Growing a professional community of like-minded people allows connection with people who are one or two steps ahead of you, going through the same growing pains as you at that moment in time or are perhaps a few steps behind you. This is invaluable as an entrepreneur and/or business owner. You can’t be an expert at everything and by growing the professional community you can surround yourself with sounding boards and advisors. However, with any relationship, it is a two-way thing. Within that community you are also there to add value and help. When you support others, it can be just as rewarding, if not more rewarding.
The other thing to remember is every business has problems, and your business might just be the one to offer a solution. Even if someone isn’t looking for a service like yours, they might connect you to someone who is.
How do you grow a community?
Growing a social media presence will definitely speed up growing a community. You get access to people you would struggle to reach in more traditional ways. Here are 5 tips that are proven to support the growth of your community.
- Content creation. Have you got a startegic plan to ensure that you are tapping into your target audience’s pain points? You need to be positioning yourself as an expert that can solve problems. The quickest way to reach a greater audience is video featuring yourself and the people behind your brand. People connect with people, and it makes it easier to build relationships when they know they are talking to a person.
- Research keywords for your niche and use them in your content. For example, on Instagram, ensure that your name on your bio includes a searchable keyword. This is one of the most important ways to end up on the ‘suggested for you’ list (to get noticed!). The world is your oyster, and with social media you can reach global audiences. But the most important thing is you need to think locally and adapt your content accordingly when relevant.
- Engagement is even more important than content creation particularly when you only have a small following. It is another vital way of showing the value your account is bringing. Are you investing the time to engage with other people’s content and being a conversation starter? Don’t just like their posts, ensure you are adding comments that are thought provoking and drive further engagement. Even better - tag someone in the comment to expand the conversation.
- Collaborations are a great way of building your own network by leveraging the warm audiences of your collaborators, increasing awareness, and engaging a wider target audience. These can be a win-win and inexpensive. By strategically choosing the collaborator you have a chance to tap into their audience and bring even greater value to your audience. They can take many forms but could be guest posting for someone else or you do the same for them, a giveaway or something more creative like a styled shoot that gives you both new and exciting content to grab the attention of your target community.
- Focus on the quality of the relationships you develop and make an effort to keep in touch with people over time. Your network will continue to mature as you move through your entrepreneurship. Don’t underestimate the value and richness of building meaningful relationships with people of all levels and disciplines. So be open-minded. Networks such as Linkedin and Facebook can be very useful for this especially.
If you ask anyone how they got where they are today, you’ll quickly learn that many successful business professionals have connections. These connections, however, were likely not handed to them. Instead, they were forged through successful professional networking.
You can only get so far by yourself; the reality is that professional progression, opportunities and networks are driven by the relationships you build. Social media is a great tool for relationship-building and will connect you with a much larger audience and so is a powerful tool in growing your network.
