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Welcome to the Tiny Marketing Podcast—the ultimate resource tailored for solo marketers and small teams! Do you find yourself as the lone warrior in a tiny marketing department or juggling marketing duties on top of everything else? Then this is the podcast for you. Dive deep with Sarah Noel Block, founder of Tiny Marketing, as she demystifies the art of achieving big results with limited resources.
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Tiny Marketing: Marketing strategies and systems for B2B service business founders.
Ep 83: Building Lasting Relationships from Events | Expert Guests: Meisha Bochicchio & Joel Primack | Uncut Summer Series
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Ready to supercharge your community-building efforts through marketing events? Tune into our special episode of the Uncut Summer Series on Tiny Marketing, featuring community consultant and content creator Joel Premack. You'll gain exclusive insights into the entire lifecycle of community engagement—from pre-event buzz to post-event follow-ups. Joel and I even share a delightful realization that we're both locals of Chicago's charming Lakeview neighborhood, adding a fun, personal layer to our chat.
Joel offers expert advice on tackling the tricky terrain of online communities, particularly when shifting away from platforms like Slack. Learn the crucial importance of meeting people where they are, connecting community activities to tangible business outcomes, and fostering a sense of belonging for small teams and startups. Discover why technology alone isn't enough to sustain a community and how ongoing interaction and relationship-building are key to long-term engagement.
Our discussion also covers the strategic value of creating dedicated spaces at events, from happy hours to shareable moments, that can extend your community's reach. Get actionable tips on leveraging virtual platforms for branding and engagement, and the benefits of collaborating with other companies to expand your influence. Finally, we'll dive into the importance of repurposing event content to keep your audience engaged year-round, with practical advice on personalized follow-ups and maintaining meaningful connections post-event. Don't miss out on these invaluable strategies to make your community thrive!
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Hey, hey, hey. This is Sarah Noelle Block and you are listening to Tiny Marketing. This is the uncut summer series, where you are getting the raw, unfiltered, unedited recordings from our interviews, webinars and workshops. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ridiculousness. Hey, gorgeous creatures, it is Sarah Noelle Block and you're listening to the Uncut Summer Series with Tiny Marketing.
Speaker 1:Today, I have Misha and Joel coming back to me to reveal the entire conversation I had with them. So I am sharing the whole conversation that we had that was in hold on. I'm pausing to check. Found on. I'm pausing to check. Found it. Okay, they were in episodes 62 and 64, where we talked about building community with your events. So in those two episodes we talked about the before, how to build community before the event happens, and how to build community during the event. And today I'm revealing the entire conversation where we get into the before, the middle and the after and the ridiculous conversations. I literally cut nothing. So you're going to hear some ridiculous conversations in here. Nothing, so you're going to hear some ridiculous conversations in here. And before we get into that conversation, I just want to remind you that the Tiny Marketing Club opens up for pre-sale today. So if you want super special secret pricing, get on that wait list and boop. The carts will open to you magically and you will get a very special price. All right into the conversation, sure.
Speaker 2:I will go first. My name is Nisha Bokikio and I am the Digital Content Marketing Program Manager at VMware. My role is unique in that it actually sits on our event marketing team, so all of the content programming that I create is really focused on repurposing and redistributing all of the fantastic content that our Explore event series creates and also relevant to our topic today. I'm very focused on kind of connecting the dots from our Explore event audience and kind of introducing them into our broader event communities that we have.
Speaker 3:And I will jump in now. So I'm Joel Premack, based here in Chicago, currently a community consultant and content creator. I have had the pleasure of serving and supporting a handful of communities, both in full-time roles and through my consulting business. Outside of that, I also host a podcast on community-led growth and guest speak, write, did a five-city tour with a company for in-person events in the fall of 2023, and really excited to be here today. So thank you, sarah.
Speaker 1:Joel, did you realize that we're neighbors? I'm also in the Chicago area.
Speaker 3:I did not Whereabouts.
Speaker 1:I won't triangulate, but Barrington area.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I'm originally from a northern suburb of the city, wilmette, and then now I actually live in the city, so I'm in East Lakeview.
Speaker 1:Nice. I lived in Lakeview when I was in the city.
Speaker 3:Yep, it's a good spot.
Speaker 2:Building community in real life, here live.
Speaker 1:It was my favorite neighborhood, because I changed neighborhoods probably once a year. Oh wow, I changed departments because I'm insane, but Lakeview is my favorite one.
Speaker 3:I've never left and I also don't know if I really would. I like the fact that I have six grocery stores in two miles and I'm three blocks from the lakefront and I'm close to everything, but I'm in a very quiet neighborhood. You go here to live. You don't go here to party or for anything else, just live a nice like peaceful, happy life.
Speaker 1:That's when you can walk to the party places there you go or a very short uber yeah, um. Yeah, I bet we were like basically neighbors. I was right by the lake too.
Speaker 3:Okay, I met like Broadway and Wellington.
Speaker 1:One of my friends was on Wellington. I was on Broadway and Monroe, okay, right across from that diner. Oh my God, I ate so many burgers.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, so you were a little bit north then.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was a bit north. I was going to DePaul when I lived there, nice.
