The Next Audience Wants To Join In

People don’t want to disappear into more noise, but to be recognised inside something they trust.

It used to be easy to explain how to build an audience. You created useful content, you kept on showing up and people became familiar with you. If you stuck with it long enough, you could carve out a place for yourself and people joined you.

That was the promise. I even wrote a book about it.

You did not need permission or have a large budget. You could write, record, share, publish and gradually build a body of work that helped people understand what you cared about and trust you.

That still matters today and I would not be here without it.

You Are The Media started as a newsletter and remains the centre of everything I do. It’s the writing and ideas that have helped bring people together. Familiarity in your work and giving people a place to go to, which you have responsibility for, is empowering as algorithms now decide who gets to see you.

There is a change today and it’s not about the way of building an audience has disappeared, it’s just stretched.

Today, we are surrounded by more information than we could ever consume. The scarcest resource is no longer information, it’s meaningful involvement.

I can see it and it’s happening. Content still matters it just has a different job now.

People still want ideas, guidance and perspective. Content helps to create awareness and gives people a doorway into your work. Content, however, is no longer the journey.

People need a reason to stay with you. Ten years ago, the audience gathered because of the creator. Today, the audience increasingly stays because of the people they meet.

This is the biggest change that is happening today and if we figure it out, we will still be here for years to come.

The value now is what happens between the people who gather around the work.

A way of framing could be that a newsletter introduces someone to an idea. Then an event can introduce them to a person. The next step is a community helping them feel like they are not working it all out alone.

This is what is changing the audience today and where we are heading. It is not only about getting people to look at you and commit. It is about helping the right people find each other and you provide the places that matter to them.

This is why the old language of audience building can feel a little too narrow.

Build your audience.

Grow your list.

Increase your reach.

Get more followers.

That isn’t wrong, but it does sound passive. No one wants to feel like a number, a crowd or a marketplace.

The next audience wants something more active, where they can join in and be seen and heard. It feels more collective than individual. I have seen that change in myself. 

I used to take the posture of follow me, subscribe to me, buy from me. My approach is now different, it is more,  join us, meet each other, share what you know, build something together.

The role of the creator doesn’t disappear, but the role changes.

The audience builder is no longer the person with the microphone that people look at. They become the host, the connector and the person who sets the tone and creates the conditions for other people to step forward.

This means that the role of the audience builder is not just to be seen, but to help other people become seen too.

The area to lean further into is around participation, when so many others ramp up the content. This means that people can start to feel part of something, rather than be the consumer of someone else’s information. 

This could be inviting your audience to join in with your newsletter and then can have a part of it, or if you have an event, you allow others to step up. You move beyond people sitting down, listen, learn and then leave, but are made to feel part of the whole set-up. What happens is that people leave feeling braver than when they arrived.

By taking a more collective approach to YATM and people having the opportunity to get to meet ‘the others’ is shaping how I see audience building. It’s all about participating together. 

Here are questions to ask yourself if you are building something you want others to get involved with.

What can people do here?

How can they contribute?

Where can they be recognised?

How do they meet each other?

This is the most important question. What stage can they step onto next?  I wrote more about stages here for you to read.

You are continually looking at ways for someone to look around and know that your space is what feels right for them. 

The goal is not to create an audience that depends on you, it’s to create an audience that becomes valuable to itself.

That is a different ambition. It means the value is not only in what you know. It is in what people can do because they have found each other through the work.

This is where the next stage of audience building becomes more human, not less.

The future is not about publishing more for the sake of it. It is not about flooding every channel just because the tools make it easier. It is not about becoming louder until people finally notice.

It is about creating the kind of place people want to return to because they feel more capable, more connected and more themselves when they are there.

This changes the questions we ask.

I used to ask myself, “How do I get people to pay attention?” Now it’s, “What can people become part of once they arrive?”

I used to be fixated on this question, “How do I grow the audience?” I know this is moving now to, “How do I help the audience grow each other?”

The next stage of audience building will not be won by the people who publish the most content. It will be won by the people who create the best opportunities for others to participate.

People do not just want more information, they want places where they matter.

The future of audience building is not creating more followers. It is creating more participants. The next audience does not want a bigger stage to watch from a distance. They want a place where they can join in, contribute and feel they matter.