“That’s one of the things about community building: you shouldn’t expect an immediate benefit to yourself right away. Just know that things will come in the long run. It’s better to be focused on helping and bringing people together, but know that there will be benefits to you down the road.”—Dennis Shiao
In this #ContentChat recap, Erika Heald is joined by Dennis Shiao, content marketing consultant and founder of Attention Retention, to share tips for finding your content marketing community and growing your network. They discuss the online and offline content marketing communities that have been vital to their career growth, including social media, conference, and in-person meetup communities.
Watch the entire conversation on YouTube or read through the highlights below.
The Power of Community in Content Marketing
Content marketing, by definition, is about community building and providing support to people.
“There is this great, wonderful, supportive, interesting, and thought-provoking community of content marketers out there that you can actually tap into for support, for inspiration, for networking, and all those great things.”—Erika Heald
“By definition, content marketing is meant to be relentlessly useful, helpful and about how you can serve others. So, like servant leadership kinds of principles are at its core. Maybe that’s why we have such an interesting content marketing community.”—Erika Heald
“Content marketing is about serving your audience first. Your product may be secondary, but it’s really serving your audience. And I think community building is about serving your community. It’s not about advancing your own personal goals, per se. That might happen as a byproduct, but it’s really about helping other people and having people gather together.”—Dennis Shiao
Building Your Content Marketing Network
Content Marketing Institute has been a key community for Erika and Dennis. They were both named Community Champions for their involvement in and support of its #CMworld community over the years.
“About 10 years ago, the community that I had started to become active in was the Content Marketing World, or CMI Content Marketing Institute community I had been a long-time follower on.”—Dennis Shiao
“Dennis and I were in a very special photo this year at Content Marketing World; it was a photo gathering together all of the previous Community Champions. We’re both Community Champions, because this is that kind of a community that we both participated in and introduced so many other people to and did a lot of that community-building work. We both saw that there’s so much value you get from helping others and from being part of these kinds of communities.”—Erika Heald
Photo Credit: Content Marketing World
Join CMI’s Slack group to keep in touch with its community.
“Content Marketing Institute has a Slack group that allows the community to interact year-round, which is great. It’s been a good substitute [for the Twitter chat] because historically, we would always use the CMworld hashtag on Twitter to stay together year-round, but that’s not an option anymore.”—Dennis Shiao
MarketingProfs is also a great community that offers so many valuable resources to its free members. You can sign up to become a member here.
“Content Marketing World is basically our content marketing family reunion every year. MarketingProfs [is also] for those of us who specialize in B2B content marketing. Its B2B Forum just wrapped up last week in Boston. That is another one of those amazing communities that, while certainly the in-person conference is a huge, amazing component of it, it’s a year-round community. And what I think is really interesting and different about their approach is that their entire community is based on content. If you’re a free member of MarketingProfs, you can access a good amount of content, but if you’re actually one of the PRO members, which is the paid membership option, that unlocks all sorts of skills training, webinars, and online conferences and events throughout the year, and even one-on-one coaching opportunities.”—Erika Heald
Ask your peers about the networks they are involved in. People are often eager to celebrate the communities they cherish and have gained value from.
“Ask your peers about where they are active. Is there a Slack group that they highly recommend, or is there a Discord that they’re a part of? There are so many more channels now, but that means that there’s such an increased likelihood that you can find those niche communities that are either based in your area or based around your industry. So that way you can really find the people that you know will make it more enjoyable.”—Erika Heald
Leveraging Online and Offline Communities to Grow Your Career
In-person meetups like Bay Area Content Marketing Meetup and AI in CHI can provide valuable connections that are helpful when navigating career changes.
“I run a meetup group called the Bay Area Content Marketing Meetup. It was launched in 2015, so we’re on our ninth year. I was inspired by a mutual friend of ours, Rich Schwerin, who had his own Meetup group in Mountain View, California, and I wanted to start something where I lived at the time, in San Mateo.”—Dennis Shiao
“We used to meet about once a month. We got a projector and some pizza, and we had a marketing presentation. And then, during the pandemic, we moved online. So, we continue to do Zoom-based presentations today. And through that meetup, or I’ll call it the community, I’ve gotten to know so many other marketers, both presenters and the attendees. We’ve had some sponsors, so I’ve gotten to know so many people, because they know me as the organizer of the meetup.”—Dennis Shiao
“In 2018, I went out on my own and decided to become a freelancer and a consultant. It turns out that all the people that had gotten to know me as a result of the community became potential sales referrals or leads to help my business. About 50% of all of my clients over the years I can attribute to a referral, either directly somebody from the meetup asked me if I could help them, or a referral from someone in the meetup, which I think is pretty amazing.”—Dennis Shiao
Balancing Sponsorship and Community Value: Tips from Experienced Marketers
Sponsors can provide necessary resources to communities. However, communities should seek sponsors that add value without becoming a sales pitch.
