Expand Your Community Through Specificity

0:00It's not about hacks. It's not about viral growth moments. What it is about is being really clear about your ideal member, really clear about how it is in your member's best interest to expand the community with new members and why that is valuable to them in terms of new stories, experiences, and ideas, new people to navigate transitions with, the ability to help people on the path that you just finished.

0:39Hey, I'm Gina Bianchini, and this is People Magic, where we tackle everything that goes into creating a$1 million community that basically runs itself. Let's go ahead and get started. Hey, Gina, you talk a lot about members inviting other members and growing through referrals or nominations. I haven't tried this yet. How do you recommend starting? This is the best thing about building a community that really is about the relationships that members are building with each other. So when you have a community that's really a network, a network that gets more valuable to every member with each new person who joins, shares their stories, experiences, and ideas, lives near other members, more of your members are going to be invested in a community like this, as opposed to a source of content that is all about what you as the creator are putting out there.

1:45So this is where creators who are used to content or even course creators, they are like, wait a second, these kinds of referrals or members inviting other members isn't really happening in my Facebook group. They're showing up in my Facebook group because they've been through my funnel, they got bonuses, They bought my course. And I don't know that I believe you, Gina, that my members are going to invite other members. And let me tell you, we have got the data. So the data shows across Mighty Networks, we are seeing a very high rate of member referrals, member invitations. How does it work? How does it happen?

2:31A couple really simple techniques for tapping your existing members to bring in people that they know. If you have 30 members, your community is absolutely primed to grow itself. So 30 members sort of seems like, from all of our data, kind of the magic number. If you remember, like back in the olden days, the magic number for Facebook was people, if they had made seven friends, were going to be really engaged in Facebook. That kind of magic number in creating a community is if there are 30 members, that community has a really good shot at being high engagement, high value, where members will start to invite in other members.

3:24So the first thing you want to do is be really clear about who your community is for, your ideal member. Who are the people that you are serving? Who are the people that want and need your community the most right now, if right now is like all caps? The easiest way to have an ideal member that other members want to connect to, build relationships with, is identifying people who are navigating the same transition. So sort of pick that transition. I love transitions where somebody wants to start a business, where somebody wants to learn a new skill, where they're going through a life quake that they didn't actually plan on, whether that's grief, death of a loved one, getting fired from their job, loss of pets, whatever that might be.

4:14those transitions are where people are the most motivated to join new things, to seek out new things, to contribute once they are in the community, to show up at your events. That is really where the energy is. So having a lot of clarity in who that ideal member is and what is the transition that your community is helping people navigate and ultimately achieve results and transformation that they can't get on their own. That is the most important thing to be able to do this next step, which is ask your member for nominations. Think about the ways that you can, if you're just getting started, have founding members.

5:00Give your members who are inviting people in or nominating a specific badge, recognition, a leadership role that they're excited about in your community. Hey, will you host our Wednesday night Palo Alto meetup? Or we are putting together small groups. Everybody in their small groups, this is how you can apply these concepts to navigate this transition in your life. And then as part of the culture that you're building, we want to make sure that where there are people that want or need this community to achieve their results and transformation, the things that are important to them to accomplish, that they know about it.

5:53So building that in, do you have nominations? Hey, we are always looking for people that can expand the value of what we are building here together. By the way, what this is not is all of the just send somebody an email or, hey, sign up for this thing. You really want to make sure that everybody in the community knows where the community is going and how them being able to bring in a new member, bring somebody to the party is so powerful. I totally understand that it would be great if there was some like super secret viral growth hack that brings new people in and has all of your community members bringing in other members.

6:43And here's the thing I've learned. What I have learned is that it's not about hacks. It's not about viral growth moments. What it is about is being really clear about your ideal member, really clear about how it is in your member's best interest to expand the community with new members and why that is valuable to them in terms of new stories, experiences, and ideas. new people to navigate transitions with, the ability to help people on the path that you just finished for those that have successfully made it through that transition. These are the things that ultimately have members bringing in members.

7:35Also, have an open house. Have one-on-one conversations with members. If you do live events, ask people, you know, who do you think would enhance this community? Make it a part of the culture that you are building. I mentioned a moment ago about objections or, you know, the things that I hear often in terms of why it won't work for your community to encourage referrals, encourage bringing new members to an open house, encourage nominations for new people who you guys might want to add. Number one is, I don't know anybody. Like the whole reason I'm in this community is because my friends aren't in this community.

