What's up? I'm Rachel Spiewak and this is Rock Your Tribe Radio where community, fun, social media and business collide. I firmly believe that parties are the answer to all of life's problems. Seriously. Building a community, bringing people together for a common purpose and serving them, that's your mission as a business owner. Let's make it happen. It's time to rock your tribe.
(00:28): No, I run my Facebook group. Like how I DJ a party before I get into that. Here's my DJ backstory. I started deejaying when I lived in Atlanta in the early two thousands. And like most things I do it started by accident. I was always throwing parties and making playlists for parties. As a nonprofit director, I organized tons of benefit parties, and I was always hanging out in DJ booths. That's where I like to post up at the club. I was always around DJs and at the time DJs were still lugging vinyl and turntables around. So I was managing the nonprofit bicycle repair shop by day and partying by night all night, every night. And then I was recruited into an art collective, the Herald group, before I even called myself a DJ and found myself playing these crazy house parties, where we would have cookouts and art installations.
(01:21): It was fun. And then somehow with my kind of minimal experience and my laptop, because I didn't have turntables yet. And also I didn't have a car which meant I couldn't lug around gear. Somehow I landed a resident Saturday night gig at the Highland in ballroom lounge, which was directly across the street from my apartment. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I made up for it and a million other ways I threw Jazzercise parties. I threw a robot party. I would have special guests like my dearly missed friend, TJ speaker Fox. So maybe I wasn't the most technically proficient DJ ever, but I knew how to make things fun. And I knew how to get people to show up and dance. Here's my secret sauce. I knew everyone's favorite song. So when they showed up, I would play their song and they would have their moment and play the game well enough that eventually I found myself opening for Macio from Dayla soul.
(02:16): And when I finally moved from Atlanta to Brooklyn, right after the us housing bubble burst, I was unsuccessful in finding a normal non-profit job that I assumed I would just get because of my experience as a nonprofit executive director, I had to figure out something because I was crashing on the floor of my friend's apartment in Williamsburg with no plan. I combed Craigslist for nanny and gigs. And somehow through social media buy my way to an open turntables night and a story of Queens open turntables. It's like an open mic, but with DJs, the one I went to, we all got to play, I think like a 15 minute set. And then we would nerd out over whatever cool piece of gear someone brought for show and tell eventually started to get restaurant gigs as a collective. And I was in the rotation. I got to DJ at a couple of sushi restaurants in Brooklyn for like $50 a night. And I was very excited about that. I mean, I was getting paid to DJ and yeah,
(03:11): New York city, then a big break came my friend from Atlanta, Jason Samarco VP and creative director for adult swim on air, asked me to play an upfront gig at jazz at Lincoln center for cartoon network. Whoa. And then he asked me to play another upfront gig for adult swim, where I opened for Mia. It was serious. I kept digging around and getting better and better because I was in the birthplace after all, you could come to my DJ night or you could go, go see Questlove. And that's it. Why you think it's hilarious. When I hear people in the online business world say, there's no such thing as competition. Everything is competitive, whether you like it or not. Meanwhile, I made friends, we would
(03:56): Together and I found myself in a really cool community. Eventually someone from within that world, DJ Morrissey recommended me to an agency. He was working with Scratch music group. Scratch DJ to me is the educational side of the business. Co-created by Master Jay rest and power scratch event and scratch weddings that arm of scratch music group, that's the booking agency side. So that's why I worked for, I auditioned. I got myself on the roster and I got busy with retail and wedding gigs. Plus I was still doing bars, Clubs and boozy brunches. I once did an event for Salesforce at the Javits center. I got hit with
(04:35): Beer pong balls, it whiskey rebel, and Murray Hill. I drove to beautiful places all over new England for weddings. My gig at the crunch gym. And Chelsea was like playing a circuit party for the boys. Playing in department stores was always a trip because so many of the sales reps used to party at studio 54. And they would put me on to disco that I didn't even know about. Of course, New York city is full of tourists, including competitive dance troops. And they would ask me to play stuff like hit me baby one more time. And then they would do their whole dance routine right there and Macy's or Nordstrom or wherever we were deejaying. The
