4 Things 50 Cent Can Teach You About Audience

Four Things 50 Cent Can Teach You About Connecting with Your Audience...http://www.copyblogger.com/robert-greene-50-cent/4 of 18 12/2/2009 11:38 AMShe began to see a pattern from the bottom up — a growing disenchantment with the New Deal. Every day,she left a memo in her husband’s basket, reminding him of these criticisms and the need to be moreresponsive. And slowly, she began to have an influence on his policy, pushing him leftward. All of this tooktremendous courage for she was continually ridiculed for her activist approach, long before any First Ladyhad ever thought of such a role.As Eleanor understood, any kind of group tends to close itself off from the outside world. From within thisbubble, people delude themselves into thinking they have insight into how their audience or public feels —they read the papers, various reports, the poll numbers, etc.But all of this information tends to be flat and highly filtered. It is much different when you interact directlywith the public, hear in the flesh their criticisms and feedback. You create a back-and-forth dynamic in whichtheir ideas, involvement and energy can be harnessed for your purposes.3. Reconnect with your baseWe see it again and again.A person has success when they are younger because they have deep ties with a social group. Then slowlythey lose this connection.In his own way, the famous black activist Malcolm X struggled with this problem. He had spent his youth as asavvy street hustler, ending up in prison on drug charges. Out of prison he became a highly visiblespokesperson for Nation of Islam, channeling his emotions into powerful speeches that gave voice to thosewho lived deep in the ghettos of America.As he became more and more famous, he made an effort to inoculate himself from the psychic distanceexperienced by other successful leaders in the black community.He increased his interactions with street hustlers and agitators, the kind of people from the lower depths thatmost leaders would scrupulously avoid. He made himself spend more time with those who had suffered recentinjustices, soaking up their experiences and sense of outrage.I knew that the ghetto people knew that I never left the ghetto in spirit, and I never left itphysically any more than I had to. I had a ghetto instinct; for instance, I could feel if tension wasbeyond normal in a ghetto audience. And I could speak and understand the ghetto’s language.~ Malcolm XThe goal in connecting to the public is not to please everyone, to spread yourself out to the widest possibleaudience. You have a base of power — a group of people, small or large, who identify with you. Keep yourassociations with it alive, intense and present.Return to your origins — the source of all inspiration and power.4. Create the social mirrorInstead of turning inward, consider people’s coolness to your idea and their criticisms as a kind of mirror thatthey are holding up to you.Your ego cannot protect you — the mirror does not lie. You use it to correct your appearance and avoidridicule.