Community Building in the Roaring 20s

The Evolution of Sales 

In the late 1800s, a man by the name of John H. Patterson created a system for the moving of goods and services that we today call the Cold Call. 

It’s a different world from when John built the National Cash Register Company through the use of this revolutionary new method. We definitely don’t like to be called on by random sales people (and probably didn’t then either), but that’s not all that has changed. 

Marketing and Sales have gone through several evolutions over the last century. In-person visits morphed into phone calls that transitioned into emails that were followed by texts and “DMs.'' These are all traditionally one-to-one interactions, with limited opportunity for mass outreach, although automation has flipped that in recent years. 

In parallel, new ways of broadcasting were emerging. The original roaring 20s brought the radio and, for the first time, a way to reach everybody at once. Movies became TV that became at-home rentals that became streaming and now online worlds where people hang out with their friends 24/7, along with hundreds of millions of others. 

Then there was the internet. This was the most important, because all of these shifts focused on changes in information flow. Every year, the internet brought more ways to get information, compare offers, ask for advice. The internet also made information instant and ubiquitous. This is where inbound began to overtake outbound for most industries. The new goal was to optimize information flow to your customers (SEO, ads, etc.) 

The Death of Brands 

But today there are millions of brands trying to optimize those information flows. Think about the last time you went to Amazon… did you even notice the brand of the oven mitt, lamp, toaster-oven you one-click bought? It was the best placed in the search results, had the best pics, price and shipping times, and, most critically, reviews. 

People don’t want you to call them anymore and it would take too much time anyway. Traditional TV commercials are expensive and reach fewer people every day. And there are so many brands, content creators, and daily news crises that standing out on social is extremely difficult without big budgets and brand recognition. 

Yes, even the great John Patterson would likely struggle in today’s environment. 

Power to the People 

In our increasingly automated, polarized and over-saturated world, the answer is people. 

Every measurement of community engagement in the US is down over the last forty years. In the 70s and 80s, the average American had three close friends. Since 2004 the average answer has been zero. People are looking for something to be a part of. To meet people with mutual interests, goals, and identities. That’s why everyone has a friend that can introduce them to a cult in LA. 

Where bowling leagues and neighborhood associations fade, brands pick up the slack. Being a part of the Peloton community means you are a healthy person and belong to something larger than yourself. It becomes a part of your identity. Peloton and some of the other fastest growing brands today are really CaaS companies. Community-as-a-Service. Other interesting examples are Product Hunt, which began as a newsletter and relies on millions of monthly visitors to rank new product launches, and Clubhouse, the exclusive online community for audio conversations that was just valued at $1Bn. 

Some of the most successful players in the space don’t even look like products at first. They blur the line between product, content and community. Each pillar feeds into the next, creating strong relationships and a path to growth. Once you have the community, they will show you the way to growth, if you proactively listen. 

Dan Harmon, Creator of NBC’s Community

How to Create Community 

If communities are so great, then why doesn’t every brand have one? Because they're incredibly hard to build. Remember the last time you tried to get somebody to do anything at all? Imagine scaling that effort across thousands of interactions for years on end. Getting a Slack channel to the point of regular activity is like launching a rocket into orbit. 

But think about this… we’ve only been on the internet in a big way for the last 20-30 years - Not nearly long enough to master an entirely new form of relating to each other. But the pressure cooker that was 2020 led to a spike in innovative community building tools, tactics, and teams. Below we provide a detailed list of the elements that go into strong communities, part of which is knowing how to define a strong community. 

A strong community, from a brand’s perspective, is: 

1. Vibrant (high engagement, regular content/events, low churn)
2. A Partner (source of feedback, roadmap for growth)
3. Effective (in meeting the business’ strategic goals) 

The Elements of Strong Communities 

I. Vibrant 

Greek Agora, Circa 6th Century BC

A vibrant community is one that you want to keep coming back to. Like the ancient Agoras of Greece or the Kibbutz of Israel, they provide a source of connection, support, and problem solving in the face of life’s challenges. A strong story, regular content, and effective measurement are some ways to start strengthening your community. 

