The Importance of Maintaining a Good Relationship with your Audience

How many people can say that being 100% ‘yourself’ is easy to do when dealing with a complete stranger? Not many I presume. The same goes for when dealing with someone you barely know or someone you do not get along with. This is why as a journalist, it is important to build a relationship with your projected audience and become familiar with their likes and dislikes. This way, it will be easy to connect with your audience on a personal level and the content being produced will be more relatable.

A good way to do this, will be to ask questions. In the ideal audience- journalist relation, there is a good amount of interaction that goes on. Ask your audience how they feel about a story or topic that you’re covering. This creates an inclusive environment for the more opinionated members of your audience. It also allows audience members to interact with each other. Add a few comments of your own to keep the conversation interesting. However, be sure to stay clear of sensitive topics. The last thing you would want is to loose a part of your audience to opinion.

Another good way to engage your audience is to create events that require their participation such as raffles and giveaways. What this does it it engages your audience in a way that makes them frequently want to come back. If not for your stories, at least to have an update on the activity they have participated in. In addition to that, your audience will be grateful that you’ve taken the extra step to create something that will likely benefit them and will have reason to keep supporting you. Once you have this type of bond with your audience, kind of like a favor for a favor, you’ve pretty much hut the jackpot in terms of growing your audience and keeping the ones you already have. Here is an example of a blog post that embodies all things mentioned above. Take a few minutes to check it out and try to pinpoint some of the points that were highlighted.