Bootstrapping Clout: On Building Social Capital in Online Communities

Every time I hear terms like social capital or personal brand my initial reaction is to cringe.

I think it’s because when these phrases get thrown around what comes to mind are the try-hard growth hacker types that accost you at conferences with forced conversations.

That said, the value of reputation as a concept is obvious. There is incredible soft power in knowing people, being known, and having a network of folks who will help you win, both personally and professionally.

So, how do you cultivate this good kind of social capital without coming across as someone campaigning for class president? And how do you do that in an increasingly online & remote-first world where so many relationships are initiated (and/or maintained) over the interwebs? 

Here is how I think about it.

Authenticity. To me, everything starts with being who you actually are, on the internet. Quirks, opinions, temperament, sense of humor, all of it. Care about the topics you care about. Participate in conversations that matter to you. Connect with folks who you’re drawn to and genuinely take an interest in them. For me, most of this revolves around creating content and building communities at the intersection of technology and culture, specifically crypto.

Relationships of depth. The base layer of social capital is cultivating a few deep relationships. It just helps to have a squad, or a small group of people that interact with high frequency, know each other in a high context way, and share some sort of alignment across interests or values. These are the folks who will share your art, edit your blog post, or go to bat for you if you start a new business. There are different ways to create & maintain these sorts of relationships. I find the best way to approach this is by a) curating a few group chats with people I care about and b) putting time into supporting the people in those groups by doing everything from offering advice to talking shit on Telegram at 1:30 a.m. to boost morale.

Relationships of breadth. The next part of the game is cultivating light touch relationships outside of a core circle. All else being equal, people are more likely to help someone they’ve previously met versus random cold connections, so knowing a bunch of folks loosely can help with things like collaborations, finding job opportunities, and gathering information. There are lots of different ways to get to know people and maintain (and build on) existing connections. This could look like engaging with people on social media, passing along an article someone might like, making introductions that are helpful, and so on.

Now, all of this is easier said than done. It can take a lot of effort to build relationships on the internet in these ways. But when I zoom out and think about social capital (and how to create and cultivate it online) I keep coming back to those three thoughts as the minimum viable strategy. Be authentic online, be intentional about connecting deeply with a few people, and cultivate light relationships with a wider group. A little bit of conscious time spent on these things can go a long way.

Thank you to Jenn for feedback and review.