5 Ways To Grow An Authentic Online Community

By: Kelly Loubet (@childhood and @social2B)

 

Authentic -adjective: not false or copied; genuine; real.

It’s a buzz word used in the social space all the time. Sometimes it’s used justly… and others not. When I think of an authentic online community, I think of one where the members feel comfortable to share with one another and to provide honest feedback. In other words, they engage with one another. (I know… I used another buzz word. But I’m being authentic about it!

 

Here are 5 ways to grow an authentic online community:

1. Be Authentic.

It’s kind of obvious… I know. But, are you being authentic with your audience? Your topic should be something that you’re well versed in. For instance, parenting advice is best given out by other parents. Not a parent? It wouldn’t be authentic for you to lead your readers to think that you have been there and done that. Stick to what you know and you’ll always be authentic in discussing it.

2. Be Genuine.

Being genuine is very similar to being authentic. When building an authentic community, being genuine is key. Most people can smell a fake from miles away. When you say “It’s going to be an amazing day!” your readers should feel your enthusiasm. Your message should match you. If you’re typically a reserved person… it’s not going to fly for you to adopt raucous personality. Be real. Trust me on this one.

3. Be Knowledgeable.

What’s your expertise? Everyone has one. Whether it’s fixing cars, selling houses, or being snarky… everybody is an expert on something. Share with your community what you know. And don’t make it a one way street. When they ask questions… answer them! The best way to grow a community is to engage the people in it! (more on that later)

4. Be Engaging.

I touched on this a moment ago. I’ll go ahead and say it again… The best way to grow a community is to engage with the people in it! Sharing quotes is nice, giving facts and figures is helpful, and posting links is informative, but the bottom line is… you must also be responsive. What are your followers experts in? In order to get feedback… one must also be prepared to give it.

5. Be You.

Don’t try and adopt a personality. It won’t work. I promise. There’s only one you and you’re the best at being you than anyone. Embrace it. Share it. Live it. Give it.

Kelly Loubet is a Social Media Marketing Manager at Social2B. She’s a believer in community building and using social media for good. Kelly is a mom, a writer, and a speaker. Follow her @Social2B and on her personal account @childhood. To read more of her writing, check out EverydayChildhood.com.

Did you read the last post Traffic Report On Internet Marketing Efforts ?

Let's grow together,

Ramiro Rodriguez
Internet Marketer

Share my journey click on two buttons below now.

Traffic Report On Internet Marketing Efforts

Traffic Report On Internet Marketing Efforts

Hello Everyone!

I may have made a mistake by trying to get traffic from Facebook too quickly. 

The other day I spent about five hours posting on one of the discussion boards on the NetworkedBlogs site that's connected to Facebook.  And while I did generate some traffic I received a lot of time consuming emails.

Every time someone replied to one of my posts I received an email.  I've probably received over 100 emails so far and I'm still trying to turn off the notifications!

The problem is that it's not really targeted traffic.  Everyone on the discussion boards wanted to promote a link.  I've decided that it's not really worth the effort to generate traffic that way.

I'm going to focus on the forums today by posting and answering questions to test how much traffic I can generate from them.

Am I moving too fast?

Video Training - Internet Marketing

I created this blog a few days ago and while it's already making money I am getting only one time visitors because I don't have a lot of content yet.  With that in mind, I created a new Video Training page.

The videos are very high quality and will help you take your Internet marketing efforts to a new level.  When I watched the videos I felt motivated and I learned something new from a professional entrepreneur.

It was really easy to create this page.  It took me about two hours.

The reason it was so easy to create the page is because BarefootExecutive.tv has embed codes on every video.  So I just highlighted the HTML embed code, copied it and pasted it on my page. 

I had to adjust the video autoplay and size of the video window so knowledge of HTML is helpful when creating this kind of page.  It's helpful but not necessary. 

If you want to post the videos as they're formatted you can just paste the code on your web page.  They were too wide on my page so I made the adjustment. 

The autoplay feature was crazy fun.  When I tested the page three of the videos started playing at once!  After laughing I went into the HTLM and figured out how to turn them off.

Visit the page to view how I laid out the videos.  It's just a straight forward downward scroll.  I'll add more text and videos shortly.

I received 24 friend requests from Facebook yesterday after posting on a discussion board.  The requests came from teenagers and other people who aren't into making money online so I declined the requests.

Remember the targeted traffic mantra.  Get people who like what you like.

Did you read the last post Internet Marketing eBook On Amazon ?

Let's grow together,

Ramiro Rodriguez
Internet Marketer

Share my journey click on two buttons below now.

