6 Benefits of Serving Your Audience In a Private Group Online or Off

This 3-part series focuses on growing your author platform in 2023, specifically, via an online community such as a private Facebook group. Note that each article applies to any group, online or offline.

You’ll be surprised how valuable serving your audience in Christ’s name can be to both you and your audience.

It’s easy to feel we’re simply delivering the message God’s given us and letting it fall upon the ground where it may, as in The Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13.

But in a group where members join because they want your message, it’s a bit different. You can offer your knowledge without hesitation or equivocation, knowing it will fall upon good soil. Your readers, listeners, or visitors want your message, and want to apply it. That frees you to communicate with more confidence, creativity, and boldness than you may have previously communicated. To answer a question and receive a heartfelt thanks in minutes is more than gratifying. It energizes your soul!

Let’s explore six specific ways serving your audience in Christ’s name directly benefits you.

Benefit #1: Promising to show up regularly will pull you out of your writer’s cave mentally, physically, or both. The more that thought makes you squirm in your chair, the more necessary it is you do it. Your audience–and mine–needs us to engage with them. And though we may not realize it yet, we need to engage with them, too, as a Christian communicator and as a human being.

Benefit #2: By definition, such a group gathers like-minded people together. Both parties are blessed. As you and I show up to serve our audience, they show up to learn from us.

In that back-and-forth process, they serve us by asking additional questions, requesting further clarification, sharing insights we haven’t experienced, and by talking amongst themselves, which confirms our point was understood (or not).

#3: As members apply your message (which is really God’s message in you) their lives begin to change. They’ll mention that to those they know, some of whom are also in your target audience. Thus, your community grows, and in some cases, your expertise is recognized even outside the group.

#4: Some both serve and promote their products or services in their group.

#5: Whatever your preferred method of serving, it fits a group: in-person, online, via posts on your social media only, short or long videos offering short or long content or training…and so on.

#6: All of the five options above refine your message. How so? No matter how often you’ve sat in your office reviewing your content in your mind, there’s no substitute for discussing it over and over (and over).

As new members join, they’ll ask the same questions “old-timers” asked when they joined, giving you yet another opportunity to share your applicable answer. Over time, this polishes your message in ways that delivering it once, such as in your book or speaking presentation, never will.  

The result? Your message becomes deeper, richer, and more on point. You’ll share it more succinctly, with new, clearer examples than before. You’ll notice patterns previously unseen, and the organization of it will become a visual in your mind, ready to be drawn upon instantly.

Those benefits will make you a better communicator, which in turn will make you a more interesting interview guest. And dare I say it? That gives you an opportunity to grow your audience even further while also–if Christ allows–selling more books.

No wonder so many successful Christian authors host a private Facebook group!  

(This concludes this short series.)

Patricia Durgin is an Online Marketing Coach and Facebook Live Expert. She trains Christian writers and speakers exclusively, helping them develop their messaging, marketing funnels, conversational emails, and Facebook Live programs. Patricia hosted 505 (60-minute) Facebook Live programs from 2018-2020. That program is on indefinite hiatus. She’s also a regular faculty member at Christian writers and speakers conferences around the country.

Website: marketersonamission.com
Facebook: MarketersOnAMission