Are you looking for ways to connect with your audience on a more meaningful level?
Whether you are a business owner or an influencer, you open up a door of opportunities the moment you build a presence on social media. One of those opportunities is the possibility to connect with your followers.
Connecting with your audience is powerful. When you see your follower count, it’s easy to forget that your fans are real people. But they are; when you start connecting with them, you can get them to be more invested in you.
Imagine this: your audience is so invested in you that checking your social media becomes part of their daily routines.
Becoming part of your audience’s routines allows you to build social capital. Your social capital encompasses all your relationships and is often more valuable than money. You can turn social into financial capital anytime you need to.
In other words – when you have followers who feel connected and invested, you have an easier time selling your products and services.
So forming a meaningful and authentic connection with your audience is worth your time and effort. Not only will you enjoy meaningful relationships, but you can also leverage them to generate income.
Further below, we’ll show you how to connect with your audience in a meaningful way. We’ll also go over how to raise interest in your personal story, and how to stand out in the age of digital platforms.
You’ll discover that this works – whether your personal brand already has a huge following, or yours is a local business starting out in the digital world.
The “Reality TV Factor”
How can we claim that building connections and leveraging social capital works for anyone?
All you need is to know one thing – the thing that will give you an edge in understanding human psychology.
It’s not about the tools. Whether you use Instagram Stories, YouTube lives or Facebook groups is less important; what really matters is understanding human psychology. If you understand how people think and why they feel connected to you, the platform you use doesn’t matter.
The one thing you have to master is what we call the Reality TV Factor. Simply put, it’s the reason why reality TV is successful, and why people remain basically glued to their seats while their favorite reality TV show is aired.
The same approach also works on social media. So what’s the success recipe of reality TV and how can you emulate it? The answer: authenticity and emotional stories.
The people we see on reality TV appear authentic and real to us. Hollywood stars we see in blockbuster movies, however, often seem superhuman: we think we can never achieve what they achieved.
But the stars of reality TV shows are humans – like us. Sometimes it’s just the girl next door, who has an unfortunate backstory but still tries to audition for a singing career.
It is the people with relatable struggles who inspire us to keep going. Reality TV always seems to showcase the backstories of the participants. Usually, the person with the most dramatic backstory is the audience’s favorite.
Share Your Story And They Want To See You Succeed
So how to connect with your audience in a meaningful way? Share your backstory. Tell your audience why you are doing what you are doing.
Which obstacles did you have to overcome? How did you get to where you are today?
If you are an influencer building a personal brand, your backstory is your personal story. If you are using social media for your business, a great backstory to tell us how you got your business idea.
A great story showcases your Why. It explains to your audience why you do what you do.
A perfect example is Dan Lok himself. He often talks about his story – how we wanted to make money to support his mum but failed at 13 businesses and how he finally met his mentor and things started to go uphill for him.
His backstory shows us that he is a human being. He is not a superhuman multi-millionaire who never struggled. He faced obstacles, but he kept overcoming them.
If you tell your personal story, your audience becomes invested in you. They keep coming back for more and want to see you succeed.
If you tell your personal story, your audience becomes invested in you.
Sociology professor Beverley Skeggs said the following about reality TV, which also holds true for social media:
[…] people connect to other people who have the same values, who behave in the same way. We do get swept up in it, wanting to be behind somebody, wanting them to do well.
As long as you are authentic in sharing your story, your audience will become invested in you. When it comes to connecting with your audience, you want to be real and authentic.
Don’t Be A Superhuman
To connect with your audience in a meaningful way, show them that you are a human being – just like them. In fact, having flaws and hardships in your life will make you more authentic. If you are too perfect, you become less relatable.
Most people on social media get it the wrong way around. They think they have to show how amazing their life is, the great vacations they go on and so on. While this may attract attention, it does not remain relevant for long.
If you put up a facade, your audience will realize it and draw away from you. So, don’t feel like you have to be perfect to build up a following on social media. You might do much better if you aren’t.
The thing is, many people don’t have a particularly exciting life. To some degree, you are representing the ideal life they would want for themselves. But this ideal life isn’t about having fancy cars and living in a penthouse.
What people are interested in is who you are as a person and how you overcome hardships in your life. By sharing your story and being yourself, you give them the dramatic aspect that is missing in their lives.
What’s more, your digital platforms become addictive – like a TV show. Your audience keeps coming back to see how you are doing.
Now you know that building meaningful connections on social media is possible. Let’s get into actual strategies. What steps can you take to share your story with your audience?
Build A Community
Besides authenticity, there is another thing people on social media crave: a sense of community. They might feel disconnected in real life, and social media makes it much easier to feel like a part of a community.
Facebook groups are currently one of the best tools to connect with your audience and to build a strong community. Facebook groups are great because your audience comes up with the content.
So it’s not just you alone putting out content. Other members of the group can post too. It also allows your followers to engage on multiple levels: they get a chance to interact with you as well as with other like-minded people.
Many influencers and business owners invite their customers to join a Facebook group. But you can still turn to Facebook groups if you are just starting out and have no paying customers.
You can invite existing followers to join by telling them that you’ll publish exclusive content in your group.
Create A Dialogue
To connect with your audience, you want to create a space for dialogue.
