In it's most basic term, leverage means taking advantage of something or making the most out of it with little to no effort on your end. In the social sphere, this can happen through the connections you have or an audience or community you build.
Can you build wealth off of that? With only that, the answer is a certain no. Because it takes more than that to build wealth. However, like the title says, you can leverage it on your wealth building journey especially if you have an audience or community.
The Value Of Building A Community In A Social Media Era
Seen from a certain perspective, you can substitute the word 'customers' for 'community' when it comes to businesses and their customers. For example, instead of saying Apple or Tesla customers, you say the Apple or Tesla community. It fits quite naturally and anyone will understand because the word is interchangeable. It's like the slight difference between a potential customer and an actual customer.
In a social media era, it has become easier to build an audience simply because the tools(in the form of platforms) are available to everyone and the barrier to entry is very low. Anyone can open an Instagram or Tiktok account, create a Facebook page or YouTube account. A number of smart individuals have utilize this to build personal and business brands that are now near household names.
There's more than 50% chance that the anyone who read this blog will have heard of Mr. Beast or Pewdiepie? Gymshark? Fashionova? Charlie Di'Amelio? If you haven't heard any of these, please drop a comment below!
Thanks to social media, celebrities are no longer confined to movie stars. Now, they're just everyday people(like you and me!) who have harnessed the attention economy.
The true value of building a community in this social media era is that it allows you to operate from a wider angle. This simply means that with a community, you'll have a bigger voice to influence things and the ability to be seen and engage with the big profiles. Not only that. Also, in a digital age, having a 'solid digital brand' will unlock many unimaginable opportunities for you!
To sum it up, here's a list of the main points on why it's valuable to build a community in this social media era.
● Bigger voice to influence things
● Seen and engaged with.
● Loyal fans or tribe behind you.
● Unimaginable opportunities!
Transforming It Into Wealth
Once you've built social capital in the form of a community, the next step is transforming it into wealth. If it wasn't for this stupid account bans(I got banned twice), having an account on this web 2.0 platforms would've been a true asset. It's still an asset though a temporary one.
On the above section, one of the points I mentioned is influence things. You can get paid to influence the purchasing decision of your community through promoting the products/services of a certain business. Influencing purchasing decision is the main one but it's not limited to it. You can also get paid to influence other things too, like a certain viewpoint. A classic example is the media outlets. Top earners do earn around 7 figures per year.
Another way is to build your own products or services and sell it to the community. It's the 'sell then build' model. In most cases, You can't build a community without figuring out their pain points or something they're struggling with. So it becomes sensible to be the one that solves the problem. Many 'new age' or recent internet businesses had their beginnings through this route; turning a community into a full fledge business. Here, top earners do earn an excess of 7 figures per year because in most times, they're business owners.
This are the two main ways to harness social capital to build wealth. It's the digital age, so the possiblities are near endless. With a sharpened creativity muscle more interesting ways could be revealed to you!
In Conclusion.
Social capital is a great currency to acquire in a digital age. It's not that difficult to acquire too(thanks to the plethora of social media apps) especially if you compare it with the pre-digital age where you had to be super talented. Leveraging it to meet influential people is just a tip in the iceberg. When you dive deeper, you'll discover that it can also be utilized to build wealth.Community is becoming gold. Why not use that gold and turn it into wealth?
Thanks for reading!
Profile: Young Kedar
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