The Viral Success
It’s a modern fairytale: a person who loves to write pours their best work out into their favorite word venue of choice. Due to the mysterious mechanics of viral discovery, their work becomes wildly successful and insanely popular overnight.
Sadly, this dream is vanishingly likely to happen to you, no matter how good your content is. To become recognized and have your work seen, you need to consider your target audience.
But wait, you say. I like to write. I have a story I want to tell, or a message I want to share. I know that my writing is good. So everyone will be interested, right?
Unfortunately, that’s very unlikely.
The Big Question
The answer to the question, “Why do you need a target audience?” is simple: you need to know to whom you should be showing your work. Getting it in front of the right people is central to people reading it and sharing it—and more people finding it.
If you write about Tuvan throat-singing, it’s likely that a forum devoted to muscle cars wouldn’t be the best avenue to share your writing. Likewise, if you write the best piece about medieval weaponry in the world, with the best most well-researched information you can find, but put it up on your child’s preschool message board where no one with interest in it can see it, both you and people looking for that kind of content will be disappointed.
You need a target audience you can identify clearly and reliably so that you can focus on the message you have to share. Once your message and your audience mesh, you can focus on getting it in front of them for consumption and engagement.
A Common Issue
One mistake people make in identifying a target audience is thinking that they have only one target audience. Consider: you may enjoy the eclectic blend of interests that is antique didgeridoo collecting, obscure 1980s video game glitches, and modern-day hip hop/Morris dancing music fusion. However, you are a unique individual. You need to remember that others will not necessarily also have an interest in all three of these things. This doesn’t mean your target audience is smaller. It means that you have not one, but three, target audiences, if you choose to write about all three of those interests. When you are creating content for your interests, you must consider your target audience for each interest, and choose where to share your work accordingly.
Mutual Benefit
You need a target audience. Just as importantly, your target audience needs you, to create content they are enthusiastic about and look forward to consuming. But only you can choose to identify and share your work in such a way that others can find it.
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