I was asked question on Quora recently about how to build a following. The choice of word, “following” as opposed to community, or fans is interesting in that it suggests an audience of people who follow a brand or personality and what it/they communicate about their values and events / life.

So it seems relevant to the audience here at Ambient Music Garden who are looking to build an audience for their therapeutic and wellbeing service to existing clients they work with today and also to build a wider online client base

Firstly the wording is useful in terms of shaping your approach.

For example, using the word, “audience” can mean you have a wide range of individuals who connect to you or your brand in various ways (so different ‘channels’) whilst also being a mix of occasionally connecting to constantly connecting.

Your audience could be a mix of non-paying and paying clients to access your service  your non-paying audience can be considered a pool of people who either may become paying clients at a later stage (at their own pace) but costs you little to keep the connection, and those that will help spread the awareness of your brand and services

What ever the mix is you need a strategy for building this audience. To get this right you need some key elements to make this a success.

Quality Content. You will need to deliver content that is of a professional level compared to your audiences view on what is professional, and your market as a whole.

Targeted Content. Your content needs to well targeted to the audience you are focusing on.

Consistency of Production. You need to deliver quality content but consistently. Your audience will tell you at what rate they like content served to them but what ever you do, don’t take a break.

Targeted Promotion. Be that affiliates, influencers or advertising, you need to understand where you can get access to your targeted audience.