Internet Marketing eBook On Amazon




Here We Go!

 

Working At Home

I was really busy yesterday posting on all of the message boards and I was a little tired. After all, the key word in work at home, is work.

Don't let anyone tell you that you can make money on the Internet just by sitting back. If you read that anywhere run fast. Don't fall for the trap!

And don't waste your time on free traffic gimmicks. Focus on connecting with people who like what you like. I'd rather have 100 people on my list who are interested in Internet marketing than 100,000 people who are not interested.

Last week I posted an eBook for sale on Amazon's Kindle platform and it was accepted. Amazon said it may take 24-48 hours for the eBook to show up in listings. I hope so. I'm very excited.

If I can make one sale every few days I'll be happy. The trick will be to write more eBooks! I am seriously thinking about opening up a membership site for eBooks. Anyone interested?

• Does anyone have an idea for a new eBook?
• What would you like to read about?
• What are you interested in?

The eBook I wrote is basically about Internet marketing and how to make money from home selling used cell phones. If anyone reading this wants a free copy of the eBook just send me an email and I'll forward it to you.

LinkedIn for Internet Marketing Purposes 

I had signed up for LinkedIn a week ago and didn't finish my profile or really looked around the website. And then the news hit about the 100 million users. I put it on my to do list and today I spent over an hour on the site setting up my profile and poking around.

When you join a social media network the first thing you should do is set up your profile. That's where people go to learn about you and if your profile page is empty they may lose interest in you very quickly.

At any rate, I got into the "Questions" page of LinkedIn and I started answering questions in order to get my name out there. I even posted a question and I received one reply so far.

I'll keep you posted on what happens on LinkedIn. I'm going back over to the website to look for a tutorial so that I can better understand what I'm doing.

Did you read the last post My Internet Marketing Payday?

Let's grow together,

Ramiro Rodriguez
Internet Marketer

Share my journey click on two buttons below now.

My Internet Marketing Payday

Follow Us

I got a bunch of traffic today.  And I made some money.  But first let tell you what I was thinking.

A lot of the courses out there say that if you want traffic to your site to visit forums and join discussion groups.  It's nothing new.  It's nothing new because it works.  Read my discoveries.

Internet Marketing Tests

First things first.  I switched blogs.  I am now concentrating my efforts to this blog because it's already making money and I just started it a couple of days ago.  I monetized it the same night and started posting my articles.

I made the right decision.  Blogger is awesome.  It is so easy to make money on the Internet.  After the traffic explosion I received today I can't wait to keep writing my articles and Internet marketing discoveries.

I spent all day testing what would happen if I got on the message boards and discussion groups and started posting replies and opening topics.  It's time consuming.

I started about five hours ago and I just checked my stats and my jaw dropped.  I got a lot of traffic.

Another thing I did today was to send a message to everyone who started following me on Twitter.  The message was simple. 

I thanked them for the follow and asked them to please give me some feedback on my article My Internet Marketing Efforts.  I did it quickly by pasting the same message over and over so I didn't have to retype it every time.

Something else that might've contributed to my increase in traffic is that last night I made a guest post on another blog.  I just recycled an article I had already written.

Internet Marketing Discoveries

Jumping on the message boards and Internet marketing discussion groups really does bring in traffic.  I am so psyched.

Most of the traffic I received today came from Facebook.  Probably because I was on the Facebook Networked Blogs site.  I joined today and jumped right in exploring other blogs and leaving messages and posting replies.

The traffic came in.  My efforts paid off. 

I am very tempted to begin article marketing.  I already have two articles out there in Internet marketing article directories (click on the link to read about the best 10 directories and reviews.)

The only reason I am hesitating to post to the article directories now is because I want to keep testing what I was doing today to see how much more traffic I can bring in just by posting replies and posting comments on other blogs.

Internet Marketing Strategy

I am going to continue to post articles on HubPages and I'm going to continue to post replies and comments for a week to see what happens.  I'm sure my traffic is going to increase.

Beginning next Saturday I'm going to start posting articles to article directories to see what happens (will someone please remind me).  I don't think that posting to the directories will bring me the instant traffic that I got today.  I think I read somewhere that it takes a few weeks for that strategy to kick in.

If anyone can help with that please feel free to send me an email.  I'll post your answer with a link to your blog and a Like on Facebook.

Let's grow together,

Ramiro Rodriguez
Internet Marketer

Share my journey click on two buttons below now.

My Internet Marketing Efforts

Hello Everyone!

I’ve been busy researching and reading about Internet marketing and social media.  And I wrote an eBook and listed it for sale on Amazon.com’s Kindle platform.

