How to Find the Right Online Community to Help You Thrive as a Busy Woman -

Growing an online community is hard! Especially when you don’t have a lot of time but it can be done. The best part, there are more options than Facebook. So how can you do it? Where can you start?

That’s what my chat with Emily Aborn is all about! I’m part of her Facebook community online which is called She Built This and I must say I love it because Emily really foster’s the sense of community online in her group! But I’m gonna let Emily tell us a little bit about herself before we dive into the good stuff!

Emily Aborn:

I thank you for saying those things! So as you heard, my name is Emily Aborn and I’m the owner of She Built This which is an Women’s Entrepreneurship organization. And I also have two businesses. So my second business is content writing for small to medium sized marketing companies and solopreneurs.

Shannon Baker:

Oh, great.! That was quick!

Emily Aborn:

Yeah, I mean, I can go deeper, but…

Shannon Baker:

That’s okay! So I’m looking forward to this conversation, especially because the way we have to build communities and network and everything, as we all know, has had to change and everything has had to convert to being online. And one thing that many people may struggle with is actually making

connections because they were used to doing things in real life. So how would you define a community nowadays, based on I guess, the scene of the world that we live in?

Emily Aborn:

And that’s a great question! I think that a community, and I’ll be anxious to hear what your thoughts are, too. But I think a community is really like a group of like minded individuals that are working towards some sort of common goal. So it doesn’t all have to be that they have the exact same goal. But the the overall goal is in alignment with each other. So for example, in the She Built This group, it’s, it’s women entrepreneurs and professionals who are all believing the fact that they can live their very best life and that that is possible. And so we’re doing that through running our own businesses and being our best professional selves. So that’s kind of like the overarching goal, which is what I think fosters that sense of community.

Shannon Baker:

Absolutely! And I agree, because what like, if I look at the diversity in my community, is generally women, they’re not all moms. But all of us have built our businesses to allow that true lifestyle freedom, it’s aligned with our vision, our goals. We put family first, we know our values, we stick to those, and we have a specific skill set that we use in our businesses. And that, along with the love of coffee, and wine, are, you know, some of the dynamics that really draw us together as a very close knit community! So now, how would you recommend we seek out a community that fits us?

Emily Aborn:

Yeah, this is a this is a good one. Um, so there’s a lot of there’s so many things right now. And especially, I think, at the beginning of the pandemic, I felt like, Oh, my gosh, all of my groups have to go away, you know, like, we would meet in person and have workshops. And I felt that real sense of loss that I think we all feel when those things are gone. But the more I got, you know, I had to step out of my comfort zone, because virtual is not my comfort zone. But I, I basically created the same group that we had that now meets virtually, and what it’s allowed, what it’s allowed it to do is be open to people all over the world really now. So So that’s, that’s the question, right? There’s so many things at our fingertips right now, how do we decide?

And I think it’s all about, like, you know, there are a 50 million Facebook groups that we could be part of there are organizations galore speaking groups, moms groups, there’s all this stuff we can be part of. But I think it’s really important to look at, like, where you are in your life right now and where you want to go, because those are the people. You know, we’ve all had friends in our lives, that maybe they’re not like fairweather friends, but they’ve been there for a reason. And they’ve been there for just a short period of time, and then we kind of move on from them.

And I’m not saying that that happens with communities, but communities are sort of the same way where we’re looking for something in a period in our life that aligns with our goals and our values. So that’s my, that’s my first suggestion. There are all kinds of options! There are Facebook groups, there are things like, you know, virtual masterminds and accountability groups and peer groups and things like that. There are events that you can be a part of, and a lot of those events break out into something afterwards that become a group.

But so there’s all kinds of things depending on what your goals are. If you’re a writer and your goal is to perfect or work on those skills and be with other writers, then you’re going to want to seek out those groups. But there is a community for everyone. Facebook actually did this amazing ad! And I’m only using them as an example because it just shows the power of what we’re all seeking. They did this amazing ad at last year’s Super Bowl, that was all about Facebook groups. And just like I mean, like it almost moved me to tears because it was just all of these people. There were Facebook groups for everybody. There were Facebook groups for like painters and carpenters, and just people of all walks of life looking for all different things in their life. And so I think it really comes down to like, what, not what void you’re trying to fill, but what you’re trying to achieve in finding that community.

