Growing Your Community Memebers

Growing your community can take time, but it also helps to be looking in the right places. Here are some helpful places to start asking around:
  • Bloggers. Not the big bloggers, but people with a blog about your industry. They care so much they spend their time on it.
  • Comments. People that comment on blogs in your industry, are great to contact. They're interested, know the tools and have the time to spare.
  • News Stories. Most news sites allow people to add their opinion to the story. Don't be afraid to approach them.
  • Book Reviewers. People that review books about your genre are becoming more approachable. Visit Amazon, eBay and other sites to find potential members.
  • Facebook, LinkedIn and Other Social Networks: Learn how to search for people by interest and develop relationships with people.
  • Industry Magazines. Who's been writing into your industry's magazines? Read the letters and Google the names. They most likely have an online presence.
  • Customer Service. Anyone that's shown such an interest that they've contacted the customer service team to complain or improve the product is someone you want.
  • Your Inbox. Anyone that's written to you with a question, or a comment that never really got your full attention. Invite them.
  • Taggers. Who's tagging content about your sector? Invite them.
  • Twitter. Search Twitter for mentions of your company and your industry. Invite the people you find, unless they have over 500 followers.
  • Conference Attendees. People that attended the industry conference are usually interested in being better at what they, or becoming more involved in the industry. You can often get the complete list of members from the conference site. Use with caution.
  • Regular Visitors/Lurkers. Put up a post calling for volunteers interested in getting more involved. You can't announce the project yet, but they can e-mail you if it spikes their interest.
  • People They Know. Ask everyone you get from this list who else they think would love to be one of the first members of your new community - approach them.


Previous page

Next page