I have written two posts already on the subject of Building your Personal Brand: First Steps, and What to Avoid, which I recommend reading first.

In this next instalment, I’ll be talking about how to build yourself a community online. As the term implies, this isn’t about finding you a throne and giving the internet a love potion. It’s a two-way process: to bring like-minded people closer to you, you need to be a giver first.

Ideal Audience

Some basic questions you should ask yourself:

Your core ideal audience is the one you want to reach for monetary reasons (we all have to eat, after all). Maybe they’re a customer, or a future employer. It might be a very specific audience or a vague concept of one.

Pick someone you feel fits the criteria of your ideal audience and research their interests:

In doing so, you are identifying those that have an influence on your ideal audience. These are the ones you want to befriend: publish on those trusted sites, retweet influencers, and find the means to build a connection in a way that makes sense for you and your brand.

Essentially, what I am suggesting here is that you contribute in a considered way. Rather than just blogging on your personal website, you might offer to guest blog for a relevant publication for instance. Rather than just tweeting your own successes, be supportive of other people’s success.

Slowly but surely, you’ll be shaping your own community.

A Community Will Sustain You

In the short term you might find this process a little frustrating, but creating a personal brand is a long-term project. Being part of a community of like-minded individuals and organizations has countless benefits including finding out about opportunities faster, having a support network, engaging the right people, collaboration, etc…

The alternative, of course, is to keep shouting in the void.