Community Building Tips

If you are a brand or creator planning to grow your own community, save this post for your next brand strategy session – Follower counts are overrated. What truly matters for your brand is a community that talks back. In the last 5+ years of building my personal brand along with Like Mind Tribe, I’ve learned this the hard (and beautiful) way. We often chase vanity metrics, namely likes, views, followers. But the brands that actually grow focus on: + trust + conversations + creating spaces that people want to return to My top 3 learnings about community building that most people ignore are👇 1/ Stop broadcasting. Start involving. Don’t just talk to your audience, co-create with them. Ask for their input. Let them choose the next product, workshop, or event theme. Your content should feel like a conversation, not a monologue. 2/ Trust builds in silence. Show up even when it’s quiet. The real connection begins when no one’s clapping. Be consistent with your presence. Show your progress, not just your polished wins. 3/ Give them a space beyond social media. DMs, Zoom rooms, meetups, or even a close friend's story list; These micro-interactions are where loyalty is built. If you want retention, give them a room where they feel seen. ———— I’ve met: → strangers who are now collaborators → community members who became accountability partners → even businesses that were born from casual coffee chats at our meetups That’s what happens when you value: Impact >>>>> Followers Whether you're building a brand or just starting out as a creator – Don’t just aim for attention. Create belonging. What’s the biggest challenge you face in building your community? Let’s tackle it together! #drishtiispeaks #community #branding #strategy #growth #socialmedia #content

Today, I will be addressing a harsh truth I don’t see many people talk about until “mental health awareness day”. We prioritize physical fitness, pushing ourselves to stay strong and healthy. But what about our mental well-being? We see tons of tips on meditation and journaling (both great practices), but what about a hidden gem that might be even more powerful? The Power of Social Connection. Our brains actually crave connection. Studies by psychologist Matthew Lieberman show that simply talking to someone we trust can lower stress hormones and boost our mood. Think about it: when you're feeling overwhelmed, chatting with a friend or family member can offer a fresh perspective and remind you that you're not alone. - Instead of solo walks, try incorporating social interaction. - Walking with friends, family, or even joining a walking group can double the benefits. - You get the physical exercise you love, plus the emotional support that comes with connecting with others. While venting can be helpful in the short term, true mental well-being goes beyond just letting off steam. When you walk and talk with loved ones, you can use this time to brainstorm solutions to problems together. Having different perspectives can lead to creative ideas, and feeling supported in tackling challenges can make a huge difference in reducing stress and anxiety. Taking care of your mental well-being isn't about waiting for a specific day or following the latest trends. It's about incorporating healthy habits into your everyday routine. Social connection is a powerful, and often overlooked, tool for mental fitness. So, lace up your shoes, grab a friend or family member, and walk your way to a stronger, more resilient you! What are your favorite ways to connect with others and boost your mental well-being? #mentalhealth #fitness #mindset #growth

You can’t do community engagement on a deadline. I came across a contract offer recently. It was a community engagement ‘task and finish’ project over 2 months. But community work doesn’t work like that. If you want genuine engagement then you need trust and trust isn’t a task on a Gantt chart. People don’t open up when the timeline says so, they open up when they feel safe. Genuine relationships don’t form during engagement events. They grow in conversations after the meeting has ended, during those ‘water cooler’ moments, at the school gates chats, on the walk back to the car. If your timeline has a fixed slot for “community engagement,” ask different questions: Who already has trust here and are they in the room? Where do people naturally gather and are we showing up there? Are we listening to meet a deadline or to understand what’s really going on? Community engagement isn’t the soft bit before delivery, it is THE work. It’s slow, human, and sometimes uncomfortable. But when people start to trust the process, everything else moves further and faster than any deadline could force. #CommunityDevelopment #CoDesign #Participation #PublicServices #Trust #PlaceMaking #CommunityPower

