Thursday, June 15, 2017

The Smallest Possible Audience


Today, because noise is everywhere, we're all surrounded by a screaming horde, an open-outcry marketplace of ideas where the race to be heard appears to be the only race that matters.
~Seth Godin           

The rant isn't over. Just when I thought nothing further could be said on the topic, Seth Godin's pithy post of daily thoughts slid into my in-box. How timely that was.

Granted, what he was referring to is the topic of marketing—in its current state, more noise tossed into an already noisy environment or, as he put it, "just a troop of gorillas, all arguing over the last remaining banana."

What made his post timely for me had nothing to do with marketing per se, of course. I'm not a marketer. But I am a communicator for whom an audience of zero would be a painful kiss of death.

Like most family history bloggers, I like to think what I am doing will—for someone at some time—eventually make a difference. I'm finding myself a blogger for whom the continual thrumming mantra of the demise of blogging is depressing. Whether there is an audience or not, I still have much to say. To think that audience has disappeared, though, could induce a withering away of the verve required to say what needs to be said.

So encouraging, then, to see Seth Godin's response. His advice, whether in the marketing dilemma he described or in facing the current flux in the genea-blogging world:
To stick to the work, to the smallest possible audience, to building something worth talking about.

In Seth Godin's viewpoint, what actually works in a noisy environment isn't more noise. It's getting that one person to listen, take notice, and benefit from what was heard—and then pass it along. A word fitly spoken can evidently go a long way in building a solid blogging reputation, if it's useful enough to be commented upon—"the smallest possible audience, to build something worth talking about."

6 comments:

  1. I don't believe in coincidence. The timing of your post today came at the right moment. Thank you. My blog Family Research and Me is being viewed but comments are slim and I am in the process of evaluating for improvement.

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    1. Glad you found encouragement in that, Gayle! I know I was certainly jazzed when Seth Godin's post fit so nicely with what we've been discussing lately! We are all a work in progress. It helps to share encouragement with each other.

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  2. Ultimately isn't it the small audience we want, that one lost cousin who we want to connect with? The cousin who knows why our great grandfather left the state; the cousin who has the worn copy of the family Bible; or the cousin who knows little but wants to learn about the family history. We are writing for them and for ancestors so they will be remembered.

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    1. What an eloquent way to put it, Colleen. Thank you! Yes, that is exactly it!

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  3. You write what will someday be really important to your daughter and possibly even her children someday! Mostly I write for the generations to come:)

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    1. There is such a deep need to know where we come from--at least for some of us. People come to that realization at different times--maybe the birth of a child, the passing of a grandparent, or other trigger event that makes us feel that family interconnectivity. Knowing what we are writing will be around for a long time helps us to reach those who don't yet know that they will someday really want to know.

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