HOW TO BUILD YOUR ONLINE COMMUNITY?

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the work mode of all generations has been shifted to offline. Honestly, when it started, we all were being so productive and utilizing our time to learn something or the other or just find our passion. The pandemic created whole new havoc among the youngsters to follow their passion and get recognized. But one completely new thing, which we haven’t paid attention to before was building our online community. Considering the current scenario, it has become a really important thing. Through our online community presence, we can get a chance to land in our dream company. Now you must have a question popping up in your mind that where & how to build my online community?

There are platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter where recruiters and employees are mostly there. For people like me who are in their undergraduate years, building a strong profile on LinkedIn can fetch us opportunities to land in our dream company, having so much time in our hands we can build the required skillset and become potential candidates to recruiters. LinkedIn has the power to connect us directly with the recruiters and employees of the company and we can ask their doubts directly to them. We need to be aware of the opportunities and keep an eye on them because most people miss out on opportunities just because being unaware of them. During this pandemic like many people, I wasn’t aware of the special opportunities provided by the tech giants for women in the tech industry. Tech giants have introduced diversity programs, mentorship activities, coding programs, and hackathons to increase the ratio of women. Hence I created a list of all these opportunities and then look up to them frequently. You can also remain updated about these opportunities on LinkedIn as many of the employees or recruiters post often about such programs when the applications have rolled out. Also, LinkedIn features like you must turn on the visibility of your profile to get noticed by the recruiters, and having keywords in your profile can make you stand out from other candidates as these are the things people generally ignore or aren’t aware of beforehand. You can pay attention to these things and can increase your chances to get noticed by the recruiters.

Are there any positive aspects of the online community?

Well, there are many positive aspects to building an online community. It can benefit in ways that we could not even think of. Firstly, we get to collaborate socially with like-minded people & developers which can help us grow exponentially. Having a peer group to discuss our doubts can make our minds think in the right direction, it helps individuals to go beyond their comfort zone as it generates healthy competition within us which helps to push our limits and hustle harder. Second, being a part of the online community can keep our reputation & retention and give access to many opportunities we couldn’t think of. One important factor that has a huge part in the community’s success is transparency and a positive attitude to help each other solve doubts & uplift ourselves and the people in our community. Lastly, when we join relevant communities and actively participate in them, unknowingly helps to build our brand across the globe.

Now, you must have thought that How do I find my community?

The answer is simple, you don’t have to spend time in searching communities, you just need to discover your passion and find ways to make it follow you and the rest will automatically happen in its place. Let me explain to you this when we are passionate about anything we anyhow find time to work harder for it and search for opportunities to enhance them so while searching you will find relevant people who can guide you in the right direction which can help you find your community and follow your passion.

This pandemic is a great learning curve for us, you can develop your hobbies and recognize your passion. This is a great chance to explore different things and see if you develop any interest in them. Because as you follow your passion and instincts, you will build a great community and help other peers learn and upskill themselves. But before building or being a part of that community, make sure that you will be able to contribute actively because there is absolutely no point in building a passive community. It cannot benefit you in any way.

Apart from LinkedIn, you can create your community online by being a part of the student programs that are mainly focused on building online communities in India and around the globe. I have mentioned below some of these programs which focuses on building online communities:

1] Duolingo community – Duolingo provides an online language-learning tool for making a team of less than 40 and focuses on the exponential growth of the team. The team gets volunteers who spread the word about their language courses.

2] Facebook Developer Circle – Developer Circles is a community-driven program that’s free to join and open to any developer. Each Developer Circle is led by members of the local community who act as leads for the circle, this includes working with Facebook to establish your Developer Circle, growing an active, engaged Facebook community, and hosting regular meetups. You can apply here.

3] Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador – Focuses on building community to amplify impact and bring together peers to learn new skills and solve real-world problems worldwide. You can apply here

4] Deep Learning AI Ambassador – Helps bring together the global AI community by representing your city’s deep learners. Being an AI ambassador, you will need to find different AI hubs in your city and inspire your local community to break into AI. You can apply here

5] HackerEarth Campus Evangelist – Being Campus Ambassador at HackerEarth, you have to spread the word in your College by arranging coding hackathons. You can apply here

Discussing all the relevant points related to building an online community, hope all things are clear to you and apply to the student community programs that can benefit you in large ways.