Community Building Online for Personal Branding Excellence

Community building is a broad term that generally refers to starting conversations and establishing relationships with people online. Regarding personal branding, the idea is to build your presence or reputation with others via a presence, comments, and dialogue on other online sites. This can be a great way to grow your visibility and reach beyond your immediate network. There can be many goals of community management, but many can be achieved through core activities of monitoring, engaging, moderating, and measuring.

Using community management to strengthen your community building 

When I started building my brand, the first thing I did was try to gain exposure online. I aimed to participate in industry discussion forums. I chose two forums and made a point to answer questions a few times a week. Over time, I became seen as the “expert” in the group, and people started approaching me for consulting support. While building community, I never tried to sell my services; I showed my expertise. 

POWER TIP: 

Don’t be spammy and overly promotional on community sites. Aim to add value and participate in the conversation that is happening. As people see the value you bring to conversations, they will be interested in you and find you online. 

Remember, a community can be built anywhere, but some things that are especially helpful for personal branding are: 

• Leave thoughtful comments on industry news articles. 
• Write book reviews on Amazon (BONUS: upload a video with your review to get more exposure). 
• Participate in discussion forums where your audience is found. 
• Join groups and participate. 
• Answer questions on Q&A sites.
• Management of complaints and compliments on your site.

Additionally, think about your audience and where they spend their time online. There are some challenges to building your own community. So, before starting something new, think about how you can become a part of the conversation they already have. How can you build your reputation with them? 

This information was taken from an excerpt of “Launch Yourself” by Krista Neher. For your free action planner and bonus resources, visit www.LaunchYourself.com/book.