Audience vs Community? Understanding the 7 Critical Differences

What are the differences and similarities between audience and community? Get the answer to this question and see the benefits they offer.

"Audience vs. community"— at Bettermode, we often come across this discussion. People want to know what are the differences between an audience and a community.

It's easy to see why it can be confusing—there are many similarities between the two groups. And many people use the two terms interchangeably.

When it comes to audience vs. community, there are several differences and some similarities. This article will take a closer look at what these are.

Community vs. audience: seven key differences

When it comes to reaching a specific group of people, we often hear the words "community" and "audience." While they may seem similar, they represent different ways of engaging and connecting with others.

An audience is typically made up of consumers—viewers, listeners, or readers—who engage with content from a brand, creator or event. It could be a large audience at a concert, young women interested in wellness or a target audience for an advertising campaign. These audience members engage with content but usually don't interact with each other.

On the other hand, a community involves active participation, where members connect, share opinions and build relationships with one another. In a community, everyone has a voice, creating a sense of belonging that a traditional audience doesn't always offer.

Understanding seven key differences between an audience and a community can help you reach your target market, build a loyal customer base, and create meaningful connections that extend beyond simply attracting potential customers. Here’s a breakdown of these key differences:

The relationships

The biggest difference between an online community and an audience is how connections occur.

The relationship between a creator and an audience is one-to-many. The creator releases content, and the audience consumes it.

The creator doesn't consume content created by the audience, and the audience members don't communicate with each other.

Communities are different. In these groups, people form many-to-many relationships. This means everyone in the group can connect with all other members.

Direction of communication

A key factor in audience vs. community is the differences in the way communication occurs.

The one-to-many relationship between a creator and an audience results in communication traveling in a single direction. The creator broadcasts their message, and the audience listens.

In a community, anyone can contribute. The creator releases content, and the community can interact with it. But other members also have the opportunity to make their own contributions.

Not all members of a community contribute. Many will passively consume the content.

Equality of voices

It's not enough for a community to give everyone a voice. The voices of each member must also be relatively equal. Everyone in the group should have the same opportunity to make their opinion heard.

The people who create the community may have slightly more influence than other members because they typically play a bigger role in organizing the community.

But they still contribute via a single profile, and there is no requirement for people to listen to what they have to say.

Equality of voices is the biggest reason the relationships between creators and followers on social platforms like Instagram and YouTube are not communities.

Commenting and messaging features on these platforms allow followers to communicate with creators. But there is a huge difference in the amplification given to the audience's voices and the voice of the creator.

Relationship-building opportunities

Communities help members build relationships. This results in a shared sense of belonging and passion among members. Audiences are less likely to feel like they belong to a group because they lack this shared identity.

This feeling of belonging (or lack thereof) results in differences in the nature of the relationships found in communities and audiences.

Audiences are typically more unforgiving. If the creator starts producing content that doesn't interest them, they will leave and find another person to follow. They have nothing to lose by leaving.

But community members benefit from the community's success. As stakeholders, they are more likely to be loyal, supportive, and willing to help each other.

Goals and targets

Community and audience builders have different goals.

When building an audience, the focus is on increasing the number of people you reach. You want your content to be helpful or entertaining, but you also want it to reach as many people as possible.

When building a community, the focus of your actions is always on helping the community. The creator and members all work together to help their peers successfully achieve their goals. This is the only way to build trust among members.

Some community builders take steps to build the size of their communities. But this usually comes as either:

• A by-product of helping people in the community. For example, members tell other people about how great their community is and refer them to it.
• A result of separate, audience-building actions. For example, you build an audience on YouTube or Twitter and then convert these people into community members.

Communication channels

Communities live in a specific place that is designed to facilitate the community's needs.

The space could be a social media group, a forum, a messaging app, or dedicated forum software. In the case of offline communities, it could be a meeting room, coffee shop, sports club, or conference hall.

Communities also have structures in place to keep discussions organized.

