What’s the biggest difference between people who are successful in social media and those who are not? Simple – the successful people have built themselves an audience.

An audience doesn’t necessarily mean having 10,000 followers here or 5,000 friends there. At its most basic level it might be that. But what’s a bunch of friends and followers if they aren’t helping you to grow your business?

Consider this: what if your “audience” isn’t anyone who would be interested in what it is you offer? What if they were people just looking to boost their numbers without any interest in engaging with you in any sort of dialogue? What if they were primarily focused on promoting their own stuff the majority of the time? These types of scenarios are clearly not ideal.

So what should you really be looking to achieve? Building the right kind of audience with social media means your participation there is leading you to be seen as a credible, trust-worthy source who may be able to help others solve whatever problem they may be having. It means you are reaching a market of people you have deliberately sought out through search strategies who might need what you have.

When you’ve grabbed the attention of your followers and friends and built interest and credibility, you now have a way to gain traffic to your website, capture more leads and continue building and strengthening the relationship.

It’s all in the three C’s:

Content

Content is the lifeblood of successful social media marketers. What reasons are you giving people to listen to you? This goes two ways: sharing your own helpful posts, links, tips and resources-and promoting and sharing the content of others. This does three main things: establishes your expertise, drives traffic to your site, and provides your audience with helpful information. Remember, the content you are sharing should not always be your own.

Conversation

Simply by being seen as someone who provides great content in the social media space you will naturally find yourself engaged in conversation. Having these one on one conversations is what is going to make you stand out among the noise and deepen the relationship. In addition, when you make it a habit to promote others, this brings more “social appreciation” your way. These interactions cause others to seek out more information about you beyond where you’ve made the initial connection.

Conversion

Once you have converted someone to a newsletter subscriber, blog subscriber or paying client or customer, you’ve taken the steps toward acquiring another raving fan. These loyal folks will not only bring you more sales, but will be much more likely to sing your praises to others out in the social media universe. This is how you grow your “tribe.”

Do you see how simple and effective it is to build an audience of captivated friends and followers? Do you see the difference this could make in your bottom line?

Let me know your thoughts on this.  Anything else you would like to add?  Also, if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for my free social media simplified e-course.