Purpose / Reason for Existing: Why are you creating this community in the first place? Who are you trying to serve and what can you do for them? A community created to “generate leads” is going to get all the traction it deserves. 

Some communities with standout purposes: 

• ScaleHealth: Connecting health innovators worldwide 
• On Deck: Where ambitious people grow together
• Roblox: Powering the world’s imagination 

A clear purpose stems from a clear origin story. Why are you building this community in the first place? Why are you the one to develop, create, steward this burgeoning movement? Ryan Hoover (like so many community builders) was solving his own problem. He had to put a lot of work into finding the best new product launches, so he began sharing his recommendations and created a central place for people to come and nerd out over technology. He built the thing he wished he had before. 

Once people buy into your narrative and mission you want to make super easy as possible to identify themselves with the group. Product Hunt sent out thousands of stickers to early customers to give them a way to share their affiliation on laptops, desks, etc. Growing up Catholic, I was given a new wooden cross almost every week. Sometimes churn is still inevitable, but symbols are a valuable and highly overlooked way of keeping people onboard. 

Peer-to-Peer Interaction: A strong community can’t rely solely on top-down communication from community organizers. We’ve all been in Slack group ghost towns, where the only messages are prompts from desperate leaders trying to get the convo going and they’re a real downer. 

Instead, a thriving community has spontaneous conversations, events, information sharing and support happening between members on a regular basis. Everyone wants peer-to-peer interaction in their group, because it’s what makes the day-to-day of being a member fun. 

Community-builders have three levers to pull: 

1. Model the behaviors you want to see: Share resources, make introductions, be as helpful as possible for community members. 
2. Identify high potentials: Find the person posting every day, organizing events or connecting people across the community. Talk to them and find out what they’re hoping to get out of their involvement. 
3. Create incentives: Bestow high potentials with status through titles (events manager, head of member experience), leadership meetings, and a say in strategic decisions regarding the community’s direction. 

Events: Regular events offer opportunities for members to connect with each other, welcome new members and reinforce their commitment to the group. Last year didn’t have much to celebrate, but the serious leveling up of the virtual events industry was definitely one of them. 

The first few months of the pandemic were marked by awkward Zoom calls and venerable, but sad attempts at virtual happy hours. 2021 will be marked by the rise of tools that replicate the best aspects of connecting in-real-life. 

Some of the best new (and newly relevant) tools for community-builders: 

Clubhouse. The elephant in the room. Do you still need an invite? The app for audio-only conversations that happen in “rooms” organized by your most interesting friends has grown to 2 million weekly active users since launching in 2014. The recent explosion in growth is partially marketing (only serious VIPs could get invites for a long time), which led to a strong desire from the general public. But the more interesting aspect is how they’ve recreated the intimacy of being in a room with your friends. 

Gather.town. A standout amongst the countless Zoom competitors, Gather.town looks like an old Pokemon game combined with Zoom and it’s a lot of fun. Event attendees can move around virtual spaces, start 1:1 or group conversations, and even work together in an office space that allows for easy collaboration. 

OnlyFams. Voted Product Hunt’s best tool for community builders of the past year, this cheekily named tool optimizes for “micro-communities” around teaching a subject, private memberships, and other features that help small groups form bonds with each other. 

Airtable. A super-customizable database that is used for everything from surveys to recruitment. Great for getting and organizing community data, personalizing experiences, and integrating with other tools like social media and email. 

Slack / Discord. Neither is new, but Discord is the one on the verge of going mainstream this year after years of being the domain of hardcore gamers. Both provide best-in-class tools for real-time communicating, organizing by channel and impromptu audio calls.

The Campfire Story

Content: Tribes used to gather around the fire and share stories that reaffirmed their beliefs, taught lessons and offered support to other community members. After a long day of surviving as a tribe, the warm glow of the fire was the perfect platform for attention. 

The glow of our Macbooks might seem to pale in comparison, but the digital world provides plenty of opportunity for community storytelling. Newsletters are a great jumping off point for getting people involved with the community through announcements, member spotlights, interviews, and user-generated columns and conversations.

