Audience by Jeffrey K. Rohrs has truly opened my eyes to the importance of followers, fans and subscribers in a digital world. I began to realize that individuals and businesses often overlook their audience and it ends up hurting them in the long run.

Yes, businesses did succeed pre-social media, but times have changed, and we need to  keep up. As page 278 of Mr. Rohrs’s book, says, “Don’t underestimate the power of your social media followers… EVER!”

I’d highly recommend Audience to anyone looking to boost their social media presence. If you want a sneak peak into the book, check out my takeaways below.

“Say it with me. Audiences are assets—valuable business assets.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  Rohrs expands on the importance of sending the right message to the right audience at the right time. When it comes to social media, your business needs to ask itself whether or not its audience will find the information you share useful. Engaged members of the audience can quickly turn into paying customers. If you’re not sure what to post, check out these posts that work for any industry.

“Your audience size doesn’t convey much value… until you compare it to your head-to-head competitors.”

I thought this was a really interesting point. Sure, you can count how many  followers and subscribers you have, and it may seem like a large amount, but it really doesn’t matter until you compare it against your competitor’s numbers. If the competitor’s audience is larger than yours, ask yourself how they are engaging with the audience and what sort of content their audience seems to enjoy. Keeping the audience happy is key to growing your business. Don’t be afraid to make changes in your social media content.

“At it’s core, two basic human needs drive most Facebook usage: the need to belong and the need to present oneself to others.”

As of 2016, active Facebook members have surpassed one billion (shocking, I know). Rohrs highlights Facebook, along with other social media forms, several times throughout the book. I think this quote not only relates to Facebook, but other social media platforms as well. The audience wants to feel like the business that they follow or subscribe to genuinely cares about their opinion. If they feel that sense of belonging, they will continue following that company. By building that community of people, your company will be far more successful.

“In short, if your brand is highly visual or the nature of your business causes your CUSTOMERS to take a lot of photos, then you should be looking to attract to Instagram.”

Since social media followers are, again, incredibly important, we need to make sure that we use the correct platform to attract the intended audience. Jeffrey notes that Instagram is the more visually pleasing and artistic platform, so it should be used as such.

For example, if we post content with a bunch of hashtags on Facebook or LinkedIn instead of Twitter, everything just feels out of place and the audience doesn’t feel like you care. Take time on every post because your followers have a major role in your success.

“‘Build it (social media platform) and they will come’ is not a Content Marketing strategy; it’s a recipe for disaster—a very lonely unwatched disaster.”

As I hope you have learned by now, engagement with your audience is a primary element to achieve benefit from your followers. Just because you have built and created a profile for your company, does not mean you automatically have followers, fans and subscribers that adore you (it’s not that simple, folks). Rohrs seems to think that it can actually be detrimental. I agree! Why create something and not use it properly? You might as well not have it at all.

I could go on and on talking about this book. It is well written, humorous at times and provides helpful examples to expand on each topic. It’s a great read not only for marketers, but really for any individual with a social media account. Audiences are constantly changing and the way we communicate with them evolves as well. We have entered the age of subscribers, fans and followers. Are you ready?