Creating Engaged Membership Communities On and Off Social Platforms

Guest 9': my question is around. Community in a membership and for those that have a Facebook group part of their membership, those who join your membership but don't have or want to be on Facebook, I feel like that eliminates such a big aspect of the membership.

So I'm curious, what do you do differently for those people, if anything, and how do you go about that?

Melissa: Great question.

Paul: Yeah. This is a, this is a good hot topic.

Melissa: Topic. Alright. Does anyone want to chime in that has communities, or maybe if it's not you specifically, if you've been in other memberships that do things differently too and share ideas with that.

As far as community,

Guest 8: and, sorry Danny, you only wanna talk to people like why you want us to answer if we use Facebook for the community piece only and we don't have another community space.

Guest 9': Right. I mean, I'm saying that because in my membership I have a Facebook group as my community aspect. So if you have a different way of doing it, I'll hear about it.

Guest 8: Okay. I can answer real quick. So my community is within membership.io, so it's like our private Facebook group there. and 'cause some of my members don't like Facebook. so the challenge is it's harder to get engagement off of the big platforms. I find. some people are not engaged at all. Some people are super engaged.

I think there's probably more on Facebook. but everyone is included. and another thing if you wanted potentially is I've asked would everyone want a WhatsApp group? And some people were like, yes. And some people were like, hell no. And I was like, okay, no WhatsApp group. So, you know, you could, you could try other ways too. That's just another option.

Guest 9': Yeah. I have thought about other ways. most of my audience is coming from Facebook anyways, so I, I know most of them are on Facebook. That's why I chose a Facebook group. But there are a few that either choosing not to join the Facebook group or don't want to.

I need to find a way to keep them engaged somehow.

Melissa: Yeah.

Joanna,

Joanna: This is interesting to me. I work with introverts and whilst some of them will be on Facebook, a lot of them have chosen not to be, but I find even the introverts in my groups are lurkers. So they will read and absorb, but they won't necessarily comment or post on their own.

So there's also a part of me that has to respect that and be okay with the fact that people are absorbing, but actually because they're often managing their overwhelm, that just because they're not a bit like in real life, just because they're not commenting doesn't mean they're not engaged. So I think there's a, really interesting point to work with there.

Guest 9': Absolutely. That's something I've learned myself because I'm in, I'm in groups too, and I don't comment all the time, so totally get that. Mm-hmm. just curious about. Not necessarily lurkers, but people who don't wanna join the group at all,

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: and Michelle,

Guest 10: I've done a couple different things. One, I always ask, especially if I've created a new community, I've asked my target perfect members, how would they want to have that community piece? And for one of my memberships that I launched last year, the, overwhelming response was Slack because they were already on that tool all day for work.

So that tool in particular, made it really easy for them to be engaged or post questions and get support during their workday. another one that I've experimented with recently has been school. This has worked really good for my audience in like a 30 day sprint that we're working on together. They like that.

It's off of Facebook. they're on Facebook a lot for their job. They work in marketing and it's a good break from them for them. And the other reason why I've been moving off of Facebook is I've had Facebook do some really funky things when I've set up a group properly. it decided to invite everyone that follows me and who, is friends with me, even though I had that setting toggled off.

Guest 9': Oh no.

Guest 10: So my old boss joined, all of these people that really were not supposed to be in this group. and they were getting in automatically bypassing the questions that I had set up. Because they were, quote, invited by me and Facebook, I'm verified. So I was able to try to get support. I spent three hours in chat with them getting passed around trying to figure it out.

And they're like, we'll follow up with you. We can't figure it out. I have not heard from them in like three months. So that situation also made me a little wary, of doing something that is a paid community. just because I had that issue, I'm like, Ooh, I don't know if I wanna go through that again. So I've been looking at tools that have much better customer support, than meta.

'cause their customer support is horrible unless you're spending millions and millions and millions of dollars a month with them.

Guest 9': Yeah.

