Community Building with Rocio Online and Offline
Rocio, the founder of Marketing by Rocio, built their queer-led digital marketing agency out of a need they saw during the pandemic, when queer entrepreneurs and organizers lacked support from mainstream agencies. Their identity and values shape their approach, centering consent, care, and relationships over reach. Community is built in the small moments, listening deeply, slowing down, and prioritizing trust, because visibility is both a form of safety and a form of resistance for marginalized creators.
They see online and offline queer spaces as distinct yet complementary, with online offering visibility but also pressure, while offline creates room for nuance and embodied connection. Projects like Queerency have shown them how storytelling can build community, especially for BIPOC and queer lives. Rocio encourages brands to support without co-opting, and advises queer creators to let their online presence reflect their values rather than algorithms. Their dream for queer digital futures mirrors the trust, fluidity, and joy of offline queer spaces, reminding us that authenticity and mutual care must lead the way.
What inspired you to start Marketing by Rocio, and how has your identity shaped your approach to building community?
By 2020 when I started my queer digital marketing agency, Marketing by Rocio, I had spent years steeped in queer studies, media criticism, and community building. My lens on the world, and on business, was already deeply informed by my identity and values. Then COVID hit. Everyone went online. And what I saw during that time was kind of incredible: queer folks showing up as entrepreneurs, mutual aid organizers, therapists, artists, journalists—offering services that were marketable and deeply needed.
There wasn’t enough support for them. And the agencies that did claim to serve “diverse businesses” often didn’t understand the nuances of queer culture, safety, or trust-building. So I started creating the kind of marketing support I wish existed. I did it for myself, and for people like me. Even now, five years in, this work still feels radical. For marginalized business owners, visibility is a kind of safety. It’s also a kind of resistance.
My identity is part of my story and my work ethic, even when it comes to building community. I lead with consent, context, and care. I prioritize relationships over reach. I ask damn good questions. I slow down where others might rush.
Community is built in the micro-moments: the extra e-mail check-in, the honest conversation about burnout, the reminder that marketing can feel good if you set the right boundaries. Being queer taught me to listen for what’s not being said. That’s how I build trust, and that’s how I build community.
What does "community" mean to you in the context of marketing?
To me, community in marketing means a group of people with shared values, needs, or desires. Marketing is the bridge that helps them find each other: it's inviting, welcoming, and creating the conditions for connection.
Community, for me, is a trust game. In my work, that means centering clarity, accessibility, and care.
What are some key differences you've noticed between marketing and building queer community online versus offline?
Online is way more… online (if you know, you know). Language, identity markers, aesthetics, even politics can get flattened into content and performance. There’s more visibility, but also more pressure. People online are often hyper-aware of semantics, signaling, and staying on-brand. All this can be powerful for visibility, but exhausting for actual connection.
Offline, things tend to be messier, slower, and more forgiving. There’s space for nuance. For contradiction. For people to show up without a curated caption. Building queer community offline feels more embodied. It’s in eye contact, shared meals, the rhythm of showing up for each other without needing a post about it.
As a marketer, I think the sweet spot is learning how to carry the ethics of offline connection—mutual care, consent, trust—into the online world, without losing our humanity in the algorithm.
What's one project that really taught you something new about queer and BIPOC community building?
Different clients teach me different things, but working with Queerency was a turning point. It was my first time seeing what it’s like behind the curtain of a queer-led media company being built from scratch. The scrappiness and the culture-shaping power of journalism, I saw them with my own eyes! I saw how storytelling and visibility are community-building tools, especially when they center BIPOC and queer lives with care.
What role do you think brands and creatives can play in making more intentional queer spaces?
Brands and creatives have power, resources, and reach. But if they want to support intentional queer spaces, their job is to decenter themselves. That means funding without controlling. Showing up without co-opting. Listening before launching.
What's one piece of advice you'd give to queer creators or entrepreneurs trying to grow an online presence without losing their values?
Your online presence should feel like an extension of your values, not a performance of them. If you’re constantly trying to optimize or contort your voice to fit some imagined algorithm or aesthetic, you’ll burn out. And your people will feel that.
Community will do what community does: grow, shift, respond. You don’t have to control it. In fact, trying to force it into something it’s not will only make it harder to sustain.
Building something meaningful takes time, trust, and patience, which, funnily enough, can feel totally at odds with the “always be posting” marketing mindset. But the best queer creators I know lead with consistency and clarity. Let your presence unfold at the pace of your values, not the timeline of the feed.
What kind of digital future do you dream of for queer communities?
Maybe it’s utopian, but I dream of a digital future where queer communities feel more like our IRL spaces have felt for decades, and even centuries. I don’t mean the secrecy or survival mode. I mean the safety. The trust. The knowing that, no matter your label—bi, poly, lesbian, trans, closeted, loud, soft—you’re held. You belong. We’ve got each other’s backs.
That spirit of mutual protection, of letting people be, is something I think the internet often forgets. Online, everything is curated, categorized, optimized. But offline? So many of our queer spaces have always thrived in the in-between. Our queer spaces IRL are overflowing in fluidity, contradiction, and joy.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers for how we get there digitally. But I do know that I lead with that ethos in my work. I’m a human first, of queer experience. I just happen to do marketing too.
How can people find you join in, or show support for what you’re working on?
You can find me at marketingbyrocio.com. That’s home base. I keep it updated, and there’s a direct way to reach out if you want to collaborate, hire me, or just say hey.
I’m also pretty active on LinkedIn if you’re into thoughtful marketing takes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rocio-sanchez-digital-marketing/
Whether you’re looking for support, partnership, or just curious about what I’m up to, you’re welcome in my orbit.