I have responded to hundreds of comments on this blog and thousands of people’s tweets on Twitter. I have a policy to respond to every comment and every person who shares one of my articles. If you combine the amount of time I have spent interacting with my audience, it adds up to a few days. Even though I may only have to type a response under 140 characters on Twitter, I had done so thousands of times throughout the course of my journey.
After spending that much time interacting with everyone, I can say that it was definitely worth it. I continue responding to your comments and tweets to this day, and I still find joy in the interaction.
The main reason why all of this interaction is worth it is because I get to know my readers. Some of these interactions have resulted in new customers and subscribers.
One of my main businesses is my Kindle business in which I self-published as many valuable books as I can so I can get a high volume of sales. One of the problems I have seen is that customers believe they must have a Kindle device in order to download a Kindle book. Amazon allows people to install the Kindle app on smartphones and has the Cloud Reader for the people who prefer to read on their computers.
This knowledge and the interaction I get is important because I get some tweets that say things like this:
“@MarcGuberti I was just looking at your Twitter book on Amazon but do not have a Kindle. Is there another way for me to buy the book?”
I have actually gotten a few of these tweets. If I did not bother responding to these people, I would have lost customers. Luckily, I ended up responding to these customers telling them about Cloud Reader and the Kindle app for smartphones. A few minutes after telling someone on Twitter about Cloud Reader and the Kindle app, I would see another sale for my book.
Some of the people who I have been interacting with for a long time have also left reviews for my books. Getting reviews for a book is very important to becoming successful on Amazon, and I know a few people who I have met on social media that would definitely leave a review for any other book I publish.
In addition, there are many people who visit this blog, leave a comment, and then come back. I see those comments, and I respond to every single one of them. Getting returning visitors is helpful because the more times a visitor returns to your blog, the more likely that visitor is going to stick around for a long time.
If you are not interacting with your audience right now, you need to set aside some time each day to interact with your audience. Your audience makes or breaks your success which is why you need to engage with that audience. Engaging with the people in your audience will result in those people remembering who you are.
How do you interact with your audience?
Hi there. Thank you for your great advice. It is easy to get caught up in the day to day, but thanks again for the reminder of how important it is. Great post.
My pleasure Samantha.
You have sold me on responding to people, it makes sense. Not replying to the person not only makes a negative impression on that person, but others who come after and see the unanswered questions in the comments.
I’m happy I sold you on responding to people. It takes me some extra time because I have to read comments and leave a meaningful reply, but it’s all worth it. The people in our audiences take the time to read our content and comment on it. The least we as bloggers can do is reply to show them that we care and appreciate their time.