Having had many coffee chats recently, I’ve realized: Genuine curiosity drives the best conversations. And the way to show curiosity is by asking great questions. I believe asking great questions is the most important skill in any conversation—far more valuable than saying something clever/impressive. In fact, asking great questions is impressive in itself as it involves multiple skills: - Intellectual insight (grasping + building on context) - Emotional understanding (active listening + empathy) - Strong communication (verbal + non-verbal) So, how to ask great questions? We often ask about facts, processes, and surface-level opinions. But the goal should be to go one level deeper. What works for me is asking open-ended questions in these big five: 1. Motivation — "What inspired you to do X?" 2. Decision-making — "How/Why did you decide X?" 3. Emotions — "Are you happy with X?" 4. Challenges — "What was hardest doing X?" 5. Vision — "Where do you see this going?" It’s simple, but it must come from genuine curiosity. You really have to want to know. Be fascinated by people’s lives and stories. Combine this with deep listening, thoughtful contributions and a touch of humor - You'll connect more with almost anyone. And you'll be more memorable to them.

Most neighborhood revitalization strategies get one thing fundamentally wrong. They focus on buildings, incentives, and investment — and ignore the social fabric that actually makes places work. A new report by the UK"s Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods on the Strategies for Renewing Neighborhood Social Infrastructure makes this case clearly — and uncomfortably. It argues that the small, everyday places we tend to overlook — local shopping strips, cafés, laundromats, community hubs — are not just amenities. They are social infrastructure. They are where: ✅ Relationships form ✅ Trust is built ✅ Community identity takes shape And when they disappear, something deeper breaks. What struck me most is how directly the report challenges the dominant playbook. Too often, we try to fix neighborhoods by: 🔵 Attracting outside investment 🔵 Building new physical infrastructure 🔵 Launching programs aimed at “growth” But without strong social foundations, these efforts rarely produce lasting change. The report shows that the most successful neighborhood turnarounds didn’t start with capital projects. They started with: ✅ Local actors stepping up to take responsibility ✅ Deliberately shaping the mix of local businesses and spaces ✅ Building networks between residents, traders, and institutions ✅ Activating places to bring people together In other words: they rebuilt connection before chasing growth. That’s the real lesson. If we are serious about strengthening neighborhoods — in the U.S. or anywhere else — we need to rethink what we invest in. Not just: 🔵 Physical infrastructure 🔵 Economic incentives But: ✅ The places where people gather ✅ The local institutions that build trust ✅ The networks that hold communities together Because ultimately: Economic development does not create strong communities. Strong communities create the conditions for economic development. This is a report worth reading — especially if you’re working on neighborhood revitalization, economic development, or community building. (See link in comments.) It will challenge how you think about what actually drives change. #community #neighborhood #equity #inequality #health #urban Purpose Built Communities Placemaking Education Cormac Russell Frances Kraft Vanessa Elias Usha Srinivasan Jennifer Prophete Kevin Ervin Kelley, AIA Lory Warren Noah Baskett Matt Abrams Anna Scott Ethan Kent John B. Carol Naughton Sarah Strimmenos Ben Lewis Tim Tompkins Aaron Kuecker Aaron Hurst Tim Soerens Sam Pressler Tracy Hadden Loh David Erickson Shawn Duncan Mollie Johnson Katie Delp Carola Signori Andrew O'Brien Madeleine Jennings Ross Mudie Ben Glover Kirk Wester-Rivera Lorenzo A. Watson David Edwards Tim Tompkins Jonathan Haidt Alexa Arnold Pronoy Sarkar

