Finding a balance between marketing and being a good community member

The other day I posted a list of places to share content and @jayyoms made an excellent point in the comments about making sure you are in these communities and forums to deliver value first.

It got me thinking about how hard it is to strike the balance of providing value insights and spamming, and how often people get it wrong. I include myself in that group at times.

With that inspiration, I've attempted to put together a guide on being a good community member, while also growing your audience for whatever you are working on. I would love to hear what y'all think of these:

Let the content speak for itself

Don't do a hard sell to check out your product or visit your blog. If you share valuable insights and content, people will find the things you are working on.

It's a small world

Lots of people on Indie Hackers are posting on Startup School or Product Hunt. One benefit of this is you can use your same handle and avatar and people will start to recognize you for (hopefully) the value you provide in these communities. On the other hand, when you write a new blog don't just go around posting the same exact thing in all those overlapping communities on the same day.

Contribute first

You see a lot in Slack channels someone new come in, introduces themselves, promote their product, and then leave. I've done it, and it's not cool.

Provide key takeaways

When you post something it should always provide standalone value - ie don't just post 'check out my blog post' and instead write down some key takeaways so that the reader doesn't have to click over if they don't want to.

With that last point - I have a few more items here, but these were the key ones.

What do you think?