Shannon Baker:

Yeah, that that is a good to point that you mentioned. What I really like is that it changes! So I mean, I’ve seen that over time. There were groups that I may have joined, you know early a year ago, or early in the year that now you know, over the past 12 months, my life has changed, my business has changed, and the group may not necessarily fit me anymore because I’m in a different place. Yeah, and it also comes down to knowing what it is that you’re looking for. And how then you know, putting in that research work to find it online. Because as you mentioned, you can find a group on Facebook for just about everything in the world.

Emily Aborn:

You’ll be so proud of me! I actually had somebody, I paid someone to go through all of my Facebook groups that I’m part of, and any Facebook groups that I run and like leave groups that I don’t want to be part of and help kind of weed out the ones that I do. So it was it was a really, you know, it’s it’s taking that time to just like really evaluate and be intentional. Because I think that when you do decide to become a part of a community, you should really immerse yourself in it and be a part of it. And if you’re part of like 50 or 60 Facebook groups, you’re not really going to be able to dive in on any one in particular, you know, and and like, I think when it comes to ones that you really want to invest your time in, it doesn’t have to be a Facebook group, anything. Like I think five is pretty much the max for most people, the sign behind you says focus in on one task. And it’s the same kind of concept, you know, like you can go a mile wide and an inch deep and everything, or you can go a mile deep and an inch wide, because your focus is just that much tighter.

Shannon Baker:

Yeah, and that makes sense. Because I know one thing we’re all guilty of doing is where we become, you know, really good online friends with someone who has a Facebook group. So they invite us into being part of the group and never participated in anything. So don’t feel bad, let your friends know, it just, it doesn’t fit you. It’s nothing personal. But we need to spend our time where it’s going to be beneficial, whether it’s for personal reasons or for business reasons.

Emily Aborn:

Yeah. And there is you’re right, there is a little bit of that guilt factor. I think that weighs on us in some of these group situations. And you can’t let that be a factor because you’re right at the end of the day, it’s not doing you any favors. And it’s also not doing them any favors if you’re just sitting in there guilty, but crickets. So we can keep that in mind too because we only have 24 hours in a day. So If you’re like me, I spend as little time as I can on Facebook. I don’t have time to be in all the groups that I’m in sometimes. So I regularly go through probably, I would say, at least twice a year, and do some cleanup like you just did, because I have to come to the realization that I just can’t be everywhere.

Emily Aborn:

And to that, you know, I mean, I’m sure you recommend these kind of techniques to kind of to the time blocking that we talked about on my podcast, I time blocked for social media. So I will set aside my morning time when I’m taking care of, you know, that’s like my business time. And I count social media as part of that, that plan. So I will set aside the morning to check my email and check social media and then I don’t check it again until the end of my day. Because otherwise, those you know that little bell it is it is literally designed to keep you addicted to the app and like checking to see what is on the other side of those notifications.

And so we can get really sucked into that! And then before you know it, your entire day has been, you know, engaging on Facebook groups. And while that may be great for you now, certain things and certain times in your business, it’s not practical if you’re trying to live a more productive life. So I really encourage people to do it with like their networking engagements, too. You know, I have one day per week where I do all of my calls and all of my networking. I’m the kind of person that it takes a lot out of me to do those things. And so I find that if I can put it all into one day, then I’m not breaking up that energy throughout the week, you know, I’m just like focusing in on one day.

Emily Aborn:

And that might look different for everybody. I know, for a lot of mompreneurs, that’s not practical. They can’t take a whole day where they’re doing their calls and things. But for me, that’s really been like the key to being successful and still staying active and present and how I can also make better choices about the groups and part of my goal that isn’t on that day. So it’s not going to work for me.