(05:08): Retail world. Put me in touch with so many people in my new home and showed me how to make instant friends with pretty much anyone. Meanwhile, I met and eventually married a very special DJ Rob Flo, who was the resident Friday and Saturday night DJ at the iconic hip hop clubs Sutra, which was headed up by Ariel palettes, who is now Nightlife mayor of New York city. I'm probably forgetting a lot of details. And to be honest, a lot of it is hazy. Did I mention the unlimited booze that comes as a perk of the job? So now, you know, the greatest hits of my DJ history, the highlights that's
(05:45): Story right there. That's my opening set for the main event, showing you how I rock my Facebook group. Like how I rock parties. I'm going to play this episode like a DJ set. I'm going to take you on a journey from story to story. Will it make as much sense as my other episodes where I follow a template and make three points that support main point whereabouts to find out. I would say, I love your feedback about this episode. Let's see if this experience and works. Here we go. Yo, lesson number one, frequently asked questions and pre-canned responses. So when you're deejaying a party or an event, no matter where you are,
(06:18): You are or what kind of scene it is, people come up to you and ask the same things over and over and over again. Right? Can I charge my phone here? Where is the bathroom? Can you play something I can dance too? I'm about to leave. Can you play my song? The most
(06:35): Ridiculous thing is when they ask for a song by the artist you're currently playing like, yo, I am playing a tribe called Quest right now. Since people tend to ask the same set of questions all the time. After a while, I came up with my canned responses, some DJs get salty about it, and I just don't think it's worth it to get mad because people are going to do what they're going to do. It's easier to have a mental FAQ. I've taken this concept right into my Facebook group. The concept of having canned responses to typical questions
(07:05): Works like a charm. That whole scheme, how I've created a frequently asked this questions section in my Facebook group and how I work with it. That comes right out of my DJ Playbook. Pretty cool, right? Check out. It's a community, Not a classroom. That episode of this podcast for the complete explanation of my FAQ system, that allows me to spend less time writing instructional content and more time having productive conversations. But I wanted you to know where that concept comes from. It comes from being asked
(07:35): Where the bathroom is a million times while I'm deejaying. All right, let's make a quick transition to lesson. Number two, playing to no one. When Facebook group admins tell me they don't have that many people in their group yet, and they don't know how to write content for them. Since there's only a few people in there, it reminds me of all the times. I've DJ'ed to no one, except the bartender. That's the reality of entertainment and show business. If you're a DJ or a musician or a comedian or any kind of stage performer, you know exactly what I'm talking about, being up there on stage or in my case, the booth, and having to commit to playing your heart out anyway, because someone might show up or because you love what you're doing or because you're being paid to be there. So my message,
(08:25): It's a Facebook group, admins and business owners everywhere is there's no such thing as an overnight success. Not in entertainment, not in social media, not in anything. And I'm not talking about going viral because that's not a guarantee that people will remember you tomorrow. Actual, real sustained success in anything is built on consistency over time, taking lots of gigs just to gig and rocking out no matter how big or small your audience is. So yeah, your group, it will be small. At first. You might be talking to no one. You might be talking to a handful of people. Let's call it, taking the first step. More steps will follow. Think of it like a gift. He gets a practice in the arena on the stage without so many eyes on you at first while you're getting your bearings. So don't worry about it. Go on and rock out to no one let's drop the next beat.
(09:12): Lesson. Number three, reading the room deejaying is about reading people as individuals and as the group, it's about knowing what people consciously want, and it's about knowing what they need and working them up to the point that if you deliver what they need, they'll take it. Like if I'm deejaying a party, I can look around the room and take an educated guess that the crowd is consciously aware of wanting to hear. I don't know, Drake, I guess. Okay, fine. But deep down, I know they need the Fuji's version of killing me softly. So we're going to have to work our way there. So by the time we do get there, everyone is ready to hit those notes with Lauren. Your Facebook group is your crowd. It's your job to read them? Like in my group of entrepreneurs, I know that people want the occasional promo posts to drop their offers into.
