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4 tips to build a powerful community
And why you don't just want an "audience"
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I often talk about building an “audience” online.
But I think a better word to use is “community.”
There’s a huge difference between followers and a community.
Followers have decided to click a button on your social media profile.
They may not even see most of your content, and they may not really care.
A community, however, is a group of people who care about who you are and what you’re building.
They want to participate in the journey.
They want to build a relationship with you.
They want to support your ideas and endeavors.
You want to build an audience, but you then want to turn that audience into a community.
Here are 4 tips to help you do that:
1. Share your personality
I recently wrote about how AI tools are changing writing and content creation.
AI will make content creation frictionless at scale in ways human can’t.
There will be social media accounts that are entirely generated by AI content (and probably already are).
I strongly believe one of the ONLY things that will protect your audience from being lost to AI is the relationship you build with them.
Building a relationship with your community is just like building relationships in real life.
People need to get to know you. They need to see the human being behind the digital content.
This doesn’t mean you need to share everything about your personal life.
You decide what you’re comfortable sharing online and not.
But it does mean you need to show your personality.
2. Engage with people
There’s no better way to build a community than engaging that community on a daily basis.
There’s also no better way to LOSE your community than not.
When people comment on your content, respond to them.
Spend some time reading and support other peoples’ content, too.
If you want people to care about you, then care about them.
3. Talk to your audience
One of my favorite things is engaging in dialogue with my community.
Some ways I do it:
Respond to comments on my content
Send and respond to direct messages
Respond to emails of this newsletter
Hop on calls to build personal relationships
Your best feedback and ideas will come from talking to your audience.
You don’t need to guess what content they want to read or what product or service they need.
Talk to them and ask them.
4. Be generous
Give your time, knowledge and resources to help people in your community grow if you can.
One of the hardest parts of growing your community is there are more requests for your time, and it’s not feasible to accommodate everyone.
If you can’t give time, try to give something else — a tip, a guide you’ve built, etc.
People remember those who help them, and the “bigger” you get online the more powerful this becomes.
No matter how big you get, always make some time to do unscalable things.
Action Item
Two things for you:
Make a list of 3 ways you will build your community
Make time every day — even 5-10 minutes — to do those things
You won’t get to everyone, and that’s okay. But daily deposits into your community every day compound over time.
Work with Teddy
1:1 coaching: I'm looking for CEOs, executives and entrepreneurs who want to become better writers and grow their presence online. I will work with you 1:1. If you're interested, please reply to this email with "coaching."
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