8:20Well, my answer to that is pretty easy. Moving it from something that feels like sales to feels like helping other people. And this is typically what I say in those moments of like, you know what? There is somebody maybe one degree away from you. So maybe it's not somebody that you know, but it's somebody that they know who is struggling or is ambitious. And they are going to hear about the community that we have built. And they are basically going to be like, oh my God, thank you, whatever your name is, just put your name right in there, for inviting me into this amazing community. Or it's just like that moment where somebody is like so excited that you made an introduction.

9:08There is someone sitting one degree of separation from you who wants and needs your community. And if you, as the host of the community, don't encourage nominations, referrals, bringing a friend, it's not gonna happen. It may happen a little bit here and there. But if you make it a part of your culture, every time you do a live event, every email that you send, at the end of every post, we are growing this community. Give me your nominations. I'll reach out to them. Hey, Gina, Allison recommended you or nominated you for this community. You could do it that way, too. The most important thing is that there is probably someone in your contacts right now that wants and needs this community.

10:04And when you just think about how people, how networks work, if that's true for you, now multiply that by the number of members that you have. Well, Gina, why wouldn't they have already invited people? Sometimes you actually have to just ask and make it a part of the culture. So now, not only do you have access to the contacts in your community's address books, but there is likely someone in their networks or in their network's networks who is going to be absolutely grateful for coming in and being a part of this community. Absolutely grateful, excited. This is the perfect thing for them. And I don't think we spend enough time being thoughtful about who this is for, what we're doing together, why it's going to matter to someone, how we can create so much value that somebody just feels silly not joining.

11:05And then using relationships to help people find and join communities that matter to them. This idea that that's too much work, it's too much friction, it's too much whatever, and people are just going to search the internet or check chat GPT or see it in a tweet or Instagram post or whatever it might be. The reality is only about 1 % to 2 % of people see your posts. So whatever it is that you think you're doing with that probably is not working. Additionally, I have never seen paid affiliates work really well in terms of incenting members. That kind of extrinsic motivation changes the dynamic in ways that you might want to do, but you might also want to avoid.

12:03I like to start with intrinsic motivation. Who is going to make this community, these experiences, our live streams, our conversations, our questions, who's going to make it more interesting, more energizing, better? Why are they going to be motivated to join? Because if they're going through a transition, they are motivated. They are motivated. So that's a really important piece going all the way back to the beginning of this conversation where it's about your ideal member. You might not even need to ask people, even though I strongly encourage you to continue to ask people, but you might not have to because they're super excited to bring those new people in.

12:44So this is only going to get more and more sophisticated. The other thing that is happening within communities, certainly on our platform, Mighty Networks, because we're building it, is really understanding and testing our way into what are the right moments to ask for nominations? What are the right moments? Like after somebody has been a part of a live stream, how do we automate more of these things where it just makes sense to ask somebody for a nomination or suggest sharing the community with people who are also on the same path who aren't yet members? So those kinds of things are happening.

13:27So getting really good at this is the difference between being wildly successful in growing a network and starting this flywheel of members coming in and getting tremendous value, members then talking about that tremendous value that they are getting and bringing new members in who can have that same experience and really just getting this going. When you see it happen, oh it's the best it's the best and it's not that much work it's not that much work it's not more work than posting on social media that nobody sees this is the smarter better much more efficient way of bringing people in again that 30 person number and then really building this ambassador culture where it is exciting to be bringing more and more people in because it's self-interested to bring more and more people in.

14:30Because you'll get more stories. You'll get more experiences. You'll get more ideas. You'll get more people to be able to go and meet up with. You'll get more and more people to be able to apply ideas together. That's the magic of networks. That's the magic of communities. It's why we do what we do at Mighty Networks. and I'm really glad you asked the question. So with that, I'm Gina Bianchini. Thanks for tuning in. This is People Magic and I'll see you next time. Woo!

15:06Thank you for being a part of People Magic. If you want more of a deep dive in any of these topics, but certainly having the framework of People Magic Profit, head on over to the website. The link is in the show notes. Have your own burning question about creating people magic? Well, I want to answer it. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to just drop your question in the review section wherever you're listening to this podcast and keep tuning in.