Growth marketing is in shambles. Paid is saturated and expensive. Building viral loops is near impossible. In response, Maven is going hard on community-led growth… I got my start in tech by doing highly data-driven, deterministic growth marketing. At Udemy, we started by hacking Facebook and YouTube to siphon users. Then, we heavily optimized our signup flow to encourage sharing. Next, we explored paid marketing and SEO. Ahh, the good old days. Today most of those channels are played out. AI is coming in hot but hasn’t yet emerged into a new growth opportunity (I did a talk with Andrew Chen and neither of us could come up with a great AI growth hack yet). So, Maven is investing heavily in community-led growth. It's a big shift for me. After spending years in data-driven marketing, I'm now a believer in "faith-based marketing." Community-led growth means investing in connecting your users to each other through informal and formal communities. - Informal: Creating pockets on social media where users talk about you - Formal: Building Slack or Discord communities for your users As connections between users grow, they feed off each other, get inspired, and feel stronger affinity for your brand. This transforms them into ambassadors. At Maven, our informal efforts happen by encouraging instructors and students to talk about us on social media. We create "themed" launches that instructors can rally around, provide assets to make posting easy, and coach them on how to succeed on social. Our formal efforts are two separate Slack communities - one for instructors and a new one for students - where we are slowly building a buzzing forum for people to trade notes and discuss their business needs. Why is community-led growth so attractive? It's incredibly efficient (minimal ad spend), scalable (networks can grow exponentially), and flexible (once established, communities can serve multiple goals). Out of our 5 go-to-market team members, 2 are focused on community-led growth. It's by far our biggest marketing bet. I’m also asking the team to take mallory contois’s Community-led growth course so they can learn the best practices of the space and then apply them to Maven. She leads community-led growth at Mercury, one of my favorite products and brands in tech right now. To join my team members in taking Mallory’s course, check it out here (it starts next week): https://bit.ly/4bz5bjZ This is a huge bet and shift in thinking for someone who used to live and die by data-driven marketing. I believe it's happening across the industry: community/brand/social marketers are gaining momentum, and I'm determined to make Maven best-in-class.

“Let’s celebrate our differences!” — easy to say when you’ve never actually had to WORK through real differences. Here’s the thing: Real differences don’t feel like a celebration. They feel messy, uncomfortable, even threatening. 🧠 Our brains are hardwired to detect difference as potential danger. When someone thinks, works, or communicates differently than we do, our first instinct isn’t to embrace it—it’s to resist it. Recently, I worked with a team trapped in conflict for years. The problem wasn’t competence or commitment. It was cognitive diversity they didn’t know how to handle. 👉 One part of the team was task-focused—eager to get to the point and skip the relational aspects of collaboration. 👉 The other part was relationship-driven—prioritizing emotional connection and dialogue before diving into action. Celebrate their differences? Not likely. 🚫 The task-focused group saw the others as emotionally needy attention-seekers. 🚫 The relationship-driven group saw their counterparts as cold and disengaged. So, what changed everything? Not a shallow celebration of their diversity, but finding their common ground. 🚀 I used my D.U.N.R. Team Methodology to transform their conflict into collaboration: 1️⃣ D – Diversity: we explored their differences without judgment and recognized the strengths in both approaches. 2️⃣ U – Unity: we found their shared purpose—every one of them cared deeply about the team’s success, just in different ways. 3️⃣ N – Norms: we co-created practical norms that guided their interactions and set clear expectations. 4️⃣ R – Rituals: we introduced rituals to honor both styles while reducing friction and fostering collaboration. The real breakthrough? Not pretending their differences were easy, but building bridges through shared values. My honest take: If you’ve truly worked through real differences, you know it’s not about celebrating them—it’s about navigating them with care and intentionality. 💡 Celebrate your common ground first.  That’s how you unlock the power of team diversity. What’s your experience with managing real differences on a team? 🔔 Follow me for more insights on inclusive, high-performing teams. ___________________________________________________ 🌟 If you're new here, hi! :) I’m Susanna. I help companies build an inclusive culture with high-performing and psychologically safe teams.

