3 Ways to Build a Loyal Audience Without Losing Yourself

Remember back in your school days when you entered into a new school year and it was time to find your people?

It was pretty easy. You gathered up with your sports team, the band or even photography club and you found your people.

And now, as entrepreneurs we have to wade through the dredges of social media with the hope of finding someone who vibes with you and isn’t totally off their rocker.

If you are like me, you spend a lot of time in solopreneur world even if you have a team. Technically our small team of 6 only gets together 1 hour per week. The rest of the week we are all off in different states tackling our own tasks.

Add in the complexity of trying to build an authentic audience with people who are excited to work with you and spend their hard earned dollars on your business, and it is basically the WILD WILD WEST on the World Wide Web.

From this guru you hear that you need to post 3 times a day on social media while the next guru says social media is dead. The advice noise just builds and builds and builds until you are filled to the brim and fade into overwhelm.

And the worst thing is that you WANT to find your people, you WANT to serve people with abundance and yet it might feel like balancing on a tightrope above New York City deciding what to do, where to show up, how to build an audience and feel like yourself.

While we don’t have all the answers, after over seven years of building communities for teachers and entrepreneurs, we’ve learned a thing or two that might help you if you are feeling:

Overwhelmed with all the audience building options

Paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong choice

Anxious about showing your face daily on the internet

So without further adieu here are your…

THREE WAYS TO BUILD AN AUDIENCE YOU WANT TO SHOW UP FOR.

1️⃣Be unapologetically and authentically you

One of the biggest flexes our team has is every time we meet people in real life who know about G&G say “y’all are just like you are online.”

We aren’t out here “faking it til we make it.” We are showing up with our imperfections day in and day out. And that is just us. And those are brands that we tend to vibe with.

When you are building your audience it is important to be you.

Be unapologetically and authentically you!

You don’t have to be like this influencer, or this coach or this person to be successful. And anyone who tells you that is lying through their teeth.

It is totally fine to look up to others, but imitation is where people come off robotic and sterile. Like putting a square peg in a round hole. If you are imitating someone else, you lose you.

And when people sign up to work with YOU they expect, you guessed it, YOU!

You provide a unique perspective and skill set that is going to vibe with certain people and ward off others. That is the whole point of building an audience. You want to attract those who vibe and deter those who don’t.

If you are trying to be perfect for everyone you are going to set yourself up for failure. Here is why, if you “put on a face” that you love and can do everything, when you actually have a client ready for your deliverables they might be sorely disappointed when it doesn’t match their expectations.

So when you are diving into the interwebs, whether that is from your newsletter, social media or in-person chats, be you. Stand up for what you believe in and what you provide to others and you will start attracting those who want to be around you. Like moths to a flame.

2️⃣Find a space you feel confident in

I am going to be honest here. I don’t love Instagram as much as I did a few years ago. And TikTok, I don’t even know her.

Which I believe some people will call the beginning of business downfall.

I can hear people saying “how do you even build an audience without social media?’ “how can you even have a business without showing your face?”

And believe me, I’ve asked myself the same questions and came to this conclusion:

If you don’t feel comfortable in that space you shouldn’t be there. Just like in real life, you wouldn’t hop onto a moving train just because someone said this was the ONLY way to travel. You might say, good for you, not for me. I am going to drive.

The same concept can be used when it comes to virtual spaces.

I (personally) got to the point that I wasn’t experiencing life and I was just looking for content. I even sang that oldddd trending sound “everything is content, everything is content.” I stopped enjoying the sights and sounds on my walks with my pup Gravy. I was more focused on the perfect picture of my Thursday Brinners instead of just eating my dang meal. I no longer felt comfortable showing up like that anymore.

So I stopped. And you might have noticed it is pretty quiet over on the Green & Growing Consulting Instagram for that exact reason.

You might be feeling similar thoughts. And I am here to say, it’s ok.

It is OK to take a break.
It is OK to change your primary platform.
It is OK to outsource your content creation to someone else.
It is OK to show up on a “non-popular” platform.
If is OK to do “faceless” social media.

Our team is currently exploring other options (specifically starting Pinterest Marketing and doubling down on this blog) so we can continue to provide value to our online community in a way that feels right to us. And we hope that you decided to lean into building your content for your community in a place that feels comfortable so you can feel confident every time you show up.

3️⃣Show up consistently

Speaking of showing up. Time to commit to showing up consistently.

Regardless of where you are creating content, it is your responsibility to continue to show up for your people in that space.

Good news is that the consistency measure is up to YOU.

If that means a post everyday on social media, do it!
If that means a monthly newsletter, go for it!
If that means a biweekly podcast, you go!
If that means a quarterly virtual conference, totally awesome!

You get to choose the place and time!

When you are building a community, they expect to hear from you. Think back to those high school days, you had set committee meetings or practices so you could count on your team/coach to be there for you at those times. Same thing goes for your virtual audience.

People are creatures of habit. For me, I know with confidence that I am going to get my favorite sports newsletter on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from The Gist. Make sure your audience knows when you are going to be popping in their inbox, podcast stream, or IG stories.

Now, let me make a tiny caveat. It is OK to change your mind on your consistency.

For example, if you are currently at one newsletter a month and you want to do more go for it. If you just had a baby and you are used to doing weekly podcasts and you need to take a break, go for it.

You are the boss!