Cultivating community through your social media begins with building your own online presence. Let’s start with Facebook. To begin, you will want your online presence to reflect a clear, focused message so people can get to know you on both your personal and business pages. Everything you LIKE, share or comment on in some way reflects your message. As you share content that expresses your brand, people who have an interest in what you are up to will gravitate toward you, and your following will begin to grow.
Start Your Own Community
Now that you have an online presence and a following, you can start to cultivate community by creating a Facebook Group. Facebook Groups offer a powerful way to connect in community. There are groups forming all the time on just about any topic you can think of. When you set up your group, use your name and the topic in the title so people can find you by searching either category. Then invite your friends and other people you think might be interested in your group. The key to a successful group is to encourage members to participate and connect, and to offer great information.
Join a Couple of Facebook Groups
Now that you have an online presence where people can get to know you, and a Facebook Group for people to join you in community, you can go find people who you would like to invite to be in your community. I recommend joining a couple of groups to start with. It takes time to find a great group that has active participation, good conversation and sharing of quality content. Once you join, get to know the members and actively participate, when and if appropriate, you can invite them to check out your group.