Customers are at the heart of any business. And successful creators think like a business, which means they understand that their audience on social media is just that, an audience. However, they also know that it can be converted into a customer-base. And it’s a core part of their business strategy accounting for various downside risks and upside benefits, with the core goal of building their customer base.
The downside risks of:
- being commoditised on a social media platform
- not knowing who your audience is
- depending on a 3rd party for your income
- infrastructural challenges in going direct to audience
- high cost of customer acquisition
and the upside benefits of:
- converting audiences into customers
- owning your content and all rights associated with it
- generating a direct income-stream from your content
- leveraging social media platforms to drive traffic
- leveraging social media platforms for ad-revenue
All creator businesses navigate this dynamic through a ‘test and learn’ cycle until they find the optimal fit. The crucial mindset shift is in switching from a ‘content creator’ to a ‘creator business’. This means reframing your environment and framing context around what drives business goals and what doesn’t.
What are the key elements of thinking about your content as a content-business?
- Converting non-paying viewers (audiences) into paying viewers (customers)
- Converting content into content-products that can be sold
- Developing revenue-streams that are dependent on your business system rather than you
- Building infrastructure that acquires customers for you
- Engaging your customers so they spread the word
- Pricing your products to maximise sales
- Analysing your business to optimise for your goals
As one of the most central elements of your content-business is your customer base, you’ll probably be thinking about how to connect with your customers. And here’s where what we call the direct connection bridge comes in.
The direct connection bridge is at the core of every business. It’s why every time you go to a Starbucks or CVS or Boots or Target, you get asked if you want to create a Starbucks account. So that the business can have a direct relationship with you, the customer.
By hosting all of your content on social media platforms, you create assets that the platform can use to acquire web-traffic which in turn they sell to advertisers, and keep a lion’s share of the advertising revenue. Importantly, by delivering your contently only on social media, you don’t build the direct connection bridge.
Is your social-media audience your customer ? Not really.
Can you turn your audience into your customer ? Yes.
Can you build the direct connection bridge to your customers ? Yes.
How ? 👉 Read on in Part 2!
