Ep 41: How to build powerful online communities

Welcome to Dawn of a New Era, a business and marketing podcast with a difference. Ranking in the top 5% globally for people who want to start, scale, and grow their own business. Dawn McGruer shares tips to improve marketing, motivation and mindset, as well as her own real life challenges and experiences as an entrepreneur. Guests include some of the world’s most inspiring leaders too. So if you are an aspiring, established, or a serial entrepreneur, this is your go-to podcast to fast track results and rise to meet today’s challenges. Never miss an episode, and subscribe and listen at dawnmcgruer.com.

Dawn McGruer:

Welcome to Episode 41 of Dawn of a New Era with myself, Dawn McGruer, author, speaker, and strategist. We’re going to talk about one of the most important things in business today, and that is how to build powerful online communities so that you can excel online. This is all about building a community to get positives, using social media in a vibrant way that’s going to make you stand out and sell your brand and business.

Number One: Embracing a larger purpose

Now, step number one out of my six powerful steps is embrace a larger purpose. And what I mean by this is looking at why you set up your social media presence in the first place and looking at your brand and business and the story and the mission and vision that you stand for and sharing this as a community. Because we’re not just using social media because everyone else is. Social media is a very powerful concept if used correctly. And it can take your connections and turn them into paying clients. But so many businesses fail. You’ve got to get it right. You’ve got to stand out from the crowd and think about what the larger purpose is. If you get in your mind who your audience is, who your tribe and who you’re trying to reach, then that’s half the battle. Really understanding your ideal client, really understanding why this community is not just going to be valuable to them, but it’s going to be essential to them.

Number Two: Be true, be authentic, be you.

Number two, be true, be authentic, and be you. Out of all six steps, this is honestly the most important. To be able to stand strong and stand tall and be true to yourself and show up in a way that is comfortable to you. This is about having a voice on social media and not being scared to really cause ripples because you set up your business, you carved out your role, your career to stand for something. And you have to replicate this online. It has to be consistent to who you are and what your personality is.

So, so many times I have been judged, I have been criticized, I have been told that I have to change. And do you know what? Sometimes, and for awhile, I was receptive to that. I felt the need to conform. I felt the need to be the same as everyone else. Now, I’ve had people judge me for doing lives and wearing makeup and not just kind of turning up in my pajamas. But if you want to turn up in your pajamas or you want to wear makeup, this is down to you. It is no one else’s business. You have to make sure that when you appear on social media, that it is absolutely authentic because people will see through it. You have to be consistent in the way that you are building this online presence. Because to get a community, to get buy-in, to get credibility and authority, you need to have credence in what you’re saying and the way that you’re presenting yourself.

So, if people don’t like your accent, if people don’t like the little way you look or people don’t like the way that you speak about your business or the topics you talk about, that’s their problem. Tough. Because you were there to serve your market. And do you know what? You want to deflect the people that you don’t want to be attracting. What’s the point of having a community that’s quantity over quality? You want to have the right people at the right time because these people will be the power behind your brand. They will push you forward in two ways. They will give you the momentum by engaging in your content. Commenting, liking, sharing, and building this positive way of life that you are representing others online. And they will want to come and join that tribe and be part of it because they will migrate because they have similar qualities.

Number Three: Mix it up!

And this is something that you don’t want to be everything to everyone. You have to be true, be authentic and be you. One thing that I would say, which is number three, is mix it up. Recently, I did a whole summit, a one-day summit called the Social Media Shake-Up. It was all about getting inspiring stories from people who were proud of their background, proud of where they came from, but wanted to use the positivity and the power of social media to get the three core pillars in place for their brand, their business and their consumers, which is marketing, motivation, and mindset. Now, when we consider the diversity and looking at it as the spice of life, I’m talking about making sure that you stand out from the crowd. You do something different. So when everyone’s zigging, you zach. We don’t want to see the same old content. I mean, social media is saturated with the same, same, same, same. Your business is not unique, but you are.

Diversity is also about presenting content in a different way. And if you’ve never gone live, once you do this and you do it once and you realize nothing awful happens, then you know that it’s going to be in a central part of your business and a very powerful part. Often the first thing that we have is an idea in our head of something we want to do that we know that’s going to change our business but we are stopping ourselves doing that. We’re self-sabotaging because it doesn’t feel comfortable and it’s going into the unknown.

So you just take that first step. It’s about taking micro steps, getting micro wins. Don’t try and tackle a whole project. To be diverse, you want to be doing lots of different things. Break your tasks down into micro tasks and micro actions. So if it’s creating an online course, the first thing is to map out the content, the topics, and then slowly move forward. But mix the content up so that you’re creating different media, different imagery. Don’t just fall into the graphics trap on social media where you just keep posting the same old message and you sell, sell, sell. You will sell more when you don’t sell. It’s about building communities that have similar qualities and attracting people by building desire and building influence, because you are being positive in the message. And that is going to bring the right people. And you’re going to build this amazing amount of connection.

