Happy Friday you sterling example of humanity,
Internet communities have a special place in my heart.
They transport me back to the days of old-school internet forums and IRC chat rooms where real internet-friends were made.
Luckily there is a renaissance of online communities in the making for a couple of years now. A good chunk of people are moving off of mass-social media and back into the cosy niche-pockets of the internet 🤟
And my guest today is somewhat of an OG in the space. Since the late 2000s, David Spinks built communities, sold communities and wrote books about community building.
So if you are at all interested in exploring how you too could grow your business by building a community around your brand, then you are in for a real treat. 🍬
So without further ado, give it away for David Spinks…. 👏👏👏
🎙️ Podcast Episode #12
Community Marketing: The New Growth Driver
Guest: David Spinks
🤙 Street Cred: VP Community at bevy.com and founder at cmxhub.com.
👋 Follow David: LinkedIn | Twitter
The Episode in Its Full Glory ✨
Come join us!
✌🏼 Two Favorite Takeaways from the Episode:
1. Community participation is a powerful touch point in the buying journey.
Today we regard somebody looking at an ad as a compelling touch point. Or when a potential customer reads an article, downloads an ebook or signs up for a newsletter, we all count them as meaningful interactions with our brand.
But if we as a business cultivate a community and dozens or hundreds of people are regularly showing up, participating and engaging with our brand, product, content or events, that leaves a much more lasting impression and impact on the person.
When we bring people together and facilitate connections among like-minded people, that is a powerful bond we create. And when the time for a sale comes, then guess who'll they remember?
2. Give people in your community a path to contribute.
Everyone who's ever built a highly engaged audience, probably knows that you reach a point where people want to do more than just consume.
They get to the point where it's not enough to just follow your and listen, they want to get involved. They want to contribute. They want to be a part of what you're building.
And if you don't create the paths for them to be able to do that, you miss out on a really great opportunity. Give people in a group ownership and influence. They will feel a deep sense of belonging and community when they know they can impact people around them.
If done right, this army of people who are eager to contribute can haven an immense impact on your business.
Example: Duolingo 🦉
Almost all of the language courses on Duolingo’s platform are developed by the community. So because they did not have to create all these courses themselves they could scale to offer courses in 100s of languages (even some extinct ones!) within a few years.
On top of that, their community is running 2600 (!) events a month on average all over the world. If they'd have to do this themselves, they could maybe organize 10-20 per month max.
Instead they gave their community the tools to step up and create these learning pods themselves. Win-win.
That's it for this week.
Talk soon,
Sandro