The ability to find people who resonate with your message, then grow a sustainable fan base through channel strategy and engagement design.
Audience building isn't just about racking up follower counts. It's the process of identifying people who respond to your point of view, designing structured relationships with them, and developing those connections into a loyal community. It covers channel selection, target analysis, growth experiments, and monetization design, and it's distinct from content creation (the craft of making things) and self-branding (positioning). As Kevin Kelly (2008) put it with the 1,000 True Fans concept, a small group of genuine fans can sustain a creative practice. The COBRA model by Trunfio & Rossi (2021) maps the path from consumption to contribution to creation, and deepening that participation is what this skill is all about.
You encounter the difference between followers and an audience for the first time and begin to understand the basic structure of platforms where you could be active. You observe how other creators build their audiences and start asking why people follow certain accounts. There's no strategic approach yet, but you've reached the starting point of seeing an audience as something to intentionally gather.
What Comes Next
If you've checked off most of this list, you're ready to enter the Seed Planter stage, defining your target persona and launching your first channel in earnest. According to the COBRA model by Trunfio & Rossi (2021), observing audience consumption behavior is the starting point for designing the contribution stage.
Level 0~5까지 6단계 성숙도 모델 제공. 오디언스 빌딩 7레벨 설계 시 비활성→비일관→측정→성장→선도→혁신 진행 구조를 레벨 경계 설정에 직접 활용 가능
오디언스를 동심원 구조(True Fan→Regular Fan→Lesser Fan)로 계층화. 1,000명 임계점과 팬당 $100 수익 공식이 중급~상급 레벨 경계의 정량 기준으로 활용 가능
COBRA 모델(Consumption→Contribution→Creation) 3단계 인게이지먼트 프레임워크 제시. 행동·인지·감정 3차원 측정 기준이 각 레벨별 체크리스트 항목의 학술적 근거로 활용 가능
$205B(2024)→$1.35T(2033) 시장 규모, 개인 크리에이터 58.7% 점유율, 플랫폼·수익 채널별 세분화 데이터가 오디언스 빌딩 가이드의 산업 맥락과 권위를 뒷받침
3계층 오디언스 피라미드(무료 대중→중간 구독자→프리미엄 슈퍼팬) 모델 제시. $1,000/팬 고가치 전환 전략이 상위 레벨(Level 5-7) 경계 설정의 프레임워크로 활용 가능