What if the best networking strategy had nothing to do with “networking” at all? Back in 2014, I started a group called “Delhi Internet Mafia”. To learn from and share insights with founders based out of Delhi. I would cold email founders to show up for the catchup. Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm showed up for one of them. I remember being blown away by his energy, his ambition and his clarity. We stayed in touch. A few years later, Paytm invested in my startup nearbuy. If it weren’t for that group, we may have never raised money from Paytm. 3 ways to build genuine relationships: 1/ Do not try to impress. Be impressed. People can see through your attempts to impress them. But what people can truly be attracted to is your interest in them. Genuine interest. 2/ Engage meaningfully. If engaging offline, ask questions out of pure curiosity. To truly understand. If engaging online, don’t just comment “Great post!” - add insight or ask smart questions. 3/ Give before you ask. That could be sharing feedback on their work, amplifying their content, or connecting them to someone useful. You can never fail with authenticity and trust.

"I don't trust any doctors, even if they're black and I don't believe you" She said it matter-of-factly, adjusting her church hat while I reviewed her EMG. Textbook carpal tunnel the muscles of her hands showing signs of atrophy. It stung different. Because we shared the same skin color. The same history. The same learned distrust of a system that's failed us for generations. Here's what they don't teach you in medical school: Sometimes being a Black doctor means carrying the weight of every Black doctor who came before you. And every white doctor who dismissed, minimized, or misdiagnosed. When Black patients don't trust me, it cuts deeper than professional rejection. It's personal. It's ancestral. It's the echo of Tuskegee, of Henrietta Lacks, of their grandmother who died because "colored folks just complain more." She kept talking. Sharing stories of family members misdiagnosed and mistreated. Each doctor "seemed nice enough" until the complications came. Until the questions were dismissed. Until she became another cautionary tale whispered in beauty shops and church parking lots. The truth about medical distrust in Black communities: • It's not ignorance—it's intelligence • It's not stubbornness—it's survival • It's not irrational—it's learned I wanted to tell her about my degrees. My fellowship. My outcome scores. Instead, I listened. Because trust isn't built on credentials. It's built on patience. On proof. On showing up differently than everyone who came before. "I understand," I told her. "You tell me when you're ready. I'll be here." Some patients, I can convince. I show them my hands—the same color as theirs. Share stories of my own grandmother's medical journey. Build bridges with our shared understanding. But some carry wounds too deep for one doctor to heal. Their distrust is earned through generations of medical trauma. Who am I to demand they risk again? The hardest lesson I've learned: Sometimes letting them go IS the healing. When I stop trying to convince and start trying to understand. When I validate their distrust instead of defending against it. When I give them power in a system that's taken it for too long. Three months later, she came back. We scheduled surgery. Not because I convinced her. But because I didn't try to. To my colleagues: When patients don't trust us—especially when they look like us—it's not failure. It's history. Meet them where they are, not where we wish they were. To every patient carrying generations of medical trauma: Your distrust is valid. Your caution is wisdom. Take your time. Trust, like surgery, can't be rushed. Sometimes the most healing thing we can do is admit that. #MedicalTrust #HealthEquity #PatientCare #BlackDoctors #GenerationalTrauma

You want engagement? Don't ignore those who are already engaging. Most people treat comments like background noise. I treat them like they matter. Because they do. Every like. Every reply. Every DM That's someone choosing to listen to you. And if you don't respond? They stop showing up. Because you didn't. If you want to build a community here, do this: 1. Respond to 75% of your comments → Not just the questions. → The emojis. The "this!" replies. People remember when you see them. 2. Match energy → If someone drops a thoughtful comment, give more than "Thanks!" → Treat it like a conversation, not a transaction. 3. Don't ghost your DMs → If someone asks for help and you can help, show up. → Even if it's a voice note or one quick insight. → That's how you build trust without selling. 4. Comment on other posts intentionally → Not "great post." Not "thanks for sharing." → Drop thoughts. Ask questions. → Micro-content builds macro-visibility. 5. Treat comments like content → Your replies are windows into how you think. They add up. They compound. If you're not supporting the people already in your corner, why should new people want to join you? Build community first. Business follows. How do you manage your comments and DMs? Any personal rules you follow?