It’s okay to want an audience. When we’re trying to build awareness, we want an audience. We create things to get people’s attention. For some, the creation is advertising. For others, it’s face to face events. For others, it’s content (like this blog post). If you’re clever, you create in a variety of formats.

This builds audience. Audiences are those folks who gather to hear what you have to say. But that’s not a community.

The difference between an audience and a community is which direction the chairs are pointing.

A community looks to each other to sustain the relationship and some of the interactions. Communities don’t gather without a purpose, and so building an audience that you then convert into a community is certainly one method to get that experience going, but it doesn’t just happen.

Community happens when people feel they’re among like-minded others and when they feel their contributions matter. I consider myself part of the podcasting and media making community. I feel an affinity through PodCamp. Other groups of podcasters and media makers exist as well. I’m thrilled to be attending and participating in Podcasters Across Borders.

You can have community around products if everyone feels empowered through using them. I could see people gathering around Flip video cameras, for instance, insofar as talking about creative ways to use them. Will that work for all products? I don’t think so.

But again, if all you’re hoping to achieve through building community is to sell more products, that might not be the best way to consider the problem. Communities don’t sell product. Communities empower users of products or services, or people with like-minded interests to interact.

Communities Do Have Leaders

And yes, it can be a standalone focal leader, or maybe it can be a diversified bunch of leaders across various slices of the pie. For instance, US President Barack Obama’s campaign for election (and most campaigns) paid great care and courtesy to local leaders. Each area’s leaders were empowered, were given the reins, were given the sense that they controlled the passion for change that the larger campaign wanted to own as a message.

Is the leader always directly related to the larger movement? No, not always.

Gary Vaynerchuk has quite an active and passionate community around wine. He doesn’t make himself out to be the wine guy. He simply pushes a strong opinion forward and serves his community, who then has their own opinion on everything except for the fact that they all love Gary.

Never be afraid to be the community’s leader. Just be sure you’ve earned it. If you’re the product or service’s maker, and you’re trying to build a community around that, you might not be the leader. It might be your most passionate users/customers/clients.

Communities and Audiences Want Something

You have to feed the system to keep either an audience or a community alive. If the band doesn’t come out to play, the fans don’t stick around for too long. If the band doesn’t engage the crowd, you feel a bit more like an audience. Think about the difference between The Grateful Dead and Britney Spears.

At the bare minimum, audiences want recognition that the leader or focal point is grateful for their interaction. At the most, a community wants to own the experience every bit as much as they can. This is important to consider.

**Update: Due to Kathy Sierra and several others reminding me of a missed point, I’ll add something in.

A large percentage of people come to the community to absorb the rewards of that community without contributing back in. Meaning, for every million people reading Wikipedia, there are only 10 or so editing and adding to it. The same is true with many communities. Charlene Li talked about this in her slides from the Forrester days with regards to the ladder of participation. Meaning: some people come to the community to set up their chairs like an audience.

The difference between an audience and a community is which direction the chairs are pointing.

What say you, people that I call the community? What do people need to do to engage you? How do you move from being part of the audience, or just a customer into being part of a community? Is it always necessary?

On top of what Mark has written about, I’ll add a few more ways to build relationships and grow your audience:

• Write useful posts that are worthy of social bookmarks (such that people will want to come back to them and refer to them). Bookmarks grow your connectivity.
• Make the call to subscribe VERY prominent on your blog, with simple mechanisms to subscribe.
• Add a “Subscribe to my blog” link in your email signature.
• Instead of posting blog post links on social platforms, ask a question that you mirror in the blog post, and THEN the link.
• Vary the length of your posts.
• Stay on topic for your audience, and then write posts from the perspective of your audience. Meaning, if you have the owner of an Argentinian steakhouse reading your blog, maybe you can write about how restauranteurs would use social media. (Heck, reach out to that person and recommend a guest post on your blog).

Those are just a few ideas. Tell me: what would YOU tell Mark are your best ways to grow your audience?

