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): The show. Do you know who your tribe is? I just put you on the spot. Didn't I, and I'm not talking about typical ideal client, avatar descriptors, like house, car, family, blah, blah, blah. That's so boring. Leave those things to my team. Who's going to run your ads. That's where those kinds of demographics matter. They can handle it for us, but between me and you, what I mean is who are the people you attract when you're rocking your brand and your digital community. Think of the caterpillar and Alice's adventures in Wonderland, who are you? He demands poor. Alice doesn't know how to answer. According to her, she's changed size too many times that day. And that's made things confusing. Her sense of self is totally out of whack. If Alice knew her fundamental self, it wouldn't matter how many times she's changed size or whether she's changed size at all.
(01:31): Pretend you're the caterpillar and your tribe. They're Alice. And you're insisting upon knowing who they fundamentally are. Who do I attract? Who's my tribe. I know who my tribe is because of this little trick, go through the looking glass, look in the mirror and see yourself. My tribe, very intelligent people who aren't ordinary, who often get in their own way because we're taught to Excel in an ordinary world. We're always looking for the, a, we want to do things correctly is that you send me a message on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. And let me know if I nailed it. Let's go back to this part. We're taught how to Excel in an ordinary world where we're caught up in getting things right, and getting an a, I work with so many clients who follow my instructions and technically get an a on their assignment on building a digital community, according to the rules and parameters and all of the explanation that I give yet, something doesn't click.
(02:37): It's not quite right. That's because building a community, isn't a straightforward linear 100% logical follow the rules kind of thing, because it has so much to do with people, you and your tribe. When you're working with people, it's as much an art as it is a science, who are you? Who's your tribe. These are deep questions, but I evaluate digital communities all the time. So there's gotta be a way to determine how things are going and what needs to be fixed, right? Yes, there is. And I'm going to share it with you now. Well, part of it, I've got stuff. Seven points that we would discuss. If we work together to rock your digital committee today, I'm giving you three, because I know I launched torpedoes of wisdom here on this podcast. And I don't want to overload you after all, it's a podcast. You're probably walking your dog or doing your dishes or something.
(03:34): And you're just trying to listen. So here's the shortlist of three points of digital community evaluation. And we'll cover that the rest next time. So here we go. Number one is your community, your brand, and it match you. Number two, is your community a pity party or is it a joy to be there? And number three, what is your community's promise? And do you really fulfill it? And now let's dive in, in and unpack what I mean. So you can evaluate your digital community, just like we would do together. If we had a private session, right? Consultation, number one is your community, your brand world. And does it match you? What do I mean by that? Down a rabbit hole into your community? What I feel like I was in gold in your brand, maybe an easier way to think about this is with my house party analogy.
(04:30): You've heard this a couple of times. Yeah. On this podcast, your community is your house party. We know where in your house, because it's your record collection, your furniture, it's your kids, chin. Everything is you. It represents you and your brand. And you're taking your brand and curating an experience that you're trying will love. But when we're inside your party, we know it's your place. It's your brand world. This is so important because you need your community to stand out. And part of its purpose is to help build your brand. And because if it's not really your brand world, if you're trying to fit your community, there's some other kind of flavor. That's not really you. You're going to run out of content. You're just gonna run out of ideas. And so then stake, I see community admins making is not aligning their community with their brand.
(05:25): Maybe mistake really isn't the right word here. Our brands reveal themselves to us as our businesses develop that's okay, because we are on an adventure. Sometimes we need our communities to help us figure out our brands. Like [inaudible] the branding queen says your brand is where your perception of you and your community's perception of you. It's where those two things are aligned. And so your perception of you when it's reflected back to you by your community, you might learn some things about what your brand truly is. So I was working with my friend, CC twining. She has a fabulous community on Facebook called right to heal, helping survivors unearth their inner warrior. She helps survivors of trauma heal through creative writing. Amazing, right? She was doing everything mechanically correctly in her group. She was following all of my instructions. I would give her an a on her assignment yet something wasn't clicking her members.
(06:26): Weren't engaging as much as she'd like, and something just felt off. So we met for a private one hour strategy session. And I noticed that her branding was delicate, soothing, baby pink and doilies. But her posts were funny. Someone in her group wrote a poem about, which was funny. And CC has a tattoo of a unicorn butterfly. Kitty. She's literally branded with a rainbow unicorn butterfly kitty that doesn't really read delicate and dainty to me, delicate CC is not. She's a bad-ass. And that's what you want in an admin for a survivor support group, right? A person who's strong and creates laughter. So what was happening was the wrapping paper on the outside of her community and her branding, the visuals didn't match what was on the inside, which was hilariousness, which made things confusing for her members. They were attracted to a certain wrapping paper, open the present and found something else inside. Since our conversation CC rebranded her group and ultimately her whole business, her visuals are as bad-ass as she is now. And everything feels right. She feels empowered, engaged, and now the creativity flood gates are open. Her members know where they are and who CC is, which makes it so much easier to create conversations with them. And conversations are the beating heart of digital communities. Hold on. Did I just say a trauma support group is funny? Wait, what
(08:04): A digital community. That's the future of marketing. Do you want to get ahead of the curve? Let me show you how to use real life, community building strategies to grow your brand, your authority, and your army of marketers. Head over to Rocky tribe.com to send me a message let's get this party started.