This could include community managers and administrators, spaces designed for different types of communication, and rules or guidelines that members of the community must follow.

An audience lives anywhere people can interact with your brand. And the number of channels available depends on where you publish content.

It may include blogs, YouTube, social media sites, podcasts, events, or traditional media.

Size of the group

Audiences tend to be larger than equivalent communities. This makes sense as it is easier to consume content passively than become an active member of a group.

But while audiences are often larger than communities, people in communities tend to be far more engaged. This means a small community can be just as valuable, or even more valuable, than a large audience.

There are similarities between audiences and communities

So far, we have focused on audience vs. community to highlight the differences. But there are similarities between these two types of groups.

Common elements:

• Enjoy interacting with your brand
• Can turn into repeat customers
• Help in building a powerful brand

Ultimately, most brands or creators will benefit from building a community and an audience. And one often follows the other.

If you focus on building a community, you'll naturally increase the size of your target audience as you do so.

In some cases, the opposite can happen too, and engaged audiences will organize into communities themselves.

Bettermode's customer Pipedrive is a great example of this. They discovered that one of their customers had created a Facebook group to discuss best practices for using the CRM. This is what led the brand to develop an official community with Bettermode and become the facilitator of the discussions while retaining ownership of the content.

Benefits Breakdown: Audience vs. Community

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Benefits

Audience

Community

Scalability

Easier to scale, making it ideal for increasing brand awareness

Not as easily scalable but focuses on deeper connections

Paid growth

Can pay for growth through ads, social media, and sponsorships

Growth is organic, relying on member engagement and referrals

Sales funnel

Quickly fills the top of the sales funnel

Supports long-term loyalty and retention but takes time to build.

Feedback

Limited interaction; feedback comes mainly from metrics

Provides valuable feedback and input from engaged members

Customer loyalty

  Audience members may be

  less engaged and loyal  

Fosters loyalty among members, leading to repeat customers

Connection

Primarily one-way communication from the brand to the audience

Builds strong connections between brands and customers

Three examples of brands with an audience and community

B2B Community: Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a leading sales CRM platform that helps businesses manage their sales processes. It has a large audience of sales professionals and small business owners who use its tools. At the same time, Pipedrive has built an engaged community where users can connect, share tips and give feedback.

Pipedrive's audience

The brand has a large audience that it interacts with on several channels. These include:

• The Pipedrive website, according to SEO tool, Ahrefs, receives close to half a million hits from search engines every month.
• Its YouTube channel, which has over 10,000 subscribers
• Its LinkedIn and social media accounts, which have over 50,000 followers

The brand uses these content marketing channels to build awareness of its product and to educate its existing audience about the benefits of the software.

The target audiences for this content are sales and marketing professionals. It acts as a useful way to fill the brand's sales funnel.

The Pipedrive community

Brand-led customer community

Pipedrive also has a customer community that helps the brand's customers get maximum value from the software.

It acts as a centralized knowledge hub where customers can help each other, share best practices, and learn from other members' experiences with the product.

The brand's product development team also uses the community to connect with customers and gain feedback on new features.

By using the community in this way, Pipedrive increases the value that customers get from the product. This increases the chances that the customers stay for longer term.

Ecommerce community: Love Wellness

Love Wellness is a leading personal care brand for women's health. It offers a range of body-positive products designed specifically for women, including supplements and personal care items made with clean ingredients. Beyond just selling products, Love Wellness has built a strong community where women can share their health experiences and learn from each other.

Love Wellness' audience

The brand has a large audience on YouTube and Instagram.

• The videos on its YouTube channel have over 2 million views.
• Its Instagram account has over 250,000 followers.

They use these channels to promote products and start discussions around women's health. These channels get the company's products in front of many potential buyers.

The community is a safe and inclusive space where women can ask questions and get genuine recommendations and advice.

The community is split into different spaces based on topics such as wellness over 50, nutrition, self-care, and pregnancy.

