How do you develop a great community that will help you achieve your goals ?

Social media has exploded – now, every Internet user has his own accounts on social websites. We share articles, informations, images, videos, opinions, thoughts : everything. Our lives are turning into one big channel where whoever wants to watch just needs to push a button or perform a search on Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or any other social sharing web site. What is happening now on the Internet is huge : the level of interconnectivity that exists between users and the millions of free accounts that are created everyday have opened a gate to business opportunities all around the world. We are going global with this. The power that exists in these social networks is called “Brand Yourself”. Yes – this is the new power : Me, my brand, how many people I can reach with my posts, articles, thoughts – how many are interacting with me and trust what I say.

The first steps in building a great community

I prefer the term community and not social network because I want to include here every possibility to develop a network that will work in your benefit. People that subscribe to your blog represent a community, people that leave comments on your blog are another community, subscribers to your YouTube channel, followers on Twitter, connections on LinkedIn : all these people create communities. The basic principle of a community is interaction between individuals.

People interact much more easy when they have something in common : they work in the same niche market, share the same interests, the same passions, listen to the same music, prefer the same kind of holiday and so on. Based on this, you should try and identify people that have something in common with you and your blog. If you are on Twitter post tweets about your niche but also about your interests, on FaceBook post photos, videos or your latest blog articles, upload your videos on YouTube. This is the first step : why you need to do it ?

The reason for all your activity is to leave a trace – something that can lead people that share the same interests, to you. How ? People search. They don’t go right to the target : they search on Google, on YouTube, on LinkedIn, on FaceBook or on Twitter. This is how you find informations and that is why your trace has to be relevant to you. That is your mark and you don’t want to transmit the wrong kind of signal : your goal is to attract people interested in what you do and who you are.

The second thing is to look for other people’s traces : don’t just expect people to find you, go find them. This is mostly true when you are after people that are authorities in their fields : they have so many followers and receive so many e-mails and have so many things to do that they stopped searching for others : because you will find them.

How to maintain and constantly develop your social media relations

Your activity on social networks should not be limited to creating a trace for others to find and searching for others. These two things are necessary in order to constantly develop your network. But the real power is not in numbers but in value and interaction. It doesn’t matter if you have 2k followers on Twitter if only 10 of them respond to one of your questions or click on one of your links.

Here is what I consider to be a great combination and also why : value and interaction. Why ? If you create value then you open opportunities for others to start talking to you or just RT your message. People RT your messages on Twitter or spread your articles on social networks if they consider that there is value. So, value leads to conversation. Conversation leads to trust : this is our nature – we tend to trust people that we see every day and we talk to. Basically a familiar face is more trusted that an unknown one. And finally this creates interaction.

By interaction I mean : engaging in discussions about what you posted or what others posted, helping friends and followers to solve their problems. This is the only thing that you can do on social networks. DON’T ever start posting that you sell some stuff and expect people to buy it just like that : you’ll probably be ignored and fell into oblivion – no one talks to those that pitch (on social networks), because this is not the reason people are there.

What to expect from your social network – benefits and goals

Many join social networks with a clear thing in their mind : to get clients. Rarely this is happening in a direct way. What social media can do to you is offering exposer. Remember that trace I was talking about in the beginning of the article ? That is what social networks offer you. Your help to others will generate good posts about you and that will lead to visits to your blog, comments, bookmarks.

What you do on social networks, is to determine others to help you spread the word about you – for free. The more people are willing to talk about you and bookmark your content and visit your blog and post comments and subscribe … the more power you have. Social media is just a channel that broadcasts : if your name is broadcasted enough times then people will start to recognize it.

So, let me know what you think about this ? How do you use your social connections to achieve your goals ? Do you have goals that can be achieved by the help of social networks ?