When we place our bets on technology companies and social platforms, the future is never certain. Information moves fast and the mediums that carry information change even faster. Just as creators filled a need when the mainstream media lost its grip on community-based platforms, something else will eventually come along and change current information consumption behaviours too.
The good news is that creators who build their audience based on trust can keep those connections no matter how consumption trends change. And by keeping an open mind to the next technology or gathering trends, you can engage your audience in ways that are just about future-proof.
Though more people use digital social platforms to find information than ever before, we’ve already seen the peaks and falls of popular platforms, and we’ve seen what happens to creators on those platforms when they close. Twitter brought us the age of the journalist celebrity, Vine and Snapchat made vertical video a necessity, Meta’s reels and YouTube shorts introduced new types of commenting communities and have outlasted many iterations of SEO optimization. AI and automation has people craving in-person events and private discussion boards. We don’t know what the future holds, but we can prepare.
Audience Development Beyond One Platform
How do we diversify our audiences beyond the platform where they met us? As new digital spaces launch, you’ll have to decide how to divide your time – you can’t be everywhere at once.
- Prioritize by asking yourself if the medium of the new space helps you convey your information and feels authentic to you. Mediums that feel genuine to your personality will always create better results in audience growth.
- Regardless of whether you’ll be on all platforms, have you held your name or your handle on new ones that pop up? The same way Instagram morphed from an aspirational still photo platform to hosting casual reels, platforms can change at any time and it’s better to have your account held just in case you start posting there.
- Do you know what platforms and mediums your audience enjoys? Are they text-focused? Do they like information via longer video? Are they on their phones late at night? Do they crave information about a very niche topic? If your community is geographic, which platforms highlight location? Creating an account on a platform where your audience doesn’t engage means dragging them to a new place and distributing to a group of users that aren’t interested in your content.
Can You Reach Your Audience If The Platform Goes Away Tomorrow?
If you’re relying on one or two platforms to connect to your audience, you are at the whims of whatever changes those platforms decide to make. How will you connect to your audience if a big change happens? Think about what you do when that service has down time.
- Having a backup of your content is valuable in case the platform disappears completely tomorrow. Does all of your work live somewhere accessible if the worst case scenario happened? A folder on your laptop might do the trick, or look into a portable drive so that you can bring it with you to any device or platform.
- Changes to discovery platforms, like Google search, create a new hierarchy of expertise and authority, and can become a way for new audiences to find you. Changes to Google have given creators a new place in search authority. An interview with Nicola Aigus on “Ask a News SEO” highlights that the more expertise a creator has in their topic area, the better their rank will be in Google AI summaries. And the diversity of platforms you are an expert on helps too. Aigus said, “Think about your audience and how they find content. Are they younger? Maybe they are on TikTok as well as Google. TikTok really is a search engine, too. So is YouTube. So, use your SEO skills there.”
- As publishers opt out of AI search results, or make partnerships deals with just one AI platform, the door opens for creators to appear across AI searches. This means understanding why and how you appear in those results. Are you using those tools in a way that helps you understand where you fit?
- Finally, having direct access to those readers without the buffer of platforms is immeasurable. Newsletters and website membership mean your audience has bought into you as a source of information. Those can lead to live events, text groups and more flexibility in connecting with people.
And those touchpoints give you better impact metrics and more options for financial sustainability.
What Does Sustainability Look Like?
Lex Roman runs Revenue Rulebreaker, a community for solopreneurs, and thinks about different types of revenue obsessively. They specialize in formats that help independent creators stay as independent as possible by exploring all revenue options and helping to figure out what fits their lifestyle and content best.
Their topline advice? “You want two [revenue opportunities] as a core model. Never have your eggs in one basket,” they said. “And cycle on these. What can you develop a rhythm around?”
As far as revenue methodologies go for independent creators, there are many options:
- Subscription and/or membership
- Ads
- Sponsorships
- Affiliate sales and branded merchandise
- Philanthropy and grants
- Events, retreats and conferences
- Products, consulting services or courses
- Licensing and syndication deals
Where longevity is concerned, you want to think about how much time you’re putting into the revenue model, and how much you’re getting out of it. Leaning completely on specific platforms for their individual monetization tools can lead to trouble (think Substack or TikTok), but considering models apart from how tech platforms use them opens you up to more possibilities.
“Sponsorships can go away, and add more work,” Roman says. “With memberships, you’re interacting, but subscriptions are less high touch. And try events if your buyer and audience are the same person.” Affiliate sales and consulting can establish background income, and grants might work best if your model is service-based.
Regardless of which revenue model fits your content, budget out what you need to live, and break down which models can fill even part of that need. “Think of multiple model scenarios, 50%, 25%, 25% and other alternative versions,” Roman says. And always know when to fall back to plan b. “If I drop below a certain amount in my bank account, this is my warning sign [to go back to a desk job].”
And most importantly, we should understand what those revenue sources mean to our audiences.
“A lot of us were trained on a conversion funnel with a big top funnel, but that leaves a lot of the game up to the gatekeepers,” Roman says. “Can you make relationships with people? What’s the end goal that you want people to do?” Instead, when we think about our audiences as people, we can transparently explain where their money, time and attention goes, and how it helps creators continue their work.
Roman says to consider “audience as people and not platform followers. How big can my community get, how big can I sustain it? No matter your model, being transparent helps people understand you, and buy-in on what you’re doing.”
Established a trusting audience builds healthier partnerships
It’s a misconception that public relations people only care about follower count. Reach is important but connecting with their target audience is the priority, and that means working with the right ‘messenger’. Real decision-making influence comes from trust, no matter the size.
A viral post might generate millions of views, but how well do those viewers listen to you? How much do they trust you? Do they return to your content for more information?. You can’t bet on virality, or how the platforms will position your work. That’s why PR pros prefer a partner with staying power: someone consistent who has created a strong foundation no matter what platforms they’re on.
We asked public relations pro and NCC trainer Jessica Parker of Trip Whisperer what PR pros notice before they even send a pitch to a creator.
You can read that entire blog post here.
Getting together only makes your work stronger
Right now at NCC we’re building out a slate of webinars and events to help creators connect and partner on information sharing. Let us know if there’s something specific you’d like to work on, and watch for more collaboration opportunities.