Shannon Baker:

But those are very good tips because that helps us to be intentional with our time. Because, you know, like we talked about when I was on your your podcast, with time blocking, like I specify in my daily tasks, or my time block has a space for professional development or business heads, whatever the case may be. And that’s how I limit the amount of time that I spend on social media, I do the same thing. So when I hop on, whether it’s instagram or facebook for 10 minutes, I’m in there with intent. I know exactly. You know, if it’s 10 minutes, where I’m responding to comments on my posts, then 10 minutes another time in the day where I’m responding to comments I get from stories, then it’s another 10 minutes where I’m engaging and leaving meaningful comments on other Instagram posts, not just hitting the like button or you know, double tapping and moving on, but I’m really engaging or participating in the conversation.

Now, I must admit, I have to get better at doing it with Facebook. But I know I get more back and forth conversation on Instagram, which is why I spend most of my time there. And not as much on Facebook, probably as I should be. So I do need to make that adjustment. But that’s neither here nor there. But time block and be intentional because it definitely makes a difference. You know, what would you say are the perks of being part of a community or building a community?

Emily Aborn:

I’ll tell you my answer in a quick story. So in my first business, I owned a retail store, and we it wasn’t a very exciting store we own we sold mattresses, and they were like, yeah, everyone loves me. And they did then do um, but so there they were kind of like high end luxury mattresses and the foot traffic in the store. It was like few and far between during the weekdays. So I was pretty bored and lonely, like, all the time by myself, except for the weekends when, you know, people would go mattress shopping. And that was like, you know, that was to be expected in the industry and the store was successful. And from everybody else’s perspective, it was doing great. And I was just absolutely miserable. And like I had no one I really could talk to about being an entrepreneur or being in business. It just and everybody was always looking at like I had five heads, you know, except my husband, I were the only people that would talk about our business together. You know, that gets old every single night at dinner. You’re like talking about the same thing.

So I started to work with a mentor from the SBDC, which is like our local it was just like free business advising and I had never, I had never had a coach or anything like that. So I worked with her and she sat me down. And she was like, you need to treat yourself like a baby brand new business and get out there and go meet people. And at the time I only had Mondays and Tuesdays off and so that felt like oh, what am I going to do that you know? So I would take every Monday On Tuesday, like it was my job, and I would book like coffee chats and networking things, and I joined the chamber. And some of those two of those coffee chats are still to this day like my business best friends.

Emily Aborn:

So we got really, really close. But that opened me up to meeting all kinds of people. And through that experience, I realized, oh my gosh, like, this is what I’ve been missing the entire time is people that are doing what I’m doing. And when I when I opened my eyes up to that, like New Hampshire, especially, I was like, Oh my gosh, there are so many women entrepreneurs, and I had no idea here I am thinking I’m like, on this little island. A one man Island. Yeah, so um, that’s actually really how she built this got started is I just saw that need for us to join together. And and like, you know, we’re all doing the same thing. So why aren’t we doing it together? So I think that answers your question. For me, it was really a matter of like, you know, I needed like, working for yourself all day, every day is hard. You it’s a rollercoaster ride, you go through really intense stuff, sometimes where you want to give up and throw in the towel, even on your best of days, sometimes you don’t even know why you’re like, I don’t know why I just don’t like any of this. And so I think having those people in your life that are going through what you’re going through, and struggling with the same things you are but also are there to like, pick you up, dust you off, kind of like you know, slap your cheeks and say like, let’s keep going. So that’s really what I think the power of community is.

Shannon Baker:

Yes! And I mean, actually, it goes to how we met! So both of us are connected to Stacey. But I met Stacy through a local connection. Monica, who I’ve never met in person, and she lives in Virginia, I live in Maryland, we set dates, but we’ve only been able to talk online, something has always come up. But we are like coffee online coffee buddies, we’ve been connected for years. That’s how I connected with Stacey years ago. And then through Stacey, Emily and I connected together. And all of us do different things. But we have the same type of mindset and mentality and approach to one building connections. And, you know, not necessarily in networking, but just building relationships with other women online. And you’re right, we cheer each other on, which is great! And it’s not always about business, which is what makes it fun.

