‘The Social Snippet’ Spotlight: Community Is The Best Investment We Have Made For Our Business!
The secret behind building both our business ‘The Social Snippet’ [a social media and podcasting agency focused on helping entrepreneurs build their digital communities online] and our audience very much lies in our sincere efforts in joining online communities. As one of the seven Founders featured in Jessica Abo’s blog article, ‘These 7 Founders Share The Best Investment They Made Before They Launched’, I was thrilled and honoured to be given a platform to speak to the value in growing one’s business through community.
When prompted about the best investment we made before kick-starting our business, the answer was simple to me - community. Online communities, specifically free or low ticket, have tremendously benefited our business and sales growth, allowing us the ability to connect with like-minded individuals and potential clients or customers, as well as collaborate and spark conversations with others.
True Connection
To me, pitching is not necessary in creating business momentum and making sales, so rather than solely promoting our business via these online communities, we work to share our expertise, knowledge and insights with members. In other words, our goal is to act as helpful guides/mentors, offering connection calls with anyone we can think of that we can meet, whilst learning from fellow entrepreneurs as well. Ultimately this allows us to establish ourselves as valuable figures of the community and build trustworthy and meaningful relationships.
Expanding Our Reach
By joining online communities for our business, we have been able to reach people we may never have met otherwise, leading to new opportunities and collaborations, as well as an expanding social network. This has given us space for deeper conversations with our fellows and more chances to learn new ideas from each other, gain insights and stay up-to-date with industry trends. I believe collective knowledge holds a great deal of power and it is certainly significant in both our business strategy and brand awareness efforts.
Consistent Action
Consistency is also important to us in our online community aims; fostering authentic relationships takes time and we have definitely learned that patience goes a long way. By regularly participating in discussions, offering useful and relevant information, and staying active in these communities [all the while setting our expectations at a reasonable level], we believe our presence as members exudes honesty, genuineness and credibility. This is exactly what we hope other community members will notice, appreciate and find comfort in.
Our overall intention is to pour as much value as possible into these community platforms, place emphasis on real connection instead of excessive self-promotion, and then see how much that will pay us back in return.