(09:59): These are not my favorite posts, because I think a lot of people spend too much time stocking them across groups instead of building real relationships. I don't like seeing other business owners, selling lists of groups to promo in and recommending this as a strategy worth investing that much time into, because there are other things you could do with your time to find clients that are way better. Like if you come across a promo post, cool drop your info in, but it's a buyer list and spend time on it. Like, I just don't think the ROI is there versus say going live on your profile or in your group, for example, because that would be an authority and relationship building activity. In addition to being an activity that drives sales, I'm just thinking about what is the best use of your time. Really? So that's my soap box about that. It's not the promo post itself that I have the problem with. It's the behavior around it. I know that my community of entrepreneurs does want the occasional promo posts. And I do like to see what everyone's offering. I drop them in when it feels right and I keep it random. So no one can stock my group for it and only pop in for that reason and avoid hanging out and getting to know people.
(11:08): You've heard the same advice about Facebook groups everywhere. Ask questions, add value. But what does that mean? Let me show you what a profitable engaged and a fun Facebook group looks like. And I'll pop the hood for you so you can see exactly how I do it. Join my Facebook group, rock your tribe, community. Building for entrepreneurs at rock, your tribe.com forward slash Facebook. For all my posts.
(11:35): That's giving people what they want. What about what they need. People need to talk to each other. That's why I'm all up in the comments. Tagging people, recommending them to each other and forced networking members of my group. One of the best posts for helping my members network with each other is our barter post. That post looks like this. What can you give what's? You need connect and trade people. Of course find each other and start connecting on their own in the comments. But what I like to do is get in there and start tagging people because not everybody sees everything all the time. And one thing I love to do in my group is remember what everybody does and refer people to each other. Because at the end of the day, that's what building a community is all about. That's the whole point is helping your members build relationships with each other.
(12:26): And so through members finding each other on their own, in that policy and through my not so gentle nudging, I heard that on our last barter post people are booking upwards of like eight. Getting to know you calls with other members in the group. This is literal money. The money is in the relationships. Bartering was the excuse. But what people need, especially in an entrepreneur group is help starting relationships with each other. And that's the difference between building an audience and building a community for us networking. I do this a lot. I'm like Yenta and Fiddler on the roof. Sometimes I think I'm just being really Jewish and teaching my group members. How to be kind of Jewish too. I literally called my group rock your tribe, like member of the tribe, get it. Oh man, I'm on fire right now. Smooth transition to lesson, number four, getting people what you want them to do.
(13:25): Deejaying is about getting people to take action. Like literally move their bodies. And it's not always about getting them to dance. If you're deejaying a wedding, sometimes you have to make people sit down and eat their salad. Typical banquet hall weddings are really weird to DJ. If you're like not actually a wedding DJ, like I was a club DJ who DJ'ed weddings, right? So all of this sitting down and standing up again, very strange. And as the DJ, you're at the mercy of the catering schedule, it's a whole thing. I once DJ to a dinner party at a fancy restaurant and I thought it would be a great idea to play midnight train to Georgia during the meal, it turned into a sing along, which was fine, but that's not what I meant to do. I meant for everyone to eat their entrees. I'm terrible at playing music for people to completely chill out to no surprises there.
(14:16): Right? If you're deejaying at a store, which is something I used to do all the time in New York city, for me, it was about making people stay and buy more stuff. I used to DJ at the H and M in times square for like four or five, six hours at a time it's a five story building. So I imagined it was like an all ages mega club and people would come find me and say things like I was trying to buy these clothes and leave. And I can't leave because you keep playing my songs. That was intentional. That's exactly what I was trying to do. And it worked, I didn't know, was studying marketing at the time, but looking back, I totally was. So when I'm thinking
(14:55): About delivering content in my Facebook group, I have this experience and these concepts in mind, let me show you something about getting people to do what you want them to do. If I said you down with opp, you would say, I'm listening for you to say, yeah, you know me, if I said, what's cooler than being cool, you would say, hi, it's cold. That's calling response a little music history you call and response originated in Sub-Saharan African cultures. And as Africans were enslaved in America, the tradition carried over into slave songs, which birth gospel music and the blues, which birth, jazz, and soul and rock, which all contributed to hip hop, which is not just a genre at this point. It's like a medical teacher with subcultures that resonates around the world. Calling response is so powerful that we use it
