Followers Is Not Audience

Audience is people whose heart you’ve won. It can’t be bought, it can’t be cajoled into existence. It must be earned. It might appear as a number, such as followers or subscribers, but a number ain’t audience—a Twitter account followed by a bunch of bots has followers, but it has no audience.

When you’ve won people’s heart, they like you, they trust you, they listen to you—they might even help you share your work. But if you treat their attentive ear with contempt, they’ll stop listening.

It’s about the heart.

August 18, 2021