Build online relationships, promote others as you do yourself

I would LOVE to claim ownership of this idea, but this blog post is actually originated by a tweet Scott Stratten (UnMarketing) made a few months ago that just resonated with me. I hope I’m quoting what he said exactly (it’s coming from memory) (related reading from Scott – how to retweet):

Spend at least 30 minutes a day replying to @ mentions or promoting someone else’s blog or retweet someone

I have to say that’s perhaps one of the things I enjoy the most – retweeting. Naturally, I do promote my own posts, hence why I schedule a few tweets indicating to my Twitter followers that I’ve posted on my blog something that I think will be useful to them. But for the most part, you’ll see me retweeting stuff All The Time.

I find that while retweeting itself does not build community directly (or alone), it does help build the online relationships that you can then take offline and build a strong network of supporters. My tweets are frequently retweeted and even though it takes a lot of me to thank people individually, I do make a point to say “hey thanks for that retweet” (I will fully confess that in the past weeks, the number of retweets that I have gotten has been so large that I have been remiss in thanking people individually – same with the Follow Friday mentions).

So if I may give you a piece of unsolicited advice, follow Scott’s advice and spend some time promoting other people’s posts. It’s good karma, and it feels good (at least for me!).

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