When it comes to marketing and attempting to build thriving online audiences the general advise is to put yourself out there. For introverts that can seem to go against the grain of their nature. In a western extrovert favoring culture your wariness of putting yourself out there can be seen as not having the confidence to stand out and command an audience. (Image credit: Flickr)
However introverts do have worthy qualities that often get passed over. They too can be confident, social and inspirational in their thoughts and content. For example consider self-described introverted bloggers like Brian Clark, Chris Guillebeau, Guy Kawasaki, and Sonia Simone.
So what are lessons that can be learnt from the likes of these successful online audience builders? Being able to build thriving online audiences boils down to building trust, credibility, and value. Here are 5 introvert qualities that can help you achieve that.
1. Focused learner.
To become a trusted authority in your field you need to build expertise and more often than not involves learning a lot much of which can come from reading. So be prepared to read, research and obsess over everything in your niche but also be open to looking into new fields from which new ideas and new relationships can be formed. The more you know the more able you are to build thriving online audiences with authority and credibility.
2. Listener
Listen to understand the thinking and needs of your readers. You can create better focused content that solves problems once you know whats on their minds.
3. Being serious and sincere
Building trust is a task that is ongoing as it is never given away freely and requires you to be reliable enough to keep it.
Being serious means really committing to your readers and the life of your ideas
Being serious means having a sincere interest in improving the lives of your readers, being consistent, and getting back up from every fall.
4. Being passionate and compassionate
People trust people with heart and emotion, someone who really understands them and can feel as vulnerable as they do. Strong feelings about subject matter as well as passion and compassion need to provided to readers to the point that they get motivated to do something. That can only come from people who feel great passion and intense emotion.
5. Solitude
For introverts, solitude is vital to re-energize themselves as well as the quality of their work. It also allows them time to think clearly, deeply, creatively and to listen to their thoughts. While understanding your audience is important, it is also important to take a position and deliver a consistent message in line with that position.
What do you believe makes for a trustworthy figure that can build and lead an audience? If you consider yourself an introvert, do you agree with the way the 5 qualities can be used to build thriving online audiences?