(15:45): To speak to previous generations and we use it to cultivate conversations globally. And that's the nature of one line engagement posts and your Facebook group. Sure. It's a post for engagement. Okay, fine. But what it really does if you're doing it right, is it helps you build the culture in your group, look at your engagement posts this way. We want people responding to you. Like it's a reflex. That feels good. We want to give
(16:10): Yeah. Your members into the zone of hitting you back with their responses. Just like the whole what's cooler than being cool thing. We want people responding to you because when they do it's signals or sense of belonging, like when I made that outcast reference before, if you're an outcast fan, you suddenly felt more connected to me, didn't you? If we were in a crowd and just a few of us responded, ice cold, you would look around at each other and be like, yeah, You're my people. What does this look like in a Facebook group? Try this experiment a little silly. But if joy is central to your brand,
(16:45): This is what you're going to post. I'm giving out free. High-fives who wants one, then watch what happens. Make sure you respond back to everyone. You'll know what to do when you see it. And then I want you to take this screenshot of the responses from your group and post it in my Facebook group. Rock your tribe. That's going to be fun. Wow. That's like meta call and response call and response inception. And want you to think about your one-line engagement posts? Like they're a short, sharp, quick call to action that encourages a reflex like response that helps your tribe members recognize that they belong here with each other. I see a lot of mistakes with these one-line engagement posts, overthinking it. Over-engineering asking questions that are way too deep or using too many words or using questions that have been done way too many times. It's not a special make it special for your group about making these posts too complex. It's as simple as I say, Hey, you say, Whoa, Hey,
(17:42): Hey, did you do it? All right. Party people in the house. You could have been anywhere tonight, but you're here rocking with it's time for the last lesson. Be an entertainer, not in air quotes, educator. Maybe it's because I'm a community builder first, maybe because I've had lots of retail and wedding gigs. But my favorite thing about deejaying is entertaining people. I like playing stuff. My crowd likes, I don't mean be a total pushover people pleaser and put yourself at the mercy of any crowd that you can find. I don't like and listen to every kind of music put me in a country bar. And I'm mostly lost except for Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Taylor Swift, and a couple of nineties line dances like boots, Goon, boogie, the way to cater to your audience and enjoy yourself at the same time is through building your brand and your brand world. So as a DJ, you create the environment where you get to pull
(18:32): From whatever you like attract a crowd that likes at least a slice of what you like, Then give them what they want. I'm not a DJ because I want to educate people and tell them what they should. Like, I don't want to go over people's heads. I don't want to disconnect. And the people who come,
(18:49): So my gigs are not there to learn something. If they did. That was a bonus. Like if I was playing some dirty South hip hop and then I played Willy hutches, I choose you. And then I played international players, Anthem, and then you'd be like, Oh, that's the sample. And I'd be like, yeah, I did that. But why did you come to see me DJ? Or why was I somewhere playing songs really loud for people to show off my superior knowledge and hold it over people's heads. No, I was there to make things fun. People are
(19:17): Mainly looking for ways to chill out, have fun and be entertained. They're looking for an escape and they're looking to connect with other people. A common mistake. I see Facebook group admins making is assuming that people join groups to read long-winded expository essays. This brings us back to
(19:32): My it's a community, not a classroom episode, but I wanted to show you where this idea is coming from. I'm really passionate about spreading the idea that people join immunities to commune. Let learning be a welcome byproduct. I could talk about this for forever, but I'll stop here and let you marinate in all of that. Just to recap, we ran,
(19:55): I threw five things I learned from my DJ career that I use all the time as a digital community, any architect here or there, how to manage frequently, asked questions and create pre-canned responses to make your life easier because people are going to do with it. You're going to do, you gotta be okay with playing or writing for no one or a handful of people, which is actually a gift in the beginning. When you're just getting your bearings on stage or in your group, you got to learn how to read the room and give people what they want. And you're going to work your way to giving them what they need. You got it.
(20:29): I get people to do what you want them to do, and you can use the tradition of call and response to get them to do it, and also use call and response to bond your community members together. And finally be an entertainer, not an air quotes educator. People are going to learn from you, but draw them in and connect with them over they know, and
(20:48): Love. And you'll wind up being their go-to person for information on the topic on the backend. Got all of that. What did you think? Did that flow work? Let me know. Okay. What's next on the show, episode number 13 is coming up. I'll have to do something super special for that one until then. Thank you so much for being here and as always you rock,
(21:17): This is ThePodcastFactory.com.
