Try some of these ideas on for size:

• I’m not Too Dumb to Live — I Just Forgot Where I Put my Brain
• Redeeming Your Hero by Loosening Up Your Heroine
• It’s All About Control — Girdles Optional
• When Your Butt Molds — Take Your Plot for a Walk
• It’s Called an “Accent” for a Reason
• When You Blow a Gasket — Taking It Out on Your Characters
• Where do you get your Ideas?
• Who inspires you to Write?
• Best Book with Cookie DoughPlaces to Readlaces to Write
• When to put down the pen.
• When to pick it up again.
• Last great read.
• The TBR Pile
• Best Book Stores
• It’s a blog, not a memoir
• Steering clear of TMI
• Picking A Genre
• Cross-Breeding Genres
• Guess The Word Count
• By Hook Of The Book
• Do I Even Like You? Protagonists With Personality Problems
• I Don’t Wanna Be Average — When Your Heroine’s Not The Girl Next Door
• I’m Not Really A Villain, I’m Just Horribly Misunderstood
• POV – Just How Many Points Are In That View?
• Sidekicks With Obsessions

As I think of Social Media and Community building from a Brand standpoint, it comes down to two areas of focus: Gathering like minded folks with whom you want to help and share information, and then interacting with them once they come to your blog/forum/or website.

1. Building Your Community

Let no one tell you any different: networking is business, not a hobby. To build a thriving community—if that’s what you want to do—you have to commit to reaching out to others, and desire to do so for good reasons. The online world today is transparent—you can’t “scam” people who join up with you and expect them to stay a part of your community. You can’t think of your followers or community members as your next “get”, to use a term social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk used in a recent webinar I attended. You need to look at them as people you help—and be committed to give and give and give and give to those people… and know that you will “get” when you need to get, not from everyone, but from enough people who will make a difference.

So, here are a few steps for building a community:

1. Create content/reasons for people to come to your site. Don’t worry about building a huge community until you have huge value to share.

2. Join other communities in a thoughtful and considered way. Engage with individuals in those communities and share your value – NOT by spamming – but in ways that are intended to truly help other community members.

3. Leave comments on blogs that are relevant to you, in your niche. Become known for adding to conversations in thoughtful ways.

4. Engage in passive marketing. Put your latest blog entry or your newest webinar in your signature line on your emails, and share it with every email you send it out.

5. Stay involved. Even when your personal community takes up, continue to remain a presence on those forums who launched you. Stay relevant and engaged!

Those are just a few ideas to get you started!

2. Sustaining an Online Community

So, once you have a community, what’s next? To keep it, you need to feed it:

1. Be present. If that means posting every day, post every day. If it means posting multiple times a day, do that (at least to get started). Build a team of “master forum members” and have them share the load of representing you and your team. But whatever you do, BE THERE as much as you can.

2. Be a valued forum. The only reasons why people continue to come to your forum is to share new information, engage in meaningful ways, and learn something new. Create an environment of sharing and keep your news flowing to your community!

3. Be real. Again, this sort of activity only works if you truly love what you’re doing and can continue to do it on a consistent base—and that is only possible if the activity is a match for your Brand and your Passion. So build that community wisely, and then thoroughly enjoy it as it grows!

Creating and sustaining an online community is truly a valuable exercise, and when you approach it thoughtfully and fully on-Brand, it can become a wonderful support system for you and your business!

Go forth and Brand boldly!

Jenn

Jenn Stark serves as Strategic Brand Consultant for Bemis Promotions, and helps authors, entrepreneurs and organizations maximize their Brands at www.knowyourbrand.com.

Today I’ve been thinking a lot of the process of the “self-launch”. I’ve had the amazing experience to be going through two separate leadership development programs over the past several days—one tied to goal achievement, one tied to personal success—and over and over again I’m reminded that while our dreams are critical, we can never forget that what we’re really launching is not our business, our plans, our marketing campaign or even our new line of products… we are launching ourselves.

The most successful companies and individuals put THEMSELVES out there on the line every day, presenting themselves authentically in their customer and peer group interactions, promoting themselves consistently online, and following up with any level of contact—whether it’s a phone call, a tweet, an email or a passing conversation. If you’re going to be in the game of self promotion at any level, you’ve got to be truly IN IT.

I know that sounds kind of daunting, but that’s the power of having a Brand that truly reflects who you are. You shouldn’t try to be what you’re not—either in your personal life or your professional life.  If you can identify WHO YOU ARE and simply BE that, then sharing that entity suddenly becomes second nature. And due to the extremely fluid nature of online marketing, you can make a splash of a self launch (or relaunch) whenever you’re ready to commit to the process.

So how can you “launch” or “relaunch” successfully, whether you’re truly at the beginning of a new venture, a mid-level marketer, or an established Brand? Here are three tips to get you started.

1. Remember that you’re not launching your business, you’re launching yourself

In today’s highly interactive, personal world, the line between you and your business is becoming almost shockingly thin. So as you consider your launch strategy, strive to be intensely authentic to who you are as an individual. When people go to blogs or forums or even websites, they don’t want to hear what “nameless corporate monolith” wants to say, they want to hear what a PERSON or PERSONALITY has to say who represents that company or Brand. So ask yourself WHO YOU ARE, and then launch that person. If you do nothing else but talk about something you KNOW and are PASSIONATE about… people will listen.

2. Commit to Excellence… and Focus

If you want to be successful in building a community, you have to commit to the process and the focus you’ll need to achieve your goals. Plan on working every day to build the connections you need and sustain the connections you’ve developed. Consider limiting the number of “you’s” that there are—blog all under one name or one entity, or promote your multiple ventures heavily in EVERY communication, listing your sites/pages in your signature line and committing to be present on each of those sites on a regular basis. Feel free to re-use your content over your multiple sites if that’s what it takes to stay updated—but to whatever extent that you can, STREAMLINE your online presence so that you can remain extremely FOCUSED.

3. Act Now. Right Now. Today.

The universe rewards action. Nothing kills your momentum than not taking advantage of the opportunities  that will come your way as soon as you launch yourself online. It’s daunting—even a little frightening—when all of those possibilities come out of the woodwork, so make sure you have your communications strategy clearly set BEFORE you launch. But as long as the connection opportunities you’ll find are appropriate for your business, in line with your goals, and can give you the chance to help others with your product, service or information—CONNECT. Reach out today, respond today, and move forward… today.

Launching (or relaunching) yourself and your Brand is as simple as identifying who you are and committing to sharing that “self” online in a consistent, passionate, and authentic way. I look forward to sharing future tips and techniques on Branding yourself effectively in your personal interactions, industry experiences and online presence every week on Wednesday, as part of the Bemis Promotions blog team!

Welcome to the adventure!

Jenn

Jenn Stark serves as Strategic Brand Consultant for Bemis Promotions, and helps authors, entrepreneurs and organizations maximize their Brands at www.knowyourbrand.com.