We chase digital numbers with the hope that those numbers will prove how awesome we are…
These days, people are obsessed by their website traffic. On Twitter people offer you thousands of followers for only few bucks. Many even do ridiculous things in order to get likes for their Facebook pages.
But most of us forget one simple truth.
Those numbers represent people. They are human beings who breathe, feel and think. When we are building our e-mail list, we are not ending up with list of addresses with a nice-looking @ sign in-between. We actually write to a person.
I am amazed how many people talk about SEO and traffic, about profit and sales and about the length of the content and the social proof.
And very few only realize that it is not about all those things at all.
What it is about instead is a high quality audience. And a high quality audience can only be built through relationships.
True, sincere and honest human relationships…
Yes, we talk about online here, but no one said that in the virtual world human relationships cannot be built.
You may not be looking at people’s eyes, but you are talking to them, you are sharing part of yourself, you are helping them out and maybe change their mood. On the other end of the word, affront of the monitor there is a person, who hopefully solves a problem, or gets inspired and encouraged by what you do online.
Imagine someone who by using different SEO tricks and spending money on ads gets high traffic. Traffic of people, who visit his site, spend couple of seconds and leave never to come back again.
Who needs such traffic?
Imagine families where the husband is just a live ATM for the wife – how long do you think it will last? That’s the same with your audience. If you view them as simply a potential source of income, how long do you think they will cope with you?
It’s not about pushing what they don’t want down their throats. It’s not about organizing a webinar with a big promise and the goal of selling false hopes at the end.
It’s about relationships.
Yes, it does not happen overnight.
Yes, it is a long and slow process.
And yes, it’s absolutely worth it!
It is not hard. Simply care about your audience. It’s easy. Instead of thinking how much they can afford paying you think about how can you provide value to them. Many successful people repeat over and over again that the key to success is helping people. Why don’t you listen?
It’s not about you… it’s about them.
As soon as you shift your thoughts from “what is it for me?” to “how can I help them” things will start changing.
And if you go even further and not think in terms of “me” and “them” but come up with a community, which will be called “we” then you’ll nail it!
Think about it.
Is the short-term income worth the reputation? Do you want a one-time customer, who will later walk around the cyber space disappointed and bitter and complain about you? Wouldn’t having a loyal audience, who sticks and supports and encourages what you do be better?
I think the choice is obvious. At least it should be so.