sense I’m at a point where I’m going to have to make some. Grow or stay the course? Market myself (or, as it translates in my head, “prostitute myself”) or, again, stay the course? Creative different, more targeted sites or go with the routine. And so forth. I’m sort of curious to see how it will all shake out in the end.