Tongal has an incredibly consistent pipeline of content created by the community for the community, covering topics that are of value to other members. Since we’re a community of content creators, topics tend to cover things like how to pitch brands and how to manage a post-production team remotely. Community members learn, teach, and support each other with infrastructure provided by Tongal. Every community is filled with stories waiting to be discovered and told. Find people doing great work, overcoming adversity or bringing a unique perspective to bear and give them a platform to tell their story. 

II. A Partner 

A glowing screen blaring at millions of people is not a community. That’s why we’ll be explaining the forgotten concept of Linear TV to our grandchildren. Forget a two-way channel of communication, you want dozens. Your community offers the chance to collaborate on new products, test out new marketing ideas, and improve aspects about the group itself. 

Feedback: Community members have a totally different perspective than top-down leaders. Some people have very strong opinions and no problems offering them. Others feel strongly about something, but won’t be the type of person to raise their hand unless called on. You want to get feedback from both through direct and indirect channels. 

• Direct Feedback: Surveys, office hours, town halls, and open lines of communication like email and Slack allow you to ask, “What could we be doing better?” or “What would you most like to see next in the community?” 
• Indirect Feedback: This is the health of your community. Metrics like engagement, attendance and satisfaction often reveal how people really feel. If everyone at your last event said they would recommend future events to friends, but then you never see them again, they probably didn’t want to hurt your feelings. 

But you can’t just take your community at their word. Not because they’re dishonest, but because they might not know what exactly they’re asking for. 

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” 

-Henry Ford (not really)

Henry Ford didn’t really say that, but the spirit remains. If a segment of your community is asking for better speakers at events, it might point to a desire for better career development opportunities. You could build on that and pilot a mentorship or speed-dating program, in addition to addressing the base concern of “better” speakers. Measure afterwards to see how it was received. 

Support / Advocate: When Epic Games went to war with Apple last year, they were going to war on behalf of their community. Sure, they have profit-driven motives too, but CEO Tim Sweeney shares a vision for a more creator-friendly world with his massive community of gamers and developers. The strongest communities support each other around a shared set of values, even when the decision might anger some outside the community.

III. Effective 

In this case, “effective” means your community is helping meet the strategic goals of the business. There are lots of great things a business can get from starting a community:

• A source of new leads (customers and talent) 
• Decreased rate of churn 
• Increased brand awareness and thought leadership 
• Highly targeted product feedback
• A more efficient way of handling customer support 
• Diverse ideas at scale

Depending on where your organization is, you may choose to prioritize some things over others. A rapidly growing startup brand might be less concerned with churn in the short term and instead be looking to scale up targeted lead generation through lots of events. 

This is where measurement becomes so important. If you want to keep justifying the budget to your boss (who is already wary of “community-building” initiatives), investing in sturdy metrics and reporting will be worth it. 

Can you show a link between engagement in the community and the business’ sales pipeline?Do leads that come in through the community close faster, spend more, or stay longer than those that come from other sources?  Can you show a meaningful decrease in the costs of running the customer success team, because community members are helping each other solve problems? 

Where to Go From Here 

The Old Community Hub (Credit: Tom Antonishak)

There was actually something before John Patterson and the cold call. 

There was the General Store. A staple of frontier life in the early days of US history, the general store provided a place for people to gather, give speeches, hear far-flung news, and advertise for other goods and services around town. Eventually the townspeople would get around to buying all their necessities from the general store, too. 

With churches, civic centers, and even neighborhoods fading into the background, the brand that fills the community gap is going to be the new general store. Except instead of the General Store, this would more accurately be called the Specific Store. 

That’s because in a world where Facebook and Amazon are quasi-Nation states, you can’t be the place where people go for everything. Clubhouse is the Audio-Specific-Store. Tongal is for video creators that want more branded content opportunities. People are joining lots of smaller communities that super-serve their needs, introduce them to relevant people, and offer a platform for actual human connection. 

Communities are complex systems that require just the right set of circumstances to grow into something worthwhile. When enough of those elements are present, a community can develop into a vibrant place that is worth more than the sum of its parts. 

Are you working on building community in the Roaring 20s? Have thoughts or something I missed? Let me know in the comments or send me a direct message!