Audience

An audience is a group of people who closely follow what you do and what you put out there. They actively engage with the content that you put out - be it blogs, articles, tweets, or videos - and usually also are subscribed to channels through which you share new content or updates.

An audience is not to be confused with a community.

• Audience is a group of people who don’t interact with each other and are only there observing or interacting with you, whereas a community is a place where people interact amongst each other. In other words - audience is many-to-one and a community is many-to-many.
• Having followers on Instagram or Twitter, or people who subscribe to your newsletter are your audience, whereas people who are there in Slack or Discord groups talking, sharing, and discussing with each other is a community.

An audience can be considered s ‘stepping-stone’ towards a community. The biggest incentive an audience has is a mutual interest towards someone or something, so that gives an edge towards converting an audience into a community.

Organizations who have users for a product are already on the cusp of fostering a community. A group of people already involved with a product would be highly likely to also be involved with a community of people who are using it too.

‍