As a brand, Love Wellness benefits greatly from the community. It makes use of polls and discussions to generate customer insight. The community also helps customers stay engaged with the brand and can help potential buyers get the information they need to make a purchase.

Independent creator community: The Dynamite Circle

The Dynamite Circle is a community for entrepreneurs building remote businesses. It was created by the people behind The Tropical MBA, a blog that discusses location-independent business. This community brings together people with similar interests, allowing them to share their experiences and support one another.

The Tropical MBA Audience

The team behind The Tropical MBA used four main strategies to build a large audience.

• They have a blog where they write about location-independent businesses.
• They have a podcast that discusses a wide variety of topics related to entrepreneurship.
• They gained exposure by doing features on third-party sites like Forbes, Entrepreneur, and the BBC.

The Dynamite Circle

The Dynamite Circle is a paid community run by The Tropical MBA. It's a way for The Tropical MBA audience to connect with others who share similar interests.

Membership to the online community also grants access to in-person meets and global events run by the founders.

Community members must pay a fee to join. This means the founders can profit from the community.

Audience vs. community: what will you focus on?

Now you know the differences between the two groups, you can decide what will be the best for your brand.

If you want to reach the highest number of people possible, consider building an audience. If you want to build stronger relationships with a smaller group of people, then consider community building.

And remember, there is no reason why you can't do both—especially when there is an overlap between the two.

If you build a community from the scratch, you'll increase your audience size while doing so. And once you've built an audience, it's often easy to convert the most engaged people into community members.

Conclusion

BetterMode provides all the tools you need to seamlessly build and manage a thriving community. With features like gamification, rich layout customization, seamless integration and effortless moderation, you can create a space that not only engages your current audience but also attracts new members.

Ready to take your brand to the next level? Try Bettermode for free and start building a community that truly connects.

This article was originally published on January 7th, 2022, and was updated on November 1st, 2024.

FAQs

What are the four types of audience?

The four types of audience are:

1. Intended Audience
   This is the group of people that a message or content is meant for. For example, a children's book is written for a young audience and their parents.
2. Target Audience
   This is a specific group that shares common interests or traits. For example, a skincare company might target young women who are interested in beauty products.
3. Universal Audience
   This type includes everyone, regardless of age or background. Content for a universal audience is meant to be relevant to as many people as possible, like public service announcements that inform the general public.
4. Specific Audience
   This is a smaller group within the target audience that has unique needs or interests. For example, a fitness program might focus specifically on older adults looking for gentle exercises.

What is the difference between audience and crowd?

The difference between an audience and a crowd is about purpose and focus. An audience is a specific group, like viewers, listeners or readers, who gather for a particular event, such as a concert. For example, a concert attracted a young target audience who shared a common interest in the music. This makes them an intended audience, often involved in audience participation.

A crowd, on the other hand, is a general gathering of people that happens more spontaneously. They might form because something caught their attention, but they don’t always share the same focus or goal, unlike an audience that’s there for a specific reason.

How do you define your audience?

To define your audience, follow these steps:

1. Identify demographics: Think about who they are—age, gender, location, and education.
2. Understand interests: Consider what they like, their hobbies, and what kind of content they enjoy.
3. Analyze behavior: Look at how they interact with products or content and their buying habits.
4. Determine needs: Figure out what challenges they face and how you can help solve them.
5. Create a profile: Make a detailed description of your ideal audience member using this information.

By doing this, you can clearly understand your target audience and create messages that speak directly to them.

What is the difference between audience and segmentation?

The difference between audience and segmentation is about who you’re reaching and how you break them down.

An audience, from the Latin audientia (meaning "a hearing" or "those who hear"), is the whole group of people you want to connect with, such as everyone who watches your videos, reads your content, or buys your products.

Segmentation is the process of dividing that large audience into smaller groups based on shared traits like age, interests, or buying habits. This helps you create messages that speak directly to each group.

So, the audience is everyone you’re trying to reach, while segmentation is about breaking them down into smaller, more specific groups for better communication.

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