Comments on: Build Your Online Community

By: Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:15:30 +0000

I always forget about Seesmic. Thanks Tim!

By: Tim McDonald

Tim McDonald — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:49:26 +0000

Gini,
One of my favorite desktop apps for Twitter is Seesmic. I know I promised to comment with that after the last SMBChicago event
Also, speaking of communities, @SMCChicago is holding an event on 10/22 discussing communities and have some great panelists. http://budurl.com/smcchicago1
Personally one of my favorite ways of meeting local tweeps (being the Lake County suburban guy I am) is to search for tweets with the local towns names. If I see an interesting tweet, I check out who it came from, follow them and introduce myself if they follow me back. Easy, effective, targeted.

By: Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:22:36 +0000

@SocialDave DM’d me on Twitter and said to add TweepSearch to the list so I’m putting it here so I don’t forget!

@Ljuba (I really want to call you Tstone)Isn’t it true that athletes and celebrities get energized from their fans? The same applies to your community. If you take the time to build and enhance your relationships within your community, you’ll be energized by them daily.

@TS Please don’t go look and see how many followers I have! Actually, someone asked me the numbers question yesterday and I responded that at about 500 is perfect for most people. It’s enough to manage and create viral campaigns, but still have the ability to connect and engage with each individual.

@Nate Great reminder on monitoring your competition! I agree with you that you can find ways to work together or hoist each other up to better the industry.

By: Ljuba

Ljuba — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:54:13 +0000

Hi Gini,

Thanks for posting another great piece on building communities through social media. Many thought that with the advent of social media the human factor of building relationships would disappear, that we would all become faceless drones, hiding behind avatars locked to our computers.

Social Media in most cases has had the exact opposite affect. For those who continue to apply the principles of community and relationship building through social media avenues have seen their lives enriched at an exponential level. We are able to connect and share with people our thoughts, our experiences and our knowledge in real time. No longer are our communities bound by the geographies that we live in but rather by how wide we want to open our doors and let other in.

As you point out, building those communities can not be about taking from them and should focus on what you bring to the table and are able to offer. Additonally, building communities is also about being engaged with them. Expecting your community to be there for you when you weren’t there for them is pointless.

Thanks again for the great reminder on how to build communities.

Ljuba

By: Thomas Scott

Thomas Scott — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:53:27 +0000

Great post, Gini!
These are excellent recommendations for people to follow. I see people doing well with Twitter these days with smaller numbers of followers. As attractive as large numbers of followers might be, I think the ones who stay small are able to have more sincere and authentic conversations. I find myself using Twitter as a search engine or portal and much of the blog content I read is now coming from twitter.

By: Nathan Mathews

Nathan Mathews — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:32:45 +0000

One other suggestion that I would make, is via twitter, go and look who your competition is following or following them. Listen to their conversations and join in. I think sometimes we are scared of our competition, but I saw an interesting blog yesterday about blogging and it talked about using content from your competitions blogs. Not to steal it, but rather to tell you community that you are more interested in providing good content. This also tells your competition that you respect them, have an abundance prospective not a scarcity. Build the community together . . .