How many meaningful relationships did you create this week? How many old contacts did you cultivate? When was the last time someone contacted you to tell you about a project they launched with someone they met through you?
When you live and breathe the mantra “never eat alone” you know how important it is to attract and spend time with the people you love most: the kind of people who will help you move forward mentally, emotionally and, of course, professionally. You will need to build relationships that can in turn be seen as your social ecosystem.
Nowadays, it is essential to build this type of social ecosystem. The synergies with the partners in your social ecosystem will not only allow you to achieve your personal goals but, in the long term, will also create a perpetual flow of ideas, projects and positive energy.
Understanding the social ecosystem
Building a social ecosystem means creating connections between its members, as well as lowering the barriers to entry for new members. When you cook a soup, you need a liquid base, specific ingredients, seasonings, and boiling time. Likewise, you can’t create a social ecosystem overnight, and you can’t do it without the right ingredients.
The main tools for building a social ecosystem are storytelling, partnerships and what is given back to the community.
Steps to storytelling
It’s hard to draw the line between shouting and sharing, but everyone has interesting stories to tell. These need to be shared. Here are some tips on how to tell your story and share it.
- Spend a day talking to a partner, colleague or consultant about why it is important for you personally to be heard. Choose someone who is particularly good at asking questions. The more questions you ask, the more potential your content will have;
- Identify the audience you would like to share the story with;
- Identify which stories you would prefer to share;
- Ask yourself questions like: Do you want to inspire people? Or do you just want to find someone who understands and embraces your ideas?
While you’re in this process, don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. There’s nothing awkward about being authentic. Your personal authenticity will help you figure out what your role in the social ecosystem should be. These questions will help you identify the role you want.
In the first approach you will need to identify which social ecosystem you are attracting and which people will follow the story.
Pay attention to your social media profiles, website, and bios. Ask yourself what parts of your story are missing. Are you emphasizing the right elements?
Brainstorming Goals
Ideally, after about a day of brainstorming you will have:
- A specific objective that you want to achieve by building the social ecosystem;
- A list of topics you can present;
- Press quotes;
- Profiles and characters of the elements of the social ecosystem and partners you hope to attract;
- A new personal biography;
- This is just the beginning. This list should help you focus without limiting you in any way.
Measuring Success
Defining your strategies will help you achieve these goals and identify the resources you need to allocate. With a single metric that you can focus on improving as you build your social ecosystem, you can measure your results in a concrete and objective way.
In the case of a local ecosystem, such as Lisbon or Madrid, the number of successful startups should be taken into account. In the case of a television program such as You on TV, the projects launched or the people who are helped should be taken into account.
In your case, it could be the number of new projects you started simply because you facilitated contact between the various members of the social ecosystem.
1 Year Plan to establish partnerships
Month 1 to 6: Research
Partnerships are all about engagement and meeting new people. In the first six months of building your social ecosystem, you’ll need to visit every event in your industry to get a feel for the playing field.
This step is crucial, as it is the only way to get to know the invisible forces that exist in the community. Keep these questions and tips in mind:
- What people, despite their reputation, are important to listen to and talk to?
- What is your niche among this kaleidoscope of characters, products and topics?
Attend university lectures, connect with journalists who write about topics that interest you, and ask for help.
Don't be afraid to show that you are new to the community.
Find a guide who can help you navigate your social ecosystem. This could be your mentor or a friend.
Month 7-12: Create Connections
After six months, if you go as fast as you can, you will have a sufficiently broad knowledge of the individuals, products, events and other relevant issues. You will be able to start putting them all together, marvel at the connections you have made and all the results you can get from it.
Remember: A successful connection is one that can be sustained without wasting time all the time.
Give Back to the Community
Strong and successful connections between members of a community will help you build your own reality within the social ecosystem. You should create such connections and start giving back to the community as soon as possible.
Don't expect anything in return. This doesn't mean that you should just donate money to some charity (although if you already do, you should continue to do so). This means:
- Organize industry events or help find relevant participants;
- Make comments on news articles;
- Introduce people;
- Help brainstorm other people's products;
This kind of dedication will highlight your strengths and abilities to others. In this way, people will come back to you frequently to discuss specific topics, creating a beneficial feedback loop.
Once you’ve completed these steps, it’s time to review your results. Review the stories, topics, and quotes you heard during the storytelling exercise. Will people come back to you because of these stories or can they relate to you in some other way? What is it about you that they most often refer to? How can you help?
And then?
After six months to a year, you will have your social ecosystem established. Then, you can move to a new social ecosystem.
Choose the next one and repeat the partnership and feedback phases. Be the one who connects each social ecosystem. Create unlikely connections and mixes. Brainstorm ideas on how these connections can be fostered.
People will come to you for advice more often, knowing that you are a link between multiple social ecosystems. This is an ongoing process that can expand to larger and larger networks.