Guest 10: So that's just been my, situation. And I've also found too that, sometimes, you know, people are just looking for reasons not to join and if they don't see value in the other.

Pieces that you're offering, even if it is a community based group, they're not the right person.

Guest 9': that's a

Guest 10: good, I've had to kind of let that go too.

Guest 9': Yeah, no, that's a good point and it's good to hear that. I'll have to keep that in mind. So I appreciate that feedback. Thank you.

Melissa: Awesome. Anybody else have anything they wanna add?

this is a, a good topic. I would say, there are gonna be some people that are gonna be avid users of the community and some people that just, that's not as important to them. just kind of pick to piggyback onto that, like whatever decision that you make, whether it's on Facebook or off Facebook you're not gonna make every single person happy and they might not even, find that aspect as important to them.

which is why it's important too that, if you have a membership and wanting to have some engagement, having lots of reminders about all the ways that you can support them in their membership journey. So, like for us, we have people that are in our Facebook groups, and we've avid participants.

We people that just. they're kind of just hanging out watching things. But every week we send out a weekly email and we remind them, Hey, here's all the calls that we have. here's the Facebook group where you can ask your questions. We're just constantly pointing them in directions of here are all the resources that we have, so that if and when they're ready to participate in the group, they know where to find us.

as you know, when you're hosting that membership is just doing your best to just show your members, like, here are all the different ways that we can support you. So you're giving them that information and then it's really up to them if they're gonna participate in that or, or not.

Guest 9': right.

Melissa: Yeah.

Guest 9': Perfect.

Paul: I'm gonna, I'm gonna add a few more things. We've tried three times over the last decade to move our groups off of Facebook.

Melissa: yeah.

Paul: And so we, we've been doing this for years, and we get reminded over and over again that retention will go down unless the people have that habit, like Michelle said that, like she's dealing with more of a B2B group and they're already on Slack.

Mm-hmm. So like, that's their daily consumption habit. So to give them where they're already hanging out is great. When you have 2 billion people a year, no matter what their opinions are. And even when half of 'em say they're leaving Facebook every other week, they're still back, you know, within two weeks.

So they can see their grandkids, 'cause if you move people off of Facebook, you have to figure out how to get their daily habit. Mm. To go into your community. Like that's the challenge that you have. So part of your, if you're doing that, part of your onboarding process should be, can you get an icon?

Can you get a link to your community on the home screen of their phone? Because if it is not, if they don't have a thing sitting in front of their face saying, oh, I should go there 'cause I just opened my phone up, let me go. I'm just curious. Or if you don't have an app that is pushing, saying, reminding them to come on to your app, they're gonna not go there, then they're not gonna consume.

And then when they get rebuilt, they're

Lee (2): probably not

Paul: they're going to not, see the value of, you know, like, Hey, I have, you have this thing and I'm not participating. I should cancel, you know, type thing. So we've looped back. Reluctantly three times. 'cause we, we get it and we feel the same way.

Mm-hmm. Like if we, if we can control our community and not have people trying to poach people outta the community and work the groups. And, and it's also for those of you that have sensitive topics, it's cool to have people come on and be able to create a screen name and be anonymous in a way where, on Facebook, and that's probably like in Tia's case where, you know, they're, if most of your people are coming from like B2B, like, you know, corporate world, they might not want the other members snooping on their personal profile, you know, and engaging.

Like in suddenly they get a, like from another member of their kid and their family that recital last week and is like, ugh. You know, you are on my personal, like, I don't know you that way. Mm-hmm. You know, so it's like, there, there are, and some of us dealing with health topics and mental elements and things like that where being anonymous, it's appealing to, and, and you would sell into that.

So what you would do is you would position in your offer when you're making the presentation, when you're, when you're in your launch, you'd say, oh, and oh by the way, I know Facebook's convenient, but I wanna respect your privacy. Like, you sell it as like point of like, wow, that's why I want to join because you respect my privacy and my anonymity and I can come onto this space and be open and vulnerable and, and talk about things that I normally wouldn't because I'm showing up as a screen name.