(08:22): So this brings us to point number two, when we're evaluating your community, is your group a pity party or is it a joy? First of all, if you're not enjoying your community, how can you expect anyone else to enjoy it? I get asked this all the time. My community feels flat. What do I do to get people energized? And my first question is, well, are you excited about your group? Because most of the time, it's not them. It's you. If you're bummed out about community, it's time for a make-over and we should talk, send me a message on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. And if you're bummed out about your group, because you're not making any money in their goal and a couple of my episodes, the one about seven ways to monetize your Facebook group and the other one face it, your Facebook group is about the money.
(09:15): Go listen to those, to get excited about making money in your Facebook group. Second of all, is your community designed to be a pity party? Is your community specifically for anxious, upset people? And the main thing you talk about is being anxious, set pity parties are tough to engage. It's hard to consistently come up with content and they are so hard to sell to. So even if your community is a trauma support group, you must find the joy, the fun, the relief, the positivity, and create conversations around that. Not toxic, false positivity kind of way. I don't mean that. And whatever you do, please, don't retraumatize people by asking them about their pain points as your daily conversation starter. That's not nice. In fact, this is a big pet peeve of mine in the solopreneur world. Did you know, I have a master's degree in social work.
(10:13): It's a professional degree. And if I wanted to use it, I'd have to go get licensed by the state. And I need it just had classes every year to keep my license in good standing. And I would have oversight. There's a reason for that when you're working with people on that level and dealing in mental health, yet there are so many mental health coaches online with no training, no license and no oversight, and this is wrong. And this is why I'm doubly concerned. When I see digital communities where self-styled mental health workers are attempting to engage their community around retraumatizing engagement posts. This bugs me from a professional one perspective and two different ways. So that's my soap box. Being a fake therapist is not a business. Okay. That's the end of the rent. Back to what I was saying there question here is what is your community's purpose?
(11:07): Who is it for and why they join? Do you have this in mind? Good. Because now it's time for evaluation point number three. What is your community's promise? And do you fulfill it say you've got a community for marketing professionals where they can network with each other and learn about forward thinking marketing strategies like my friend and client, John T. Wilson and amazing fractional CMO enter community. Think forward. For example, she's building think forward on mighty networks. We know youngies community is for her tribe of marketing professionals who wants to hang with each other and learn her style of marketing that gets her featured in big name, publishers occasions like Forbes, the wall street journal and travel in a have I mentioned Yankees a bad-ass. Yeah. So what's the promise of Yankees community to be place for marketing professionals focused on disrupting the status quo, whoa, disrupting the status quo.
(12:09): That means the prompts, opportunities, lessons and conversations inside her community needs to be about disrupting the status quo and marketing does young sheets deliver. Yes, she does. Some of her main talking points are why customers don't care about your product and selling without a sales team sounds pretty disruptive to me. Plus her community empowers a new generation of marketers who aren't air quotes, pale male and stale. I mean that right there is a disruption of the status quo. If you promise destruction, deliver disruption, if you promise diversity and include deliver diversity and inclusion, the mistake I see brands making with their communities is making their promise aspirational rather than bluntly honest. This is something you cannot fudge. A promise is a promise. If you promise diversity and inclusion, and we click through your website and look at your team and your board and anybody who's involved with your business, and I'm not talking about stock photos where you can fudge things, will we actually see diversity?
(13:19): If you can't keep your promise, we'll lose faith in your brand and your community and move on. So how are you doing with this evaluation? Let's talk about your results. Let's get some running totals, cause we're only part of the way through the whole thing, but as it stands for now, the first three points in this evaluation are, is your community, your brand world. And does it match you? Is it your house party or your Wonderland? Number two. Is it a pity party or is it joy? Number three is your promise. And do you really fulfill it? If your community is your brand world, give yourself one gold star. If you're a brand and that fuels your brand world resonates with you. Yeah. Your tribe. Give yourself one gold star. If your community is a joy for you personally, give yourself one gold star.
(14:13): If your community is a joy for your members, give yourself one gold star. And if your community makes and keeps its core promise, give yourself one gold star. So that's a possible five gold stars. If you got five, congratulations, your community rocks so far, we still have four more points to talk about next time. Did you get four gold stars? That's okay. Take some time this week to earn your fifth gold star, unless you're not enjoying your group. If you lost star on that one, then it's definitely time for a makeover in your community and you send me a message on Facebook and scrambling. Didn't come find me. We'll talk. Did you get three gold stars or less? Then we need to talk. We need to set a very important date. White rabbit style. Send me a message. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. We need to talk. Your community definitely needs a makeover. Thank you so much for coming to my mad tea party. Shall we go through the looking glass next time, join me in our next episode, we'll finish up the evaluation. We'll find out where your community really stands, and I'm going to convince you to work with me. And as always you rock
(15:29): This is ThePodcastFactory.com.
