In This Episode:

* How social media marketing expert Andréa Jones balances two different marketing strategies for her agency and for her membership community* Why she prioritizes feelings when it comes to positioning and messaging* How she incorporates social media marketing into the larger context of a sales campaign* Why promotional content isn’t all that useful for building an audience or finding customers—and what’s working instead

Some of the most successful business owners I know spend absolutely no time on marketing.

They have social media accounts but they’re for posting images about vacations or family or hobbies.

They have blogs but they largely sit dormant.

They have email lists but never send any email.

They don’t have massive advertising budgets or a marketing team that takes care of it for them. Their businesses are simply designed to work—to thrive—without the playing the games we’ve come to associate with marketing in the 2020s.

The topic we’re covering this month is always a crowd-pleaser.

We’re talking about building an audience.

Except that… we aren’t really going to be talking about building an audience at all.

Truth be told, I chose this topic about halfway through 2020 knowing that people love to hear about all the ways people work on attracting followers and building their email lists.

But the more I thought about what I wanted to cover this month, the more I realized this month needed to be about shedding light on some of the most pernicious shoulds & supposed-tos that exist in the small business world online.

So we are going to talk about building your audience, but we’re going to juxtapose that with the reality of how marketing—or more specifically, finding customers & clients—work in businesses that are booming.

And that’s exactly where I’d like to start.

There’s a difference between building an audience and finding customers or clients.

At one point in the recent history of the social web, these 2 actions might have been one and the same. But today, the conversation about building an audience has become detached from finding customers or clients.

Building an audience typically looks like working the algorithms by figuring out when to post to maximize likes, what types of media receive the most engagement, and which hashtags to use to broaden your reach.

Building an audience has mostly been removed from the context of finding customers.

Sure, the conversation might start with identifying your ideal customer… but it quickly devolves into chatter about Reels, and Stories, and stickers, and the best ways to promote your business.

The prevailing narrative assumes that every purchase is the result of a long and drawn-out journey from haphazardly discovering something you post, to hitting the “follow” button, to signing up for your email list, to attending a webinar, to finally considering buying from you.

Here’s the thing: I can’t say that I’ve ever bought an information product or contracted a service that way.

I don’t want to speak for you here—but my guess is that the majority of your purchases don’t follow that pattern, either. Instead, you buy because a friend recommended something or because you h...