Remember the article I wrote on how to sell used cell phones?  Well, I expanded the article and turned it into an eBook.  To tell you the truth?  I’m a little scared.  I don’t think that my eBook will sell.

Why?

Because Kindle allows users to download a sample of an eBook before they purchase it.  I’m afraid that when people download a sample my book they won’t want to purchase it because I am not a good writer.

I posted it any way.  I am stepping into my fear.  I am going to think positive and realize that this is another learning experience. 

The reason I wrote the eBook on selling used cell phones is because people have been searching on the Internet for this information.  On my blog alone I’ve had several hits on my article Placed “I Buy Used Cell Phones Ad”.

When I looked at my stats page I noticed that the clicks came from a search engine. 

I’ve also been doing a little testing the last couple of days.  I logged on to Google Trends and noticed that Elizabeth Taylor was on the top of the list because of her recent death.  People were searching for information on her.

I wrote a quick article listing all of the movies she made just to see what would happen.  I posted the article on HubPages and began getting hits right away.

The Elizabeth Taylor article received more hits in 24 hours than my best article had been doing all week.  She was hot.  I have the article monetized with AdSense. 

I wish I had included a book about her from Amazon.com. I am a member of their affiliate club and I could’ve made a sale.

I am falling behind on working on my blog.  There is a lot I have to learn and I still need to post articles and pages.  I need content!

I tried working from PLR articles but left it alone to work on the eBook.  I need to start making money right away.

Let’s grow together,

Ramiro Rodriguez – Need a free smartphone with a plan?

Please click on the share button now to share this with your friends.

Getting Lost And Distracted On The Internet

Yesterday I made a plan and a “to do” list and got to work on my future business.

I got online to search for eBooks with Master Resale Rights to purchase and resell on Kindle, eBay and a web page. 

And I found a really cool site called Master-Resale-Rights.com. 

I’m going to purchase one of their eBooks to check it for quality and readability.  They hire professional ghost writers. I downloaded one of their free eBooks and read it.  It was very well done.

However, I didn’t find the site until very late.

What happened?  I got lost surfing the Internet.  I learned a lot and it was fun but by the time I got down to business I was tired. 

I didn’t manage my time well and it cost me a few hours that I could’ve spent trying to get a business going. 

This morning I read the following article that put me back on track:

Do Things in Order of Importance
By Laura Stack 

Watch the Video

Let’s face it: for most of us, to-do lists are indispensible guides to our lives, especially the daily ones we construct every evening to delineate exactly what we need to get done the next day (you do that, correct?).

But it’s too easy to fall into the trap of assuming everything on your list is of equal importance, which clearly isn’t the case.

Does ordering party favors for a friend’s baby shower compare to completing a draft for a million-dollar contract? No.

But it’s tempting—and it is human nature—to get those little tasks done instead of jumping on the mega-task. And yes, it’s also tempting to put off the onerous yet pressing tasks. But don’t!

You’ve got to get them done and putting them off doesn’t serve you. Productivity isn’t measured by how many hours you work or how fast you work. It boils down to how much value you produce in the time spent.

© 2010 Laura Stack

My First Sale! Internet Marketing Online

Hello Everyone!

I’m so excited I can’t stop smiling. I MADE MY FIRST SALE!

A few days ago I joined fiverr.com. It’s a site where people can post what they will do for $5.

I placed 7 ads offering to do mainly phone work that would take only a few minutes per call. To see my page on fiverr.com please go to Fiverr.com.

Fiverr.com is a fun site that allows users to buy and sell services. Check it out!

Let’s grow together,

Ramiro Rodriguez

Please click on the share button now to share this with your friends.

Using HubPages To Make Money Online

Hello Everyone!
It is 11:34 p.m. and I’m working. Actually I slept during the day.

I was tired because I was up all night learning about HubPages.com and writing two articles to post on the site.

HubPages is awesome. It is incredibly simple to create a “hub” (article) and post it. The best part is that they monetize your articles with Google Adsense, eBay, Amazon.com and a couple of other affiliate programs.

When I posted my first article I chose to monetize it with Adsense. I used Adsense before and I made money with the program. Google sends checks to your house once a month if you choose.

To read one of my articles on HubPages please click here.

I published my articles about 18 hours ago and combined, they’ve had 39 hits! That’s almost as good as this blog’s hits. I’m sure traffic will pick up after Google crawls the site and finds my articles. That can sometimes take a week or more.

HubPages suggests to write about things that will have a lasting interest so that the writer can continue to make money from a hub years from now.