But it’s good to have that group of women online that you can connect with, because then we can bounce ideas off of each other. Because all of us don’t have someone in our home that has the entrepreneurial mindset. I know I don’t like I talk business to my husband. And he tells me, I’ve been in business for almost nine years. And he looks at me and he says, I still can’t tell you explain to people what you do. I don’t know. I know. It’s a bunch of stuff online. And it’s got something to do with technology and systems, but I can’t explain what that is. So when I talk business to him, he’s like a deer in headlights. So I can’t use him as a sounding board. That’s where my community comes in. I, you know, check text a couple of people or start a conversation in a group. It’s like I’m thinking about this. What do you guys think? What about this or that? That’s where your community comes in. And then when good things happen, they cheer you on or when you’re low, you’re feeling like I’m ready to give up because this isn’t working, then I give you the feedback. What try this or try that. Have you thought about this? Or maybe it’s not the right time. So that’s like the cheerleading squad that we all need, because this journey is hard.

Emily Aborn:

And you know what you made me think of another thing too, when you said that about asking your husband? Yeah, these groups are such great places to get resources! So like I went in. I went into my group the other day, and I was like, you know, I had somebody who was going to be helping me as a virtual assistant. She kind of like she ghosted me, basically. And so I said, I need help finding a person. And somebody like raised their hand right away and said, I can help you and I have this many hours, like, her business is a little bit slow right now. And so she was looking for extra tasks to take on and it was just perfect. And it happened in five seconds, you know, whereas I would I’m sitting there, like, should I go to Fiverr? Should I like, type it into Google? What do I do? And it was like all of five seconds and I had the resource that I needed.

Shannon Baker:

And that is wonderful, because that kind of eliminates the trial and error portion of when you’re looking for someone to do a task. It’s much quicker when it’s a referral process opposed to you just starting out fresh and you’re just hoping for the best I found that as well. Absolutely. So this is great. These are been great tips and reasons why we really need to focus some time attention on building an online community. But now, what if the listeners or Someone may say, Well, I can’t I don’t like social media? What else can they do?

Emily Aborn:

Yeah, so I think that’s really valid. And a lot of people don’t like social media. So so that’s okay. Um, I think that the other ways to get involved are really like some of these events that that I was talking about at the beginning. And also just having Zoom calls with people picking up the phone, sending, you know, a lot of my friends, we just send text messages that is honestly, that is networking and building in building relationships right there. And I think that’s something that we, that we miss, when we use the word networking is it’s really not like, you know, I’m not trying to sell you something, you’re not trying to sell me something.

We are building relationships. And we’re just like setting these foundations. And I would say probably 90% of the time, you’re not selling to the person ever, that you’re talking to, you know, you’re selling someone that they know, or that they know, no, no, you know, like, it could be so far down the line, like the way that somehow you met Stacy. Stacy introduced you to me, you know, like that’s like six degrees of separation. So it’s not always about selling. And I think that’s where, you know, when we think of social media, I think that’s instantly what we think of so there there is a term actually for this boxer is another good example WhatsApp, it’s, it’s called the dark social.

And it’s really more about like, the one to one connections with people rather than like, you know, one to many connections. And another one, which is new, is Clubhouse, and you love Clubhouse. I know, I’m still like, kind of on the fence about it. It’s not It’s not that I don’t want to love it. I just I’m like, I don’t have time. But that’s another like, you know, it’s so powerful.

Our voices are so so powerful when we’re connecting with other people. And so I think Clubhouse offers that like, in a way that nothing else does not even video really, because it’s really hard to watch a video when you’re when you’re doing something else or like when your spouse is sitting there with you. So but Clubhouse is different. It’s like just gives you that instant, like connection or not with somebody I guess. So that’s another great way that is new to network.

