Audience of My Audience
Create work people share because sharing expresses who they are
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 98%
The Audience of My Audience framework designs for second-order sharing. A creator's first readers or customers must do more than approve; some must want to pass the work to people they know. Thompson says sharing often signals intelligence, morality, surprise, belonging, or another aspect of identity. This makes specificity an advantage. A message that seems to understand a small group can create enough kinship for members to share it with close peers, while a generic message gives them little to express. The creator therefore defines the initial audience, identifies what sharing says about them, and builds that signal into the work. Success is measured not only by first-order consumption but by whether the first audience voluntarily introduces the work to its own audience.
Origin
Extracted from Masters in Business from Thompson's description of how he designs articles and his research into cults and specific Etsy products.
Core principles
- 01Initial attention is not enough for growth
- 02Sharing is an act of identity and social signaling
- 03Specific messages can create stronger kinship than generic ones
- 04A small committed audience can carry work to its own audience
How to run it
- 1
Define the first audience
Choose a specific group whose interests, beliefs, or problems the work will address.
Pro tip Start narrower than the total market you eventually hope to reach.
Watch out A vague audience makes identity-based sharing difficult.
- 2
Find the social signal
Determine what a person communicates about themselves by sharing the work.
Pro tip Look for signals such as insight, moral concern, surprise, or group belonging.
- 3
Create specific recognition
Make the audience feel that the work understands them in a way mainstream material does not.
Pro tip Use concrete language and distinctions the group recognizes.
Watch out Generic messages rarely create strong kinship.
- 4
Design the handoff
Give the first audience a reason and a simple way to pass the work to relevant peers.
Pro tip Ask why sharing this would make the reader look or feel good.
- 5
Evaluate second-order reach
Track whether consumption produces onward sharing into new but related audiences.
Pro tip Distinguish polite approval from behavior that expands distribution.
Watch out Large first-order reach can hide weak audience advocacy.
In the wild
Thompson aims for readers to pass an article onward because sharing it makes them look smart, morally aware, or surprisingly informed about economics.
→ The article reaches the readers' audiences rather than stopping with its first audience.
An Etsy seller avoided banal statements and used weird, specific messages. Customers could use the buttons to express a distinctive identity and share that identity with others.
→ Specificity supported sharing and commercial success on the platform.
Common mistakes
Optimizing only for approval
A reader who merely says the work is good may never expose it to anyone else.
Starting mass-market
Trying to appeal to everyone can erase the specific recognition that motivates sharing.
Ignoring the sharer's identity
Content travels less readily when passing it along says nothing useful about the sender.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for niche creators, journalists, and product builders who depend on audience-led distribution.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for private, utilitarian material that users have no reason to share or use for self-expression.
From the transcript
“I can't just be appealing to the my audience. I have to make my audience think that they want to share it with their audience,…”
“if you want to be really big, start by making something that's small and specific”
“it's the weird message that makes people want to spread it along, not the message that says, hey, I'm just like everybody else.”
From the episode
Interview With Derek Thompson: Masters in Business (Audio)
Derek Thompson