First off theres nothing wrong with running a community driven website or blog, in fact in many cases it can be an excellent and very successful path to choose. That said its not the only choice, not the right choice for everyone and maybe not the right choice for you, and its important you know your options. The direct opposite of a blog which fosters a sense of community is a thought leadership blog.Leaders dont seek your approval, then dont want to make you feel warm and comfortable, like youre laying on the floor in front of firepalce with a comfy blanky surrounded by puppies, and they dont lead by consensus. Leaders have vision, vision to do their own thing, speak their own mind, and arent afraid to go against the grain and be politically incorrect. Real leaders share their vision, hope that you agree, follow their lead, and join their tribe. Leaders with vision arent afraid to challenge and push you outside of your comfort zone.

For example lets look at this video originally shared by Seth Godin, be sure to stick it out to the one minute mark

Click here to view the embedded video.

Whats the lesson guy #1 isnt seeking approval from the crowd, hes doing his own thing, leading a movement (its a silly movement but a movement none the less). However notice guy #2 hes actively seeking approval, trying to convert his friends. He helps guy #1, but without guy #1 leading the path there is no guy #2 or guy #3.

Do you think people like Jason Calacanis or Mark Cuban run blogs with a sense of community spirit or do they blog with a sense of leadership?

Now Im not niave enough to believe that thought leadership blogs are better than community blogs. Nor am I foolish enough to believe they are the right choice for everyone, but they are an option. What a blog owner or blogging team needs to do is define the goals they have for their blog, is it be a part of the community, or is it be seen as a leader in the space. Both have value, but are in many ways mutually exclusive, and its nearly impossible to do both well at the same time.

Go to Source

If marketers can start a conversation on those networks, beyond ads, the return is even greater. They will naturally build a following, which will in turn produce qualified backlinks and content. The SEO implications are huge if social media campaigns can be successfully implemented and maintained.

A few niche strategies a company can use to create their brand presence in search results is by doing the following:

• Stake out the desired keywords
• Use pay-per-click advertising to get your sales pitch across
• Optimize top-level pages for the desired brand keywords
• Get linked in to the most popular and industry-related directories, using the brand concepts in the description

Following these guidelines will help you gain a higher page rank organically. Rather than marketing, intrusive marketing that is, at your customer, prime customers (those who are ready to buy and are specific to your niche), you need to make sure they find you. Using search marketing you can meet their needs rather than hitting them with intrusive marketing. And if you are ranking well organically, there is an assumed authority that you are a leader in a specific field.