Why is community important to your success?

Having a community is like having the ultimate support group. Rarely do any of us go through life without the help of others. Building a community around you is vital to increasing your ROI and success with each new endeavor.

What do I mean by building a community? I mean giving your time, talent or treasure to help others. The secret to success is giving. The more you give the more successful you’ll become, I guarantee it. Now that we are approaching the Holiday Season, charity and giving are in the air and almost become second nature to most. This is the same feeling and approach you should have with building your community.

Going out of your way to help another person with an idea, link, promotion or an extra hand will eventually fill your community cup to overflowing. This can’t be faked. People know when you do something out of sincerity versus trying to gain something from them. Take the time out of each day to do something for someone else and see what happens. Pretty soon you’ll notice that people will be doing the same for you.

For example, a friend of mine just released a band new Beer Review Blog (bigbeerblog.com). The site barely has a half-dozen posts, but it is already racking up a dozen or so comments per post. Not bad for a band new site. The thing to notice here is the fact that Allyn has built/joined a community of like-minded individuals online. This has made the launch of his new site a success very quickly. A community can help your reach your goals much quicker.

Another example with community that I love is the ability to trade/barter with people you know. When starting a new business the best thing you can do is keep your cost down. I have had to worry about this with the launch of my new hotel booking site (whosgotroom.com). I was able to build the majority of the site in its current form for under a grand. This was only possible because of the community relationships I had built.

For all of these reasons I decided this week to set up a Facebook Fan Page called Friends of Griz and Vic. The community that has sprung up around these two Internet Marketers has been amazing. They have had tons of positive impact on many people’s lives. I for one quit my job and made a successful living practicing what these two preached.

I set up the Friends of Griz and Vic page to help others find each other and support each other for all of their latest needs or projects. The table is open for any ideas on better things we can do to enable one another in our own pursuits. Obviously, I don’t expect all of you to know who Griz or Vic are, but if you want to join a pretty awesome community online, here’s your chance.

So come, and build a community around yourself and give back to others. All it takes is a little time.

Today is the first day of The AdSpace Contest, and I’m proud to announce that I am one of 10 co-hosts.

The idea is simple and easy: Get as many entries as you can (very easy to do) over the next 30 days. The more entries you get, the better chance you have of winning! At the end of the 30 days, we’ll announce the winner.

The prize?

A 125×125 pixel ad spot (above the fold) on at least TEN DIFFERENT BLOGS that will run for one month. That’s at least a $100 value!

Who else is co-hosting?

• Geek Mom Mashup
• Vrtualme
• Jamaipanese
• Best of Stupid
• AxioBlog
• The Big Bald Blog
• Jason Boom
• Unconventional Marketing Blog
• Offended Blogger
• GorillaSushi

How do you enter to win?

1 Entry – Subscribe to any one of the blogs above via email.

10 Entries – Write a post about the contest (must include links to all 10 hosts OR use our suggested text)

25 Entries – Offer up an ad spot on your own blog for one month as part of the prize package (links will be listed above)

Simply put, you could subscribe to all 10 blogs, write a post and offer up your own ad spot for a grand total of 45 entries! Be sure to tell us in the comments below when and how you’ve entered to ensure that your entries get counted.

Good Luck!

Last Sunday I had an open offer to review anyone’s blog if they so wished. Macewan jumped at the review offer. I have been focused lately on building my blog and community, here and here. I realized about a month ago that numbers don’t really mean anything unless you have a community to support them, otherwise all you will ever do is keep chasing numbers. So before I get too off topic, I present to you Macewan’s Ideal Absolutes.

The first article that really grabbed my attention was titled Best Free Blog Services? For the many people out there that do not understand blogs or blogging, here is a great example of what one is:

“People blog to express their thoughts and opinions, market or promote something, help other people, establish yourself as an expert, connect with people similar to you, to make a difference, to stay active or knowledgeable in a certain field or topic, to stay connected to friends and family, and to make money from various forms of media…”

People love to blog and for many many different reasons. Whether they blog for the benefit of networking or to grow and express themselves in their field, blogging is a very personal thing. Often times I think too many people forget why they blog or never sat down to begin with to plan out their blogging strategy. A blog can either be like a personal or family diary, or it can be your own personal magazine to the world.

 “Whether you know it or not you run a magazine. It’s true. If you run a blog then you run a magazine. Worries of distribution, subscriptions, advertisers, graphics and articles. Grinding out content daily isn’t for the faint of heart.” 

 There is some great insight to that last statement. A blog can be many things, and depending on what you want out of blogging to begin with, you can treat it just like a magazine. Keeping and holding onto that focus is something everyone needs to do and Macawan.org is on it. If you haven’t taken a look yet, I would recommend stopping by and saying hi. Remember you get out what you put into your community.