Photo credit, Joe Slabotnik

Let’s Start With Audience

First and foremost, who are you writing this blog for? If the answer is “myself” and you have more than one RSS subscriber, congratulations. You’ve done it. If the answer is, “Anyone into _____,” like “anyone into tech,” and you have more than 10 subscribers congratulations. Be clear about the audience. If I’m going to bother giving you some of my time, I want something back.

Let’s take Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation. This is a top shelf blog, with clearly written content, that speaks to people looking to better understand the future of digital influence. Brillant work, considerately written, and created in such a way that I come away thinking about how this impacts me. Perfect. Spot on.

Other great examples of a focused blog that targets its audience well:

• Problogger (I’ll send a few posts over shortly, mate.)
• Web Worker Daily. I miss Anne Zelenka, but the rest of the team are doing great.
• Copyblogger. I miss Brian posts, but the one I linked to shows you how to add subs.
• Livingston Buzz

Technically, I could give you links all night, but the point is this. Look at how the content is focused on a specific audience. Look a few posts forward and back. Except for a few exceptions, you can tell exactly who the audience is.

When my audience dips, it’s because I lose my focus. But there’s more to it than that.

Your Content Needs to Be Well Chunked

First off, journalists know this, but I’ll tell you: start with the best stuff right up at the top. Don’t do it as a build-up. Second, make it such that people can read it in chunks. Look up at this. I’ve got headings that break up the post. I’ve got bullets that break up the post. I’ve led with a graphic. I could pull out a graphic or a pull quote to keep it looking better.

Break things up so that human eyes can read them easier. Dense posts and super long posts are a turn-off. Oh, and that’s another thing. Brevity. It rules. Pass it on.

Promote Your Blog Effectively

First, make sure there’s a very prominently displayed link for folks to subscribe to your RSS feed for your blog. The bigger and more attention-drawing, the better. Second, add an email subscription option to your blog. I prefer using FeedBurner to manage all that.

Second, be sure your blog’s URL is loaded into pretty much every social network where you belong. Add it to MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Flickr, and wherever else you can bring awareness. Make sure you submit it to directories like Dmoz.org, and Yahoo and Google. Get that URL out there where people can find it. I’ve had lots of interesting moments where someone has found my blog via Facebook or LinkedIn.

Third, add it to your email signature and your business cards. If your company doesn’t give you business cards, go to Overnight Prints or Vista Print or Moo and buy some. Thirty or so bucks and they help people find you (and your blog!).

In services like Twitter, promote your blog posts from time to time. Not EVERY post, but ones where you feel you’ve done well. I never use automatic post-to-twitter links. They just don’t seem to net decent conversations. Instead, try using a conversational tone. For instance, when I’m done this post, I will send to Twitter something like this: “I shared my thoughts on growing your audience. What are YOUR ideas?” and then the link to this post. You don’t have to follow, but you’ll know exactly why I asked for your attention.

One quick note: it’s not always about your blog. Don’t be that guy.

Be Persistent

I could also say “be consistent,” but in this case, I want you to persist in not only putting out your content, but also making it better. EVERYONE can make their stuff better. I could do to focus on my takeaways. You might need to pare down the word count. There’s always room to do better work.

Further, do lots to try new things. Stretch out the medium. Think of new ways to ask the same old questions. Decide on challenging approaches to blogging in ways that powerfully reveal the information your audience seeks from you. Persist in such matters, never accepting that your work is flawless, but instead analyzing your responses and uptake or downturn in traffic, and giving more effort accordingly.

And Now, the Bonus Round

Other ways that I’ve built traffic to my blog include the basics: comment on great blogs. Write and submit guest posts to top blogs in your similar space (but be careful of HOW you guest post). Add occasional links to your blog posts in places like Flickr. Consider contests. Participate in other people’s events. Find groups of bloggers you like and see if you fit their circles of friends. Write series so that people want to participate and come back for more. Make your URL memorable.

And beyond all that? Be as human as humanly possible, only do that in the most interesting senses of the idea. Make sense?

What else did I miss? The part where I ask you questions so that you help add YOUR personality and ideas to the conversation?

Photo Credit, Chel Pixie shooting for Financial Aid Podcast