Speaker 3:That's nice.
Speaker 1:All right back to the topic, but that's cool. Sorry, Misha.
Speaker 3:You're just like here for the ride.
Speaker 2:I love Chicago, so I'm here for it. I absolutely love the city.
Speaker 3:See, I want to get back to Boston.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh my gosh, I know well, me and Misha were talking about this. All my business friends are in Boston and I have maybe like two or three in the Chicago area.
Speaker 3:Hopefully you just made a new one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now Joel.
Speaker 3:Yep, hopefully you just made a new one, yeah, and now Joel Yep, see, we're up in that.
Speaker 1:I'll use you for your beachfront neighborhood.
Speaker 3:I mean it's busy over here, it's very busy. Look, he's already uninvited, you're like no, I never said uninvited. I'm just setting expectations that are real and that are honest. It gets busy over here and parking is non-existent, unless you like oh my god I've gotten towed so many times living in that neighborhood.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, this is why I just don't drive. I like opted out of driving.
Speaker 3:When I moved to a city I was like, yeah that's why I live where I live, so I don't need to, or I just uber car when I lived there you guys can meet up at the diner and go have some brunch burgers yes
Speaker 3:yeah, that would be an uber. Okay, I can do that see like if well yeah, it would work. Um, then we can hit the lake yeah after I'll be so bloated I won't go into it. I'll just be like lying there being like I need time to like digest that yeah, it's good lying down time after having the monroe burger sounds about right um, you mentioned your podcast, though what is it called? The Community-Led Growth Show.
Speaker 1:Okay, I like that. I'm going to check it out.
Speaker 3:It's just all about community.
Speaker 1:There you go. It's a great resource for community folks.
Speaker 2:He's had some phenomenal guests. So if you are curious to learn more about communities, I A-plus recommend it for sure.
Speaker 3:Aw, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:Someone was just asking me if I knew anybody who was a community expert, and I didn't. So boom, intro yeah.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. Okay, Today we're talking about community around virtual events. So how you build community before the event ever takes place, how to continue that community growth during the event, whether it's in person or virtual, because most of my events are virtual and then how you keep that going afterwards, which is really how service businesses sell. You have to keep that community going afterwards or they're going to forget you existed and they're never going to actually buy that offer. So let's dig into it. Can you walk me through the before the plant, the seed phase?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can dig in and, joel, definitely feel free to chime in as well. I think, for the purpose of setting the stage here, we're just going to assume, like before your event, these folks are not involved in your community yet. So maybe they've heard of it, but they're not actively engaging it. They're not really aware of it in some cases. So you're really just trying to plant those seeds, get them involved and pull them in before your event.
Speaker 2:I think some of the tidbits we'll share could definitely apply in a digital setting or an in-person setting as well, since we know both formats are very popular today. So I think one of the most obvious but very effective ways is to get folks involved in an email nurture. It sounds like not the most exciting advice, but it's the most effective. We know this, having an own list of folks that want to hear from you. So I think my first tip would be definitely leverage your email lists. Get people on, whether that's your newsletter, whether that's somebody registers, and you have a pre-event nurture series. For if you have a big conference or even if you have a VIP event where you're bringing folks together, or even a digital event you have, when folks register, you have a few opportunities where they're open to hearing from you before that event. Go ahead and introduce your community, let them know. Hey, we also have this great community you can join.
Speaker 3:We might plug it during the event, but just so you know, here's some resources for you about this community that we have so I would add into that and say, especially if you're going to go like the email route, email route is probably not my favorite. I'll be honest and say that I like get it, that it's, it's part of it, but it's definitely not my favorite. It's not the most fun thing for me. It doesn't get like my creative juices flowing, it's just like standard.
Speaker 3:But I will say and I have done this before of adding like a ps line after um like when you have whether it's like the registration confirmed email or an hour before, one day, before all of those kind of standard pre emails just having a you can switch up the and explaining the value and how it connects back to the topic of the event and is it where you have a dedicated channel on that specific topic or conversational space? Do you think that folks need a place to hear and connect with peers, to dive deeper into it, or is there like a hype place or like a channel for the event that, like you all have, and that you want folks to also join because you're going to drop like questions there or collect questions from folks through that space? There are different things you can do, but make it, I would say, engaging and also explain the value or why it's relevant to folks.
Speaker 3:Don't just say, hey, we have a community. Congratulations, you get one cookie for that but like only one that actually might be too generous, because like today communities are, so what if there's a lot?
Speaker 2:of communities like you really sell me on it. Like to your point, joel. It's like everybody is on board with the community train, like it's kind of like okay, I'm going to join another slack group and it's big, it's big too, like what is community?
Speaker 1:what is your definition of community? It could be your email list, but it could be a circle community or weekly Zoom sessions. What does it mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the email. It might not be the sexiest route to go. I think my examples were definitely not the best. It's still early, I'm drinking coffee, but I think to your point, joel, giving it a creative take. Maybe it is just a quick PS line so you can drop the seed and kind of plant the seed early and then have a few more touches. I hate that word, but introduce it a few more times. I think you can get creative with it. It doesn't have to just be like, by the way, join our community and get a cookie. You can make it something that is fun and something that kind of catches people and they're like, oh, what's this?
