Hi Reader!

I have been fascinated by online communities since I was in middle school.

Before anyone was calling it social media or personal branding or content strategy, I was on Friendster and MySpace watching something extraordinary happen and thinking "this changes everything."

Here is what I saw that most people missed: Online communities are not separate from real life, they are an extension of it.

Before the internet, if you lived somewhere that did not have people who shared your interests, your perspective, your passion, you were just alone with it. Your world was mostly limited to the physical space around you.

Online communities changed that completely. Suddenly you could find anyone! A woman in a small town in the midwest could connect with a strategist in New York. A leader with a niche expertise could find the exact audience that needed what she knew. Geography stopped being a barrier. Access stopped being a barrier.

And I thought, what a place to build something! You can showcase what you can do, reach people outside of your vicinity and become known.

Nobody around me understood what I was talking about. I remember trying to explain the potential, the possibility, the way I could see the whole thing unfolding and getting blank stares.

But I knew, I bet on myself and just kept going.

I built my career on that instinct. Fifteen years of social media strategy and more recently brand strategy. Working with brands like Coca-Cola, realizing I ran circles around the teams at big agencies, starting and running Block and Ave., teaching, coaching, speaking. All of it rooted in the belief I had sitting in front of a computer screen in the early 2000s. The foresight that online communities would change what was possible for people who knew how to show up in them.

And here is the thing I want you to understand, I always knew a personal brand was important. I believed it from the beginning, but for a long time I did not do it seriously for myself. I felt I had no time. I was building the agency, serving clients, doing the work. I watched opportunities go to people who were less experienced than me.

All because they were more visible.

Instead of complaining I changed that. I found a way to make creating content less time consuming. I started showing up regularly on my blog, finding opportunities until the scales tipped and new opportunities started coming my way. I became a Social Media Today Expert, spoke at BlogHer Biz, participated in HubSpot Academy courses and much more.

Visibility is not vanity or performing for an algorithm. It is access.

The same access I saw in those early online communities, the ability to be found by people you never would have reached otherwise. To walk into rooms you were not physically in, and have your name come up in conversations when you were not there to speak for yourself.

That is what a strategic online presence does for a woman executive or in a leadership position. And that is exactly what we build together inside Presence.

• Four weeks.
• Four live Tuesday sessions at 11am ET starting July 7, 2026.
• Your brand identity, your platform strategy, your content approach, and a sustainable visibility plan that fits your life.

15 spots. Enrollment is open now.

If you have known for a while that you need to do something about your online presence, this is where you start: Click here to enroll in Presence.​

♥️&☕️

Dhariana Lozano

Brand Strategy | Social Media Strategy | DhariLo.com​

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