Discussion: Do You Know Your Audience?

in #writing7 years ago

For technical documentation, it's best to set a minimum expected level, but for dramatic writing, I think that maximum better.

It's a difficult balance to achieve. You don't want to insult your audience with exposition. But you don't want to lose them completely either. For example, this kind of dialog makes excessive use of exposition:

[Ops]

WORF: Where are they? They should've been back hours
  ago. 
O'BRIEN: Maybe the meeting with Starfleet Command took
  longer than they thought it would. 
KIRA: Then why haven't Sisko or Dax contacted us? 

The above dialog is written specifically to get the audience up to speed. It's a pretty unnatural interaction, but it saves time.

On the other hand, I think the show Better Call Saul achieves the proper level of this type of writing rather well. But I've heard people describe the show as "slow." I don't think so, but this is probably an artifact of the writers avoiding lazy exposition. And if that's true, I think it's a good call.

Knowing your audience is not easy. Some readers don't mind walls of text. Some can't tolerate long-winded rants.

Your audience might prefer videos instead of an article. They might routinely skip the article and go straight to the comments.

On top of that, your audience might arrive because your article came up from a search engine query.

So how can you ever really know your audience?


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I'm looking to virally monetize your eyeballs by selling them for transplants.
I'm looking to virally monetize your eyeballs by selling them for transplants.

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I guess one way to know your audience on Steemit is based on how many upvotes and comments you get on a post. In a word, "engagement". Thanks for the important reminder.

Yep, that's the ticket. :D

Knowing your audience is pretty hard hard in offline world but a lot harder here. I hope that we'll live that day when people will join steemit for the great content, not only for the money. Good reminder, thanks)

i think my issue is that I write on a diversity of subjects so I do not have one audience but a overlap of many layers. Maybe I have not discovered my audience. You would have thought with 306 followers I would have. Don't know if they all get the feeds. I think one must develop the relationships with each follower. That takes work because the more you have the harder it is. It may be better to have 3 dozen devoted follower than 300 signed on follower. I am still learning. Thanks for sharing.

I like to imagine there's a 1 in 10 rule. One person writes what ten others are thinking. Maybe it's not true, but it helps me get a picture.

There are some blogs that try to stick to a single topic. I think that's a good strategy, but I don't use it, primarily because I don't think there are very many people out there with my exact interests.

So, this is in direct opposition to my first statement. I'm unique, but no one else is. Silly, right?

And you need to have a great intro. 1st 60 seconds is a must.😄

Nice post!!

For me that's the tricky part: "building a relationship with your readers", I already have a hard time building relationships with people I meet in person o_o

Lol. Good post. It's kinda like a seesaw. Hard to tell if your up or down. In today's time you have a ever changing audience on the internet.

Thank you, this will make me reflect! I must rethink, and try to get to know my target audience so that I can have assertive strategies and get recognition from the blog, it's a slow and laborious process, but the result really pays off. With knowledge it is possible to make the right decisions and achieve success. When in doubt, decide on: Doing what I like or like what I do. If I choose to do just what I like I'm mistaken.

It is very difficult to know the target audience here at steemit when we post diversified content.

nice post! I love writing, but my english skills are poor haha.

Agreed, so hard to know your audience. People are so diverse, their tastes in consumption of content included. Guess you could always poll them and see if you could gain any insight(s) that way!

@inertia if you had loyal on your customers. than your all customers always keep mind you.

I think the best strategy is target a specific group of people. But if you have money, you can diversify since you can promote your posts.

I think it is most important to stay true to yourself, and write about what you love with passion, without giving too much attention to what achieves instant success. Sure, it is important to note which posts get more upvotes, but only to a certain degree. If you post content that comes from the heart, over time, your success will grow :) Good post!

In my humble minnow opinion, there are several very important key points:

  • eye-catching titles - very often a question, engaging curiosity
  • good/interesting introduction
  • not too long post

To have a lot of steem power lol
And also speak inteligently, the way that it make sence, provide some original content, or content that is hard to find, something very informative and kind of a game changing, and funny
Im not content creator yet though, maybe one day, this is just my opinion as a reader, this is what is interesting for me, bu not too gamechanging, if its not completelly verified information then it looks as a fake
Maybe also steem givaway :)

It would be nice to have here on #steemit sort of FB statistics - like countries/interests (at least these two) about followers

Now I post questions-discussions and ask my followers to provide information about their interests and who they are. Unfortunatly, I don't know other way to learn these

Nice post and very useful this for begginers like me.... @inertia thank you so much sharing your valuble knowledge with all other steemians...keep it up....GOD BLESS YOU

Thank you so much @inertia your kindly upvote my comment...i'm following your every post day by day...i'm waiting for your valuble next post...

It can be hard starting when you don't have an audience, so your left doing thing to try and get one. This can happen by luck, trial and error, or just brute force (doing the same thing till it works). The key is not to give up

Engaging here is a hard work and sometimes I feel rejected too. And so I just go about my way, take my time and at least it is not so bad at the end of the day because I am stumbling upon good and kind people.

@cryptopie got you a $0.01 @minnowbooster upgoat, nice!
@cryptopie got you a $0.01 @minnowbooster upgoat, nice! (Image: pixabay.com)


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Nice post @inertia
It's always better to build a relationship with your readers.
That way a lasting connection is created.

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Very Helpful article

@inertia,
Thank you very much for sharing this useful article. Actually it has a lot of things that we need to added here and to our publications as well. Really appreciate your effort!

Thanks!

Cheers~

interesting.. thanks you for sharing

If you really want to get to know your audience, you could. It would just take a lot of time to create a connection and build a bond, then maintain that bond. I think just humans are complex beings that all appreciate an effort to be noticed and mutual supported.

I did not quite get the concept of exposition in writing. The example dialog, why do you call that "exposition"?

If one likes writing fiction, I believe one has to be ready to not being read. In a platform like this, I arrive to the idea that one has to write micro stories. Just paragraphs, that present a situation or a character.

Thanks for sharing :) really good one

what a great article that is, follow you @inertia

you should post often...