Number Four: Don’t judge, be inclusive, and be open

Now, the next one, which is number four, really, really awful side of social media that I see all the time is judging, right? So I want to say, don’t judge. Be inclusive and be open, right? So many times I hear people in the online communities and online spaces talking about other people, judging and being negative, right? Do you know what? If someone wants to go online and do whatever they want to do and carve out their own business in their own space, let them damn well do it because it is not about you. It’s about them and their audience, okay? If you’re triggered by something or you don’t like something, then that’s you. That’s down to you, it’s not down to the person. Don’t judge people. And show some solidarity, show some support. Because on social media, day in, day out, we’re on our phones, scrolling through, absorbing, consuming and just not engaging, right?

You have to stand forward and actually do some positive in the world, and that’s comment, liking, sharing other people’s content. You start it. People will follow. People will engage back. We can’t just be this world of voyeurs on social media, right? We don’t want to judge other people. Let them do their own thing. And if someone trolls you, again, it’s you triggering them. It’s a reflection on something that is causing an issue for them. So we see it sometimes when people talk about money, about positive things in terms of growing their business, et cetera, and then they get that clash online. It was no justification. Absolutely no justification. So don’t let it get to you.

It’s so hard. I know. I mean, I’ve been called all sorts of things online. I was called a white witch. I don’t even know really what that means. I’ve been criticized for the color of my lipstick. But you know what? You have to just let it roll on past. It’s tough if people don’t like you. You can’t care about triggering people because there’s no justification or validity in saying that to somebody. It’s just mean, right? So don’t judge. Let people be. And try and include as many people as possible because there’s so many people in your community who won’t want to stand down, so think about how you can communicate with them in a different way.

So instead of it always being public and just everyone joining a live, commenting and engaging that way, step out slightly and think of other ways that you can engage with them. Send them a message, drop them a voice message, send them a video. These people in your community, and often the unspoken, the unheard voices, are the most powerful because there’s a lot things going on behind the scenes. So, it’s not always the people who are out there visible to you that are important. Remember to include everybody. And it’s about diversity too and bringing other voices forward.

Number Five: Stay in your own lane, don’t get FOMO

Now, number five, stay in your own lane. Look, we’ve all been there. We’ve all been on social media where we’re trolling through, we’ve got an idea, we’ve got a project in our mind and we start consuming content and then we start getting panicked and then we start getting FOMO and we’re like, “Oh my goodness. This person is so far in their journey. I’m so far behind. I’ve got such a massive task.” Panic, panic, panic, self-sabotage. Stop. Halt. Don’t do anything. That’s the problem. You have to put your blinkers on. You have to keep laser-focused and in your own lane where you’re trying to achieve your own objective. Because we’re at our own age and stage of our careers. And people who say to me, “Dawn, you’ve got 30,000 direct connections. I just don’t even see how I can get there.” Well, that shouldn’t be your target if you’ve just started out on LinkedIn. If you’ve just started out, getting five, getting 50, getting 100 is where you have to start.

Look, I started there myself. It’s taken me years to get to 30,000 direct connections and the same of followers. I’m trying to get to 100,000. If I consumed other people’s content, I’d be thinking, “Oh my goodness. These people are way ahead of me.” But I’m not. I’m staying true to my own objective, looking at my end goal and not getting absorbed in consuming. Guess what? You need to be creating content. And that’s going to be the driver. Don’t just consume books and podcasts and things. Take action. As soon as you create something, guess what? You can evolve it. You can optimize it. You can improve it. Don’t stay in the procrastination of perfection, right? It won’t ever happen. You have to start somewhere. You have to draw a line and get micro wins and micro goals.

Number Six: Think of the ‘we’ before ‘me’

Now, last but not least, number six, communities are collaborative. We have to think about the we before me. Because guess what? You set this community up for your audience. Yeah. You have to be mindful of what they want. If you create content and nobody comment, likes and shares, maybe it’s not aligned to the audience you’ve created. Maybe there’s no demand for it. Maybe it doesn’t actually satisfy any pain problem or need that they have. It’s just plain boring in that case. So if you’ve had the tumbleweed where no one comment, likes and shares, shift it up. Shake it up. Change your social media and look at what they want and why they are there. So you go back to number one, which is embrace a larger purpose.

To summarize building six powerful steps to your communities, getting powerful communities online, number one, embrace a larger purpose. Number two, be true, be authentic, be you. Number three, diversity is the spice of life. And number four, don’t judge. Be inclusive and be open. Number five, stay in your own lane. Don’t get FOMO. And number six, communities are collaborative. And it’s all about them. Talk about them and actually entertain your audience. So I hope this was useful for you. I would love you to come and join my community. I run a community on Facebook and it’s Dawn Mcgruer’s Marketing, Motivation and Mindset Group. In there we are entrepreneurs and professionals all looking for the same end goal, which is to shine online. I will see you in the next episode and I hope you enjoyed it. Don’t forget to come and join me on dawnmcgruer.com. You can find out more about what we do and free guides and content that will help you in your journey.

Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era podcast. And for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit and success and join our community, go to dawnmcgruer.com.