For example, if you write an article about how diabetes affects the body it will have lasting interest. If you write an article about a new diabetes blood testing gadget people will lose interest quickly once the gadget becomes well known.

I’m tempted to get in and begin writing another article but I’m first going to take the time to learn more about monetizing my hubs.

I’m a member of the Amazon.com’s affiliate program and I want to add books to my hubs. One of the main features on HubPages is that you can choose the layout of your hub and what to monetize it with.

A writer can also choose not to monetize a hub.

I’m very excited about HubPages and the potential it has for generating an online income. If I listen to HubPages’s advice and write about things that remain interesting I’ll have residual income for years to come. And that’s my goal!

Let’s grow together,

Ramiro Rodriguez

Please click on the share button now to share this with your friends.

Social Media Profits

How To Profit On Social Media Networks | Video Course

Social media profiting is about generating leads to build your opt-in email list. Social media can be a very powerful tool to generate leads.

What I’m going to talk about in this article is using social media to increase your leads. And how to target the right people.  The videos below will show you how to be successful with social media.

The best thing about generating leads on a social media site is that you can qualify the lead. You don’t want someone in your network who is an auto mechanic if you’re selling women’s clothes.

Qualify your leads. Be very careful who you interact with. You don’t want to waste time on people who are not interested in what you’re offering. It may be fun but it’s not business.

Your goal should be to find people who are interested in what you’re interested in. If you’re selling shoes there are millions of people on social networks that are interested in shoes. Focus on those people.

Activity on Social Media Networks

Approach those people. Leave comments on their posts and look at who’s in their group so that you can approach them as well.

Let’s begin by asking and answering five critical questions.

What social media sites are you on?

This is important because you shouldn’t spread yourself too thin. Focus on 3-5 social media networking sites and spend 10 hours or more a week on those sites generating leads.

You can join as many sites as you want in order to get your name and website url out there but don’t spend too much time on those other sites. Focus your efforts on a few.

How active are you?

To be successful you must put in time. I mentioned earlier to spend 10 hours a week on your network marketing efforts but I didn’t talk about productivity.

You want to be productive when you’re on the sites. Read people’s posts and comment on them. Get your name in front of people. Build relationships with these people.

Let them talk about themselves and YOU talk about THEM. Don’t talk about yourself or your opportunity until they ask you.

What is on your profile?

Make sure to have content on your profile page. Spend time setting it up. Make it the first thing you do when you join a site. Your profile page is a mini website about you.

Make it so compelling that when people see it they ask you to join them as friends.

Social Media Success

If you’re allowed html on your profile page put an opt-in box there. Offer a free report. Give the visitor an incentive for giving you their email address.

Build your list faster with multiple opt-in boxes. Put one on every page you’re allowed.

People visit your profile page to learn something about you! Give it to them. Post links that interest you. Talk about yourself. Upload a picture of you with your dog or child. Tell a story.

How many people do you add each day?

Grow your network and your list daily.

Set a goal of how many people you’re going to add every day. If you add 10 to 30 people a day, you’re going to have a very good, money-making list of people who are interested in what you’re offering.

You did qualify your leads didn’t you?

What are you posting?

Learn about your prospects. Ask questions when you post. Build a relationship first before you try to sell anything. Contribute to the conversation by offering help and giving information freely.

Prospects will judge you by your posts. Bring value by having high quality content and being relevant. Did I say to give away a lot of stuff?

Perform research and read about your topic. Get pictures online and use them on your posts. Pictures attract the eyes.

People truly want to hear what you have to say. You have followers out there. Go get them.

Social Media Video #1

This first video is only 1.5 minutes long and it's actually a commercial for ConstantContact but watch it to see how powerful social media and email marketing can be. This video has received more than 47,000 views on YouTube.com.

Social media video #2 - 5 Easy Tricks to Get Facebook Fans Fast

This video has had more than 125,000 views. It's very good.  You'll learn easy tricks to increase your fans on Facebook and how to get people to sign-up to your email list.

Social media marketing in 4 steps

This video talks about how providing content can boost your social media traffic by building trust and having people know and like your content.

Additional social media training articles and videos

Now click on one of the links below to continue learning how social media can help you achieve your goals of generating an online income.

- Video Social Media Success In 4 Steps

- How To Attract Fans To Facebook Fan Page

- Fueling the Social Media Engine: How Building Relationships Online Drives the Growth of Brands

- Social Media - Make Better Sense of the Social Landscape

Ramiro Rodriguez

Be a buddy- Share this with your friends...click on a button now.