Community Building Tips

 

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Bunker Project Episode 141

The Bunker Project is brought to you by Okanagan Spring Brewmaster Black.

Bunker Mavens in attendance:

Bonnie Sainsbury @bsainsbury

Margaret Reynolds @bc_insurancegal

Andrew McGivern @podcasthero

Bob Garlick @bobgarlick

Randall Orser @numbercrunchers

Kurtis Lockhart @kurtislockhart

Marilyn Anderson @mande2

Marcel Lapointe @ unknown

Sanj Sukerkar @genesysdesigns

Ken McGrath @kenamcg

James Karg @twisted_majic

We are fresh off the #SMCMEETUP event where Bob and Andrew set up a podcast studio at The Fan Club during the expert panel discussion about building community using Meetup.com.

So we decide to continue the conversation from that meetup. Listen to the last episode if you want to hear what we talked about during that show. Listen to the episode and read the full show notes to get all the details.

Show 141

Round Table Intros:

Round Table Intro Question: Name, Twitter Handle and a tip on how you build your community?

• Margaret said don’t be a social media douche.

• Bonnie said don’t spam which basically means don’t be annoying and especially don’t be annoying three times in a row.

• Randall said don’t post 50 times in a row or don’t post on Linked In, Facebook and Twitter all at the same time.

• Kurtis said to build community focus on having great content.

• Sanj updated his blog plugin and previously had disabled auto-posting but the upgrade turned it back on… so he posted to all networks at the same time.

• Margaret said don’t put a ton of hashtags in your tweets.

• Bob said take your core network of 150 people and get to know them and interact with them.

• Andrew said to give more than you take.

• James said don’t let Sanj show up… because he didn’t show up to the event last night. He said do what you do because you want to do it not because you're trying to get something out of it.

Voicemail feedback from…. NORM!!!

• Norm heard on another podcast that Google + can take images and organize them and auto suggest (identify) your friends to tag them. And it detects smiles and which pictures are the best.

• Bob talks about how great Google’s technology is compared to the competitors.

• Some talk about Camera Phones and Smart Cameras. Bob said if you don’t understand light you won’t be able to take a good picture no matter what hardware you have.

Traversing the Digital Divide

• James and Bob said trying to get to know your online community personally is the key to building a strong community.

• Bonnie said that is fine if you're doing business locally but not most people aren’t these days.

• Bob said meeting your community when you travel for conferences to Las Vegas or New York is what he’s talking about.

• Bonnie disagrees and says online is good enough with G+ Hangouts and the ability to communicate online.

• James brings up the Craft Beer Nation hangout community has grown to 6000 members and Bob said James would definitely meet those guys in person for beers if he was visiting their city. James agrees.

• Andrew said the point isn’t necessarily to meet your community in person but to get know them, who are they, what do they do, etc.

• Bonnie said this a little to Kumbaya for her… She isn’t going to send a personal tweet to all her 104 000 followers.

• She said generally people who say this don’t like to be friends with only 150 (Dunbar number) people.