I wanted to take a moment and share some of my upcoming speaking engagements. I love to meet people in person and the main way that I do that is through the conferences and events that I speak at.

On November 5, I will be speaking at WordCamp Philly (November 5-6 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), a WordPress focused conference, on the topic of “Building Community Around Your WordPress Publication.”

If you are using WordPress to publish on the web, no matter the topic, no matter the amount of traffic you have – community is not a choice. Your community is the people who read your content and appreciate and share what you do. The only question you can answer is: how do I engage with them?

The mission of this presentation will be share some strategies and tactics for community building, both on your website and off of it. From Facebook and Twitter to niche communities and email and from the spaces you control to the ones that you don’t, we’ll discuss how you can embrace and better engage with your community.

The next event that I will be at is indieconf (November 19 in Raleigh, North Carolina), a conference for independent web professionals. This is the event’s second year and I am glad to be back for year number two. This time around, I will be delivering “Building Your Name via the Social Web.”

Do you want people to think of you when they need a service that you offer? The social web, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, niche communities and other platforms, represents a great opportunity for you to showcase your knowledge to a wider audience, whether local or international. People will become familiar with what you know and, when they need what you can offer, they’ll be more likely to think of you. And unlike other forms of getting noticed, the investment isn’t about how much money you have – it’s about how much time you have.

How can you demonstrate your expertise in a genuine way, and become a recognized expert, without falling into the category of self-described gurus and experts that people have grown to distrust? We’ll talk about how I’ve built my name and how you can get your knowledge out there, help people and build a reputation on the platforms where the people you want to reach are engaging.

Finally, there is one last event that I wanted to put on your radar, especially for community professionals (particular for those in the United Kingdom): the Virtual Community Summit (February 9 in London), or VirComm, is a brand new conference, organized in association with e-mint, the long running email list for professionals in this space.

Though it will be my first non-United States event, sadly, I will not be appearing in person, but virtually. What I will be speaking about, whether solo or on a panel, is still to be determined, but I will be speaking and I look forward to it. I have derived a lot of value from e-mint, and Rebecca Newton, who leads the group, has been very supportive of me over the years. So, it’ll be a pleasure to help a promising new event get off the ground.

If you can’t attend in person, they’ll also be offering some form of virtual attendance, as well. Stay tuned for that.

If you plan to attend any of these conferences, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Hopefully, we’ll have the chance to meet, whether in person or virtually. Thank you for reading.