David Spinks, Founder of CMX discusses the art and science of growing a community. Learn how to create a strategy to grow and support your community in a changing landscape and how to overcome challenges faced by community leaders at all levels.
Moderated by Greg Giusti, GM of Meetup for Business who oversees Meetup Pro, which enables organizers to easily scale their communities.
Main Takeaways:
- The pandemic has shown us how important community is. I think we’ll see a whole new level of appreciation for community and a craving for community. And businesses have an opportunity to create a curated community.
If you are creating a community for a business, think about the SPACE model (or SPACES model) to demonstrate how your community creates value. - Delegation is important for growing a business. How many times have we seen the solo community manager spread really thin? If you are managing everything, you are the bottleneck to growth.
- Resources mentioned:
- The 7Ps of community
- Icebreaker is a fun speed networking service. You can also check out this spreadsheet with a list of virtual platforms
- CMX Blog article: A Comprehensive List of Tips, Tools, and Examples for Event Organizers During the Coronavirus Outbreak
- CMX Summit is October 6-7, 2020 and is free
- CMX newsletter
Top Q&A Questions:
- What do I do if my members prefer in-person and don’t think online events are worth it?
- Online events aren’t for everyone, I was a skeptic too. But you can be very intentional in an online event and create a very warm, positive, welcoming, engaging vibe.
When you’re thinking about switching to online events, I recommend going back to first principles. I think a mistake that a lot of organizers make is saying, “we had this offline experience, how do we replicate this online?” and I don’t think you can replicate in-person. Instead, think, “If we were to build this experience from the ground-up online, what would we do?” Start from scratch and re-think what engagement looks like online.
- Online events aren’t for everyone, I was a skeptic too. But you can be very intentional in an online event and create a very warm, positive, welcoming, engaging vibe.
- How do communities engage outside of events? Communication is one way for me right now.
- One fun way you can think about creating more diversity of experience is to write out “annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily” on a piece of paper. Under each, write 3-5 ideas for what you can do to get your community together on those time frames. For example, we use rituals like a new member thread, weekly promo thread, Friday Fun day, monthly jobs thread, etc. An example of a “Daily” idea may be asking your community one question to create discussion.
Tip: Instead of asking people to answer either/or questions, take a stance and ask people to agree to disagree. For example, instead of asking, “do you like apple pie or pecan pie?” say, “apple pie is the best pie. Discuss.”
- One fun way you can think about creating more diversity of experience is to write out “annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily” on a piece of paper. Under each, write 3-5 ideas for what you can do to get your community together on those time frames. For example, we use rituals like a new member thread, weekly promo thread, Friday Fun day, monthly jobs thread, etc. An example of a “Daily” idea may be asking your community one question to create discussion.
- Do you have a message for young community leaders?
- There’s no more important work to be doing today. I think there’s only going to be a ton more opportunity to build community and build a career around community. The beauty of this space is that it’s very easy to learn because you just have to join communities and the barrier to entry and to start your own community is very low. Learn how to get started on Meetup.
Last modified on June 23, 2021