Shannon Baker:

Yeah, and I would say even if someone doesn’t really like social media, it’s all about using it strategically, to make those connections. And to the point you made earlier, someone who I’ve known she’s been in business for, oh, gosh, I know, over 20 years and has been very successful. But she said growing a business isn’t about who you know. But who knows you? Yeah, that’s where your your business is going to grow based on referrals. So we do need to shift from thinking, Oh, well, I need to make a sales pitch to every person that I connect with? No, it’s about building relationships. So when they’re talking to someone else, and they say, Oh, well, I’m looking for someone that knows marketing and knows how to build communities, they’ll think of Emily, they’ll say, I know just the person and let me connect you with that person. So that’s what we need to focus our time on.

And you’re right, I love Clubhouse! But I use it very strategically as well. Yeah! When I’m on Clubhouse, I look to see what topics are being discussed that day. And I only allow myself a certain amount of time to be on there because it can be another rabbit hole. So I’m not just I know some people that consume it all day long. I don’t understand how their brain can take it. But I’m either there to learn about the topic. One day a week, I go in and see who I know that’s hosting the room. I want to support them because they’re part of my online community. Or I’m looking for topics that I can take the stage and speak, not pitch, but share my expertise, which then pushes traffic to Instagram where we can continue the conversation via coffee chat. Yeah, since I’ve joined Clubhouse last month, I have a 9% increase in engagement that has gone to my Instagram page. And I have had three coffee chats. Very good coffee chats with people that I connected to on Clubhouse.

Emily Aborn:

Yeah, I think it was something you said something about social media not being a bad thing. And I think you’re right. It’s really all about our perspectives and like, recognizing that these things are tools. They’re like money, you know, like money is not a bad thing. innately it’s a tool. It’s a resource, and so

you can use it in a good way. And then the other thing is I think when we like you said in Clubhouse, you don’t always you don’t go to pitch. You know, like it’s really when you’re approaching these things about How can I add value just as much as I’m looking for value, but I would actually say like you need to make what you’re adding double what you’re looking to get, you know, like, I think it’s really just coming from a place of safety nice key says when you come from a place of service, you don’t need to be nervous. And I love that line. But it’s just true just coming from a place of like, how can I give? How can I add value.

Shannon Baker:

And really, that’s what growing a business is all about is always adding value in whatever way you can giving because let’s, let’s say it’s a, you know, one thing we all know, if you give, you know, just to give, it makes us happier. And when you give without looking for something in return, generally you get back way more than you expected. Yeah. So this has been great. Emily, thank you for sharing these wonderful tips about the online community with us. Now, before you go, I have a question for you. So I know you have some routines and systems in place. So what would you say is one routine or system pick which one in your life, or your business that you can’t live without?

Emily Aborn:

Every single morning, I make my bed very first thing like before I even go pee. And I think that that is like one little thing that you can put off and put off and put off until later in the day. But it’s like, right when you get out of bed, you’ve already kind of done something. And it’s a positive thing that makes you you know, every time you walk in your bedroom from that moment on, it’s like set up and nice and ready for the for the night ahead. I’ll give you one more. That also sets me up for the day ahead. I always take time at the end of every day and I clean out my downloads folder. And I write out my list for the next day. So I never like closed down my computer without having that list ready to go for the next day. Because I don’t like to. I don’t like to just come running to the gate in the morning like a hot mess. I like to know exactly what I have to do and what’s going on and how I’m going to plan that out. So those I would say are my two like checking the box night before and checking the box right away first thing in the morning.

Shannon Baker:

And I love that I am a huge fan of morning and nighttime routines to increase our productivity. So thank you for sharing those with us. Now where can everyone find you online?

Emily Aborn:

So on Facebook and Instagram She Built This is actually She Built This and then you can also find it on shebuiltthis.org and that’s probably the easiest way you can find everything from shebuiltthis.org.

Shannon Baker:

And don’t worry if y’all forgot this because I’m going to drop the links to all of those places. You can find Emily online in the show notes so you can connect with her. So thank you again for being with us today. I have enjoyed our chat with each other and I know we’ll keep chatting because we chat all the time. Anyway.

Emily Aborn:

Thank you so much for having me Shannon. This was really fun.

To hear all of my chat with Emily, listen to episode 64 of the podcast. Click below and tune in on your favorite platform.

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