It’s easy to post something, then leave the platform and never reply to any comments or messages. But that doesn’t help you connect with your audience meaningfully.
What you want to do instead is reply to comments and messages often. Be responsive and engaged. This is especially important in the beginning when you rise to your first thousand followers.
Nearly all digital platforms want lots of engagement on their platform. If you put out content that people want to engage with, you will be rewarded by the platform. For example, you’ll show up in other people’s feeds more often.
When you create a dialogue, you help the social platform to create a positive experience. Now only will the platform love you – your followers will, too.
Engaging with your audience shows that you appreciate them. It makes them feel validated and appreciated. So don’t be afraid to chat.
Once you have several thousand followers, it might get harder to follow up with every comment. It’s okay not to reply to everyone but make an effort to answer the most pressing questions.
If your audience grows bigger and it’s hard to keep up with comments, shares, and messages – here is what you can do.
Timed Engagement
Tell your audience when you will release new content. Then, let them know that you will be active in the comments for 30 minutes after you posted. This strategy is great for two reasons.
First, it gives your audience a reason to subscribe to your platform. If you are a YouTuber, make sure to tell your followers to activate the bell icon. If you are on Instagram, your followers can turn on notifications.
This way, they will be notified after you post and will be able to hang out with you.
This strategy also allows you to generate engagement right after posting. On most platforms, the first hour after you post will determine how successful your post is.
So if there isn’t much engagement within the first 30 minutes, you probably posted something your audience is less interested in. You can evaluate it and try something different next time.
Get Personal
Especially if you are a business owner, you might be thinking to make your social media only about your business. You showcase your products or services and give professional advice.
While some fans appreciate this, connecting with your audience means getting personal.
If you talk only about business and sales, you lose the Reality TV Factor. There is nothing for your fans to get invested in, nothing that entertains them and nothing to keep them coming back for more.
You can keep it professional and still get personal. A great example of this is Tuft and Needle Mattresses. They talk about their story, explain how and why they started their business; their audience feels connected to them as they emphasize care for mattresses.
They don’t talk about their tragic personal backstory – but they are telling an inspiring story and connecting with their audience in a meaningful way.
Go Behind The Scenes
Do you know what Russell Brunson says about connecting with your audience? What your fans enjoy most is seeing your journey.
They want to see what you do on a daily basis to achieve your goals. So if you wonder how to connect with your audience, remember: you don’t have to be creative. All you need to do is document your daily life.
Talk about what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what your next steps are. Show them your life in the trenches of your daily business. You’ll instantly be more authentic and form meaningful connections.
Sense of Belonging
Another powerful way to connect with your audience is by creating a sense of belonging. All influencers who connect with their followers in an unforgettable way do this.
1. Sense of Community
When you look at famous YouTubers with a strong fan base, they often share jokes with their audience. Outsiders don’t understand these jokes at all.
It’s likely that these inside jokes came to be during a video or live stream. Their audience remembers and keeps referencing them; over time, this creates a strong bond and a sense of community.
2. User-Generated Content
User-generated content is a fancy way of saying that you let your followers come up with ideas and share them on your social media.
When you look at Dan Lok’s YouTube channel, for example, he has a video format called Boss In The Bentley: his followers ask questions, and he answers while sitting in his Bentley.
3. Giveaways, Competitions, and Challenges
Connect with your audience by hosting special events with prices.
Ideally, the price is something unique to you, something they can only have if they join your event. Giveaways and competitions are also great for connecting with new followers.
Go Live
Going on a video live stream on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram is one of the best ways to form a connection with your audience. Live streams are what comes closest to face-to-face conversations just like you would have with a friend.
If it’s your first live stream, you want to prepare some topics in advance. Your fans will likely ask questions, but it’s great to have something prepared for when the chat goes quiet.
Live streams are usually even more authentic than reality TV. All you do is record yourself talking. You likely don’t have a producer or manager who tells you what you are allowed to say – you can just be yourself and talk to your fans.
Reality TV is popular, but most of us know that at least some aspects of it are likely staged. But we suspend our belief in order to enjoy the show.
This simply means that you can be more authentic on social media than on TV and form even stronger bonds with your fans.
How To Be Authentic?
Now, some people think they have to fake their life in order to be popular on digital platforms. They only show their finest holidays, rides in expensive cars, and fanciest outfits. While this will attract some followers, most of the population has seen enough in-authenticity.
They see through the smoke and realize it’s fake. What your audience likely wants is for you to remain genuine and real.
They don’t care about your expensive watch or handbag. They want to know how you got there, what you had to overcome, and ideas on how they can do the same.
Being fully authentic in public isn’t that easy. You might worry that you aren’t enough. But some people might need to hear exactly your story to get motivated – so don’t let anything stop you.
Be Yourself, Build An Audience And Make Money From It
Have you ever wondered how influencers make money on digital platforms? How did Dan Lok build his YouTube and go from local business owner to an international 8-figure entrepreneur?
He achieved all that and more by building his personal media platform, which allowed him to connect with his dream customers faster than ever before.
If you want to build a business on your personality, be yourself, and share your vision with the world, our High Ticket Influencer (HTI) Program is for you. In HTI, Dan Lok collected all his high-level advice for creating your platform, building your tribe, and monetizing it.
If that sounds like the life you are after, check out HTI here.
