Today I’m giving a presentation to the Denver Small Business Administration on the use of social media marketing tools.  Three of my amazing colleagues are joining me to take about 35 people through a three hour discussion of what it means to market in the social spheres of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Preparing the materials really got me thinking about how important it is to remember a few simple things about using communities to present yourself and your brand.  My top five:

1) Be authentic – join communities of which you really want to be a part because you have a genuine reason to be there. That reason might be because it is a place to showcase your talents, your products, or your services, which means there is some broader connections as well.

2) Make a contribution – provide valuable, useful, or at least relevant expertise, collateral, or information to the community on a regular basis. If you aren’t willing to contribute, why should anyone listen to you?

3) Don’t be a lurker – listening is good, but if all you do is take and then try to push your wares, the community will reject you, and…. it just isn’t very nice.

4) Provide alternatives to action – give people options to move to your site for more interaction. Relationships, even online, are like a dance, both partners move towards each other at different times. When they are ready, they will come.

5) Remember that online communities are absolutely real – online or in “real life”. If you jump in and shout your message at them, you will fail. How would you feel if some new guy joined your poker game and spend his whole first tournament trying to get you to buy a car from him? He wouldn’t be invited back, that’s for sure. Don’t underestimate that it works the same way in social media. Communities are tight, and they will reject a spammer, or someone who doesn’t really want to be a part of the conversation.