Items tagged with: Community Building

Keep Social Media Simple, Sweetheart

Posted by Keri Stevens on Mar 22 2011, 12:01 am in Blogging, Community Building, Facebook, Quick-Read Codes, Social Media, Twitter

It is an honor and a privilege today to introduce you to Keri Stevens. Keri is an author, whose book STONEKISSED was released late in December from Carrina Press. Keri, whom I hope will be making regular appearances here, is a social media mavin! She’s one of those people who always knows what the twitterverse is talking about two seconds after the first good tweet. As I’m always interested in the multiple perspectives for the kind of work I do and clients I serve, I asked Keri to start a conversation about Social Media.

You can’t face facebook. Twitter makes you twitch. Second Life?  No thanks—this one’s already overwhelming enough as it is. You’re boxed in your inbox and bogged down by your blog. Oh…and somewhere in there, you have, um, work to do. Writing. Serving live human customers. Creating your product. Read more…

Building and Sustaining an Online Community

Posted by Jenn Stark on Mar 1 2011, 10:21 pm in Branding, Community Building, Social Media

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. Read more…