If you are an online entrepreneur or communicative artist and you want success in your field, I really don't have to tell you the one truth that stands out beyond everything else:
It is critical to maintain a connection with your audience.
Whether that connection is purely psychological, emotional, visceral, intuitive, partially conscious, eye-catching – or any of these combined – there is no doubt the life-blood of the entrepreneur and communicative artist is an audience connection.
In acting, filmmaking, public speaking, screenwriting, playwriting, copywriting, other writing, online marketing, the comedic arts (including stand-up), and even in singing and music, the loss of a connection to the audience can be a devastating blow to how you are received.
A break with your audience can cause even the best composed, written, or well-intentioned material to sound dull or monotonous.
A technically proficient vocalist can sing the best song ever composed, in perfect pitch and melody, but her performance can still have no luster, or life. She has lost (or may have never had) the emotional connection with the meaning and life of the material – and thus there is none with the audience.
People sometimes refer to this simply as "lack of stage presence". While this is an accurate description, much much more is going on here.
There's those times when we are reading fiction or a piece of new sales copy, or sitting in the audience of a film or live performance with the very best intentions: reading, watching, listening - doing our best to "feel".... and "connect"; but something's missing.... something's off.
And you can't always put your finger on it.
Regardless of the exact cause, I can tell you what the end result was: losing that human connection with the audience.
In the best of possible circumstances these readers or audience members may even tell the writer, actor, director, comedian, public speaker to his face that the work was "good", or "fine" or come out with the rather benign "I liked it". Which isn't so bad really, especially if the performer, writer, or director was expecting a complete disaster.
But you won't find these same readers or audiences saying things like it was "amazing", "incredible", "spectacular", "the best", "you hit a home run", or the perennial favorites "Man, you blew me away" or "I have never seen something so powerful".
Or if they do manage to utter these generous compliments, chances are they won't fully mean it. They just don't want cause hurt feelings.
It becomes painfully obvious when we are sitting in an audience when a film or play's actors "lose the audience", even when performing a known masterpiece. I've been on both sides of this kind of stage, and I can't tell you which feels worse.
All I know is, they both are awful.... And I know for sure that feeling is your enemy.
We must never forget, that in order to prevent the Big Bad Wolf from returning to blow our fragile house down, we first must make this sad feeling our "best friend".
Once we make friends with "bombing" and understand exactly what it is, how it operates, and that it is not about us – but about the work, it no longer has the power to hurt us and we are in a better place.
Then if Mr. Wolf comes knocking again, which inevitably he will, you'll know exactly what to do to fix it and recover, right there... Maybe you'll take the wolf out for some tea.
More about practical, time-tested visualization techniques in upcoming subscriber materials.
With the exponential growth of the Internet, the explosion of blogs and social networking sites (such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), with all the technology buzzing around us and all the methods for getting information, products, services, and entertainment, it is all too easy for your target audience or market to get distracted.
Over two decades of work and intensive research in the communicative and entrepreneurial arts, I have learned what it takes to engage audiences of all kinds. See our about page (scroll down to 2nd to last section) for my experience and background.
I know artists and public speakers agree with me: when we stand in front of an audience and we have them in our grip, it's one of the best feelings in the world. Whether it's a room of over a hundered laughing their heads off, or a silent room with the audience motionless, in rapt attention.
This expereince is not only limited to artists. We all know the feeling of that human connection with others, in our everyday lives.
We at AudienceConnections.com want to be your multidimensional toolbox.
We are here to help you, the new and experienced entrepreneur and communicative artist, enhance, boost, cement, and dimensionalize that connection with your audience(s) or market(s).
