By KissytheCutie on October 21st, 2009

The Four Most Important Qualities Of An Online Community Thought Leader

Even though I am going to teach you how to set up your foundation to sell the benefits of a pay for access community with your blog and you will have the benefit of owning a membership site without having to produce extra content.

You still will have certain responsibilities that you must take seriously because you will have the new role of being a community thought leader.

And the thought leader of a community must be able to properly steer the growth of his/her community in order to keep the community alive and prosperous.

Find out if you got what it really takes to be an online community leader.

Vision
Where there is no vision the people will perish. A vision is a goal the has not yet come into fruition.
You will have to understand that the present situation of your members need for information and guidance is actually the foundation to provide for them another existence that is greater.

Your community must have a long term goals that it wants to achieve if you expect people to hang around on a long term basis. Don’t make the mistake in thinking that people won’t cancel their subscriptions and they won’t get tired talking about the same topic over and over again. You will have to continually assess the informational and emotional needs of your community members and you will have to be able to come up with fresh new ideas that will keep your members excited and wanting to learn.

Every so often you will have to introduce new challenges for your group to overcome and that means there will be times that you will have to expand the ideas behind the content you produce with your blog.

You might have to investigate new topics that relate to your current topic. You may have to get other people involved to produce content on your site. You may have to invent a new service but the bottom line is that have the ability to think way ahead if you want people to follow you for a long time.

I want you to start thinking of the long term goals of your online community business and blog.

Charm
To be a leader of a group of people that will love you and stick by your side, you will have to have what I call some Obama Style charm. What is charm?

Charm is a particular quality, or characteristic, of one’s personality or manner that people find engaging, delightful or fascinating.

To be an engaging person, you got to be able to come off as smart and resourceful but you also have to have a little sex or fun appeal. You don’t have to use overt sexual behaviors or language, that’s not what I am talking about, I mean that people in general like personalities with depth.

You got to be a lot good and a little bad.You got to deal with people like people and not just subscribers to your content. You can use your access to email correspondence as a way to engage with people on a personal level.The personal interactions that a blogger provides is part of the whole charm of the blog platform in the first place. Do you remember the research that I mentioned in the Science of Blog Power?

Blog readers form personal attachments to the blog creator. Therefore you must be able to develop that kind of connection and you can develop that kind of connection by using email. Every time you send email to people on your list, it shouldn’t be just to promote a product. You should use your email access to solidify real life connections with the people that decide to follow your advice.

The people that support you are the life blood of your community business and you should be close with them and to get close to people, you have to be your natural charming self. You don’t have to like a polished goodies two shoes unless that is a role that is needed to help your community members and to develop the ideas behind your blog and community.

Integrity
Did you know that being at head of a social group will give you access to social power? Social power gives you the ability to influence people on a very personal level. As the thought leader of a group, your community members will have alot of faith in you and eventually they will rely on the infomation that your produce on your blog without having any fear. They will trust that you are guiding them into doing the right things and that is a scared bond that you must keep clean.

Money can be a very seductive thing that may entice you to give up your integrity. Learn from me and don’t fall for the trick of greed.

Do you remember what I did after I finished writing my book? I mentioned it on the video that was posted on my About Page. I wanted charge big money with a membership site and I broke a principle in my desire to make money. I forget that trust and integrious relationships with people must be established first before I can even dream of having an expensive membership site. So I ended up paying to get a website designed that I don’t even use right now.

Greed and lack of integrity made me do that but I have repented and the principles of doing business have been confirmed for me. Intergrity is very important, sometimes you may want to over look it t achieve goal by using people but you shouldn’t because it is illogical and mathematically incorrect.

Don’t use your influence over people simply as a way to make money because it will eventually catch up with you and people will eventually find you out and then you will stuck having to get new members all the time instead of developing more profitable business services with your exisiting members.

Listening Skills
There can be no chief without Indians ( sorry I know that I am breaking some writing rules but I like to use cliches). You are going to become successful, don’t have any doubt about it and with having success as a community leader may start to get a cocky strut in strides, so to speech but and that will be Okay up a to a certain point but as a leader you must be able to nurture relationships with your community members and as such you got to be apply to listen and then act accordingly to their concerns and needs.

Why I am I teaching you this now?
I preparing you for success and financial independence and that is why I produce these kinds of articles. I want you to begin thinking like a successful person and to already plan how you will behave when you reach your goals and you got to understand that they are many forms of leaders and that use their influence over people differently.

If you come from my school of though that means you have to learn how to nurture the people that follow you and not act like too much of a big shot. I want you the realize that owning an online community that is centered around the development of an idea will be a very personal interaction that is happening between you and your group and there are ways that you must behave if you want that group to remain loyal and in love with you.