“Having sponsors can be really helpful and enable you to do more. However, it’s also really important to make sure that they provide value because we’ve all been in that awkward situation where you’re at a conference, or you’re on a webinar that you’re excited about, and then you’re like, oh, wait, I’m being held captive and listening to basically a demo of a platform I can’t even afford right now, which is always kind of a bummer.”—Erika Heald
“As long as you are keeping your audience or the community members in mind, that’s the key. There have been cases where I’ve done things that I originally was hesitant to do. For instance, sometimes there are sponsors or people I know in the community that have a product, and in the past, I would never want to have somebody do a product demo to the group, because it could be felt as a sales pitch. But I think if the group is open to it, people have even said they want to try and see examples of these tools, then it’s more audience-focused. So I don’t even label it as a sponsor session. I’ll invite someone who might have been a sponsor in the past, and they can do a demo, because our audience is asking for it.”—Dennis Shiao
“As long as you’re transparent, too, it’s great, because a lot of content marketers would be excited to go to something that was basically demo days, where they had the ability to be online and asking questions and see a demo without the fear of being entered into a relentless sales queue, because realistically, a lot of times we’re doing research for budget we don’t have yet.”—Erika Heald
Finding Your Local Content Marketing Community: Strategies for Any City
If you relocate to a new city, like Dennis did when he moved to Chicago, lean on your existing network to see who is in your new area and may be willing to meet up.
“I built a lot of connections in Chicago, some of whom I met in person before, but some that I’ve only connected with online. So when I arrived in Chicago, I already had like 50 connections in Chicago that I was technically connected to first degree on LinkedIn. But 20 of those 50 I knew well enough that I could reach out to them.”—Dennis Shiao
Ask those connections about things to do in the area and possible meetups or happy hours.
“Everyone was so nice to tell me about their favorite restaurants and different sights I should check out. And they also would say there’s this one marketing happy hour that meets such and such frequency at this top place. So I got a list of happy hours to check out.”—Dennis Shiao
“It’s so great how people are willing when you ask for help. They want to help you find your community. So if you meet somebody who is part of a different content marketing world than you, ask them where they are spending their time, either in person or online, and get those recommendations.”—Erika Heald
Dennis also recommends asking your close connections about other marketers you should meet. Sites like Meetup, Eventbrite, and Facebook events can help you find opportunities to expand your search.
“Once you start to get to the first few events or the first few people, it starts to snowball. They will refer you, or one event will lead to another. So it’ll start to grow, and you’ll easily start to uncover fun things to do, both within marketing and for other things, like any hobbies that you might have that are outside of marketing.”—Dennis Shiao
Networking Tips and Mistakes to Avoid
Stay active online to build your community. Amplify people’s content and comment on posts with meaningful questions or input. Focus on being authentic.
“If you are genuine, your real self, and you’re being positive, you’re thanking people, or you’re suggesting other resources, then other people will start to see your comments, especially people you’re not connected to.”—Dennis Shiao
Don’t use AI to comment on posts or generate responses.
“There’s a whole side topic of a conversation about people using AI to do commenting, which is bad.”—Dennis Shiao
If you request to connect with someone, leave a message saying why you want to connect. If they accept, do not immediately try to pitch them or poach their network.
“Those people who ask to connect with you… then they turn around, and they either pitch you relentlessly, try to sell you on something, or, and this is the worst case scenario, they start pitching your network.”—Erika Heald
If your brand has a community, ensure its focus stays on helping the members, not selling the brand’s product or service.
“Oftentimes, there are branded communities, so a brand forms a community, and there’s nothing wrong with that. A branded community is totally fine, but as a participant, you can tell if they are doing this to help me become better at x, or maybe to learn interesting things within the framework of the brand’s mission, or if they are looking to drive sales to the brand.”—Dennis Shiao
Listen to the full recording for more insights, including:
- Why you shouldn’t overlook your company alumni community (12:18)
- Why your profile picture should give a recent and accurate look at you (17:43)
- How to organize a valuable brand community event (35:44)
- When it makes sense to start your own community and how to get started (39:54)