I'm not showing up as my, my real self. So it's more of a safe space. So just know as like, if you're doing that at the end of the day. Until every other week when Facebook screws something up and everybody's like, oh, I'm leaving. And I just started a school group and I just started this group and that group, whatever, you know?

And everybody slowly migrates back to wherever the attention is. Mm-hmm. So just keep that in mind. Where's the attention? And unless you can, most people that are on circle, on Mighty Networks on school are internet marketers that are telling other people to go on it as well. And normally there's an affiliate link attached to it.

Mm-hmm. they, they want you to click on their link so they get credit and it's either gamified, leaderboard, or they get to make money. If you end up buying it, you know, there's this other hook that's attached to it to get you to go there. So all of us just need to know our community and their consumption habits.

So I think like our, our Mastermind, they have access to our group coaching program, which is a Facebook group, but we talk through signal. A group chat. So the community, it's real time. They get notifications. They can turn it off if they don't want to get the notifications, but it's like real live group chat back and forth, video, voice, text, with the members back and forth.

now if you survey your members, whenever you, for any deliverable, do it in a vacuum. Don't do it publicly. So if you, if you survey your members publicly, then they will all swing in the direction of the popular vote. So they'll say, oh, social proof is 25% of the people said they wanna go off Facebook.

So I'll just say, go off of Facebook too. And then, you know, because they don't want to be the odd person that's gonna say if they don't like to cause waves or they're not a drama person. But when you do it in a vacuum, then survey your people. but don't do leading statements unless you want to lead them.

So don't just say, what is your feelings about the community? Are you happy with the platform that we provide? So that I'm not leading them? ' cause I could say like, are you happy with our Facebook group? And they might have a feeling about Facebook. Mm-hmm. And they're gonna now give you a negative thing.

'cause you led them by calling out a name, you know, type thing. You know? So give them opportunity, to give back. But I'm just saying. Whenever you do deliverables, if you're adding things or taking away, your members will spend your money so quick and they'll ask for more, more, more, more. If you do it in a public setting, they're just, and then you're gonna regret six months later, why did I make that post there?

Like, do it in a bubble. That way you can still make an, an informed decision based on the feedback you get. Yeah. Yeah.

Guest 10: Perfect.

Guest 8: And Paul, you guys keep going back to Facebook for the, to have high engagement is what I'm hearing.

Paul: Yeah. For, for us, it's convenience. It's part of people's daily habits. We're dealing with internet marketers and good Bayer indifferent. Most likely the $2,000 course that they bought has a Facebook group attached to it. Now we have, we have several members that, that openly tell us, they only come on Facebook to go into our group.

Which is okay. It's like, hey, this is part of that habit that can, you would still have to log into some other random platform.

Every day that you didn't use to come into the community anyway. So, but if they're intent, and really that's just you having conversation. Oh, you, you don't need to consume Facebook at all. Just just log right in, go right to right to our group to ask your questions. You know, it again, they would have to do that with a third party app anyway.

Melissa: Yeah.

but that's what the emails are, are great too because they, 'em, we point 'em back to the group and if they don't go on Facebook regularly, but they, like, for example, they wanna come on the calls, like in the email we provide a schedule, so they don't really necessarily even have to go into the Facebook group to get the schedule.

'cause they're getting an emailed to them too.

Paul: Yeah.

Guest 9': Thank you.

Melissa: Welcome. You're welcome. Well keep us posted. That's a great question.

Paul: and if you ask publicly, like, should I be on Facebook or not? It's like asking people what their favorite color is and trying to decide a color. Like you, you're just gonna get opinions all over the place.

Over the place. Yeah.

Guest 9': Yeah. I, I don't wanna necessarily go off Facebook because I know. Moms are on Facebook. I was curious about those that don't wanna join the group. So I like the email. idea. Thank you so much.

Melissa: Welcome.