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 "Don't cater to the audience. Inspire the audience". – Ken Danby
Thank you for visiting AudienceConnections.com where the worlds of the online entrepreneur and the communicative artist converge. We at AudienceConnections.com think it's time these two important communities came together in one location to help each other grow and thrive.
We
provide support, training,
information, educational materials, resources, artistic and marketing tools and stragegies,
coaching and mentoring for a wide variety of entrepreneurial and artistic disciplines.
I'm Michael Louis, I am glad you found us.
 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, just “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, almost all other writing, online marketing, the comedic arts, stand-up comedy, 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 very best written material to sound dull or monotonous. A "technically" proficient vocalist sings the best song ever composed, in perfect pitch and melody, but her performance still has no (or little) luster, or life. She has lost or never had the emotional connection with the meaning (or life) of material – and thus there is none with the audience.
People sometimes refer to this as "lack of stage presence". But 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. Just a little bit about my past experience, a brief summary::
In addition to the above summary, I feel compelled to tell you another one of my qualifications. I originally didn’t put it above, because I was concerned it might look kind of weird, if not a little unconventional. But I feel I must tell you, because it is true:
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). Whether it is through gaining a better understanding of your own connection to your work, developing humor, heightening emotion, raising dramatic tension, increasing the level of personal engagement with the audience/market, or just extra "clarity" in your message – or any of these in different doses – we are committed to helping you move forward.
AudienceConnections.com is not only a powerhouse of tools and resources... we are a movement. We are a community of online entrepreneurs, writers, public speakers, performers, filmmakers, spoken word artists, artistic souls and forward thinkers, who believe Web 2.0 has bridged the gap between the communicative and entrepreneurial arts, and that the road to Web 3.0 and beyond will naturally bring us closer together. A major focus of AudienceConnections.com will be you, our fellow online entrepreneur and communicative artist. Once you join our community, we will do everything humanly possible to help your business or artistic pursuit succeed beyond your wildest dreams. For more information on what is provided to Online Entrepreneurs and Communicative Artists as a subscriber, please see our About Us and Training Materials & Coaching sections . For an article on why learning the tools of the communicative artist can help you make a more powerful connection with your market, check out our Online Entrepreneur section. If you are generally curious or interested in purely pursuing one or more of the communicative arts (with no entreprenuer or marketing training), please check out our Absolute Beginner Artist section and our Communicative Artists section. Come to think about it, if you're an entrepreneur with absolutely no artistic background, definintely go to our Absolute Beginner Artist page. And finally, if you’re like me, you find quotes from public figures inspirational. Here’s a few below I hope you like. They have to do with a central element of this site – the audience, the market. I believe each quote applies to both the world of online marketing and the communicative arts. "In the theatre the audience wants to be surprised – but by things that they expect". – Tristan Bernard "The general audience is interested purely for the emotional response. They may not know why they respond, but they can put themselves into the place and imagery." – Donald Demers "One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. Passersby see only a whisp of smoke rising from the chimney and continue on their way." – Vincent van Gogh (Note From Michael: That is, if you haven't done your job with your website or artistic project – taken all the steps that lead to a powerful audience connection.) "If what you have to say is from your deepest feelings, you'll find an audience that responds." – Irwin Greenberg I will see you VERY soon. Thank you for visiting AudienceConnections.com.
To your passions and success, Michael Louis If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at MLouis@AudienceConnections.com.
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