Know your audience

Day Four is about understanding your audience and writing a post specifically aimed at your target audience. Well first off, I never actually thought about having an “audience”. I write and ramble away here and I’m sure a couple of my friends look in from time to time but generally the stats would suggest I’m not exactly going to fill Wembley stadium with my followers.

So to have to write something that is deliberately designed to engage with this until now imaginary audience is a little daunting.

Who do I want my words to be read by? I guess if you look at the blog overall I talk about music and photography a great deal. They are the two overriding passions in my life and I’m nearly always engaged in one or both of those things. Unless I’m in work and even then I get to work with other people’s photos so it’s still there!

So I guess a pre-requisite for being a member of my audience is you must love music and photography.

Also this audience thing isn’t a one way street – show me your photographs for me to fall in love with and need to know how/why/where. If you’re in a band send me a song to sing along to and if you live in Liverpool and you’re a musician ask me to come and take your photograph at a gig. In return I will share my photographs with you, I will sing along to your songs and tell my friends how wonderful you are. That’s how the audience thing works here! Two way street.

So now we’re getting a little bit closer to understanding who you, my audience, are.

I’m obviously also a writer. I’ve always been a writer but sometimes it was just in my head, that book I was always going to write stayed firmly in my head for many years. This time last year it emerged into a 26,000 word draft as part of NaNoWriMo but has subsequently retreated and just teases me from time to time with a fleeting idea. It is something I am desperate to finish so I can get someone to read it and tell me either it’s a pile of tosh or it’s going to make the bestsellers list with a little work.

So maybe my audience is also that – part frustrated writer. Struggling to make their voice heard, struggling to find the discipline. Give me a little digital High Five if you’re struggling too. Hopefully you understand and are nodding along as you’re reading this paragraph. And I appreciate the irony that while I’m taking the time to write about not being able to write my novel, I could be writing my novel.

I consider myself to be a generally creative person – sewing, crochet, scrapbooking, writing, photography. Creativity comes in many forms and is something I’m so grateful I have the freedom, time and money to explore. Sure I’d like more time and money to be creative, who wouldn’t? But I’m also blessed above all to have the freedom – my life is not a constant struggle for food, shelter, warmth or any of the other things that stifle creativity. So in my little way sharing the fruits of this freedom is my way of saying thank you to the universe for putting me in the position to be able to.

Time to share a little bit of myself with you by pointing you in the direction of my Pinterest page.

I’m not prolific here – I forget about Pinterest on a regular basis then someone shares one of my pins and I go back and play with it for a while. So feel free to share and give me a virtual dig in the ribs to add some new content. I think my boards are pretty much a reflection of everything I’ve been talking about here. Oh and this counts as a new piece of content for my blog as I’ve never shared Pinterest here before.

Instagram is another of those sharing experience type apps I forget to use. It’s invariably coffee or food so if you’re not into either of those I’d give my Instagram account a miss! If you love your coffee come and follow me and we can share coffee moments.

So I think that’s it – I think I’ve worked out who you are, dear reader. You’re creative, you love music and photography and you want to share those blessings with the world. Hey, you’re just like me so we’re going to get along just fine.