1. Provide a central gathering place.
- It can be as simple as a blog all the way to fully featured forums (or both).
- Add resources and information that provides value to your product & related topics.
- Then jazz it up with interactive events of interest to your customer segment.
2. Set up web analytics at your site.
- Plug in Google Analytics
- Claim your blog on Technorati
- Set up Feedburner (although Google seems to really have broken this)
3. Start listening to find where your customers & potential customers are at
- Set up Google Alerts
- Monitor Twitter – Tweetdeck nicely sorts groups into columns
- Set up a Social Media Firehose (put it in a dashboard like Netvibes.com)
- Use an integrated tool like Techrigy SM2 (& yes I work for them)
4. Monitor and start noting trends
- Check your monitoring on a daily basis if you’re serious about this.
- As you get things going, check your web analytics on a weekly basis (which may shift to more often as it becomes addictive).
- Identify where your potential customers are hanging out at. It’s not practical to join every social networking site. So be selective.
5. Participate
- Join specific social networks and get involved. Provide value & resources. It’s not about you or your product. It’s about developing relationships. Meet people as people.
- Comment on blogs that are identified by your listening system. Join the conversation.
- Contribute to the conversation at large by blogging about industry related topics on your blog.
- Respond to those that are looking for your type of product. How will you know? if you’re listening for industry related topics then they will surface.
6. Build Brand
- Be consistent & be everywhere. Listening will enable you to efficiently do that.
- Provide a unique point of view that is memorable.
- Find a way to be repetitive. Is it your logo, your photo, your username, etc Make it easy for people to remember you.
- Establish yourself as a voice in your niche. Get to know others with common interests.
Source: http://conniebensen.com/2009/03/14/how-to-build-community-101/comment-page-1/#comment-3547
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