The most important thing to know when you are communicating online is who is watching.
Jesus did not communicate the same way to everyone He came in contact with. When He was with His disciples, His communication was different to when He was preaching to a large crowd. It was also different when speaking to the “authorities” – the Pharisees and Sadducees, the High Priest, Pilot etc – Jesus spoke to them all in different ways. We too know that when we communicate in everyday life we speak in a different way to our family as opposed to friends, work colleagues or general acquaintances.
One of the most important questions you need to answer then when it comes to reaching people through media is WHO you want to reach. Without knowing who you want to reach, it is impossible to measure the effectiveness of your media outreach. This means you may well be spending money and time on things or content that don’t match your goals.
As you will see from the list, it is clear that the only way you will know which of these categories are watching your content is by undertaking some research. Knowing who is watching your content online is easier than trying to find out who watches a more traditional television broadcast, but are you using the tools you have available to measure and track your audience?
If we don’t know WHO is watching, we cannot develop an effective way to communicate to them as individuals. I am thus surprised that “audience research” isn’t a major priority for those seeking to grow their online presence. One quick caveat here, if your priority is replacing your church gathering with an online service then this isn’t as important as for those seeking to grow their audience and their online impact. Even so, I would still encourage you to delve into finding out who your audience is, you may find it surprising.
Our upcoming e-course will go into more depth on this and provide some resources too, but here are some basic things that you can do right now:
Finding out detailed data on your audience should become part of your routine as a content provider. Then you can utilise the data and information to tailor your content towards your audience(s) – the reason I pluralise this is that you may well need to consider creating or re-purposing your content to be more appropriate for other audiences – it may well mean you completely relook at how you are providing content, where and to whom.
Getting the answers to these questions is vital - if you want to know why, then read this blog on "Do you know who holds the remote control".
Categories: audience, Broadcasting, Platforms, production, Strategy
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