I found a great article in SEO book’s blog.  Here is a snippet from the blog which focuses on building relationships in the online community.

Go where your audience are.

It’s not just about getting links that pass PR.  It’s about creating meaningful relationships.  If your potential audience hangs out on forums, then post to those forums.  Become a trusted member and advisor …..  This approach will serve you well for the future.  Google will be placing more and more emphasis on engagement metrics in order to determine rank.  Why?

The problem Google was created to solve – finding relevant information – is morphing into a problem of locating quality information.  There might be a lot of crawlable information on a given topic, so finding it isn’t an issue any more.  Finding the information people find most useful is the new challenge.

How people engage with your site is going to become increasingly important.  Look to establish meaningful relationships, wherever possible.