Speaker 1:And p piques that curiosity let's pause here for one second joel, continue thought, and then we'll pause right here because I have extra questions sounds good.
Speaker 3:I was just gonna say, on that note of being creative yeah, add a ps line, but you could also make it, for example, like your email banner too. Like your email banner too, that can be a great place, whether it's actually in your like gmail or outlook. And just having a different creative banner at the bottom in your email signature block that also calls out like something big. Of course that's going to be relevant to folks both externally, who maybe already are customers of yours or clients or highly aware of you, and maybe it's a great way to remind them of something big that's upcoming. But then also for those folks who are maybe more in that like prospect or just curious kind of bucket, it can be a great way to also showcase something of hopefully high value to them too. So, taking email, but in a different lens, that can also be a great way, and that's something that we've done effectively in a past role of mine too. So now I will pause and say Sarah, go back to whatever questions you want to double down into.
Speaker 1:Okay, One second though On that. I have made that change to my signature.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I add that CTA into my just standard email signature If I have an event going on or some sort of lead magnet that I want and I'll. It's made a massive difference. I didn't like it felt super passive, but's made a massive difference. I didn't like it felt super passive, but it made a massive difference. But just one more. I also added it to my social media cover photos. So, whenever I'm doing a new event, I'll put that in the cover photo.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I definitely agree that, like, like how do I say this? Some of these things that seem low lifts actually have the biggest impact because you're hitting people like when they can take action and when they are potentially most thinking about it. I know, for example, like we were really successful using a similar thing about changing the creative banner and our email signature blocks in a past role around big things that we wanted to showcase. Additionally, and I would say, in a different vein, another company I worked at actually ran ads successfully around promoting our community and that was actually a really successful way to actually get folks to show interest into. It was actually just through ads and not really anything specific around the company. So just sharing, like other things, work and community can be a great CTA, but it's all I would say in the lens of being clear about the value, if that makes sense, and making it timely and or ideally, relevant at the same time.
Speaker 1:I like that, and we talked about email as a possible community element.
Speaker 2:What other places are great for community building them Like circles, slack, facebook groups part. And this is a very tactical thing where do you build your community? You have to go where your people are, which is very interesting because I will say I in my past lives have been a big fan of oh, I prefer communities in Slack because I work in Slack all day. I'm already there. That was just my preference. Now, unfortunately, I'm in a company that is going away with Slack, which I'm still coping with.
Speaker 2:This information so appreciate your thoughts here, but it's hard now because all these communities that I was very active in I forget about it because I'm no longer in Slack. It's like, how do you solve for those types of problems? So, yes, go where people are. I think there's always an element of you have to give people a reason to go somewhere too, so I think that's why I'm seeing more people move to platform like Circle, or I'm sure there's a dozen other ones out there. More people move to platform like Circle, or I'm sure there's a dozen other ones out there. I don't know, Joel, you might have a more succinct answer than me, but go where your people are and also give them a reason to go there.
Speaker 3:I would definitely echo that. Give them a reason. It goes back to just being value-focused. If it's not a good community, we're not going down that whole bucket, but just understand that's a key thing. If it's not a good community, we're not going down that whole bucket, but just understand that's a key thing. If it's not good, then people aren't going to go. As Misha said a few minutes ago, there are a number of communities in the world today world today and so either folks are going to say where they are because it is good per se and valuable, or they are going to check it out and then say peace out and find another place.
Speaker 3:I don't waste my time in places that I don't gain value from. I assume misha doesn't. I assume you don't, sarah. It's just natural. I'll just say it. I would also say around like specific, like platform or other things, around that kind of vein of like how and where it depends, not just like where your folks are, if you want to have in the community, but also connecting it to business outcomes, making sure that you're launching things that clearly are and like roll back to business outcomes and beyond that are also possible for like where you are today, either in terms of resourcing or company life cycle, etc. Just being realistic if you can't do the moon, shoot for a star. If you can't hit a star, hit a cloud, because you'll always be there to land on them. I don't know, I'm just like you can put that yeah, but just be realistic okay, just be like realistic.
Speaker 3:Is the point of this? Don't over invest in tech. If you can't actually build and support the program behind it, tech doesn doesn't run anything. It's like the strategy, it's the thought, it's the continuation of, like you spending time there with your members that makes something in community successful. So I guess really that's where I was going with that. Apologies for all of the moon, star and cloud references, it just happened.
Speaker 2:No, I think you're like spot on, though it's like tech can only get you so far and I think, given the context of a lot of the listeners might be at smaller companies. They might be one person marketing teams. I think Joel and I both have experience startup, enterprise, everything in between so we're definitely not suggesting, oh, every event you have needs a bespoke community, or you need to drop everything and invest in building out a full community, like it is an investment. It's an investment a lot of folks are making because it does pay off in the long run. If you're just getting started or you're like I can't list a full community, that's okay. A lot of these things I think can be used to build a sense of community or create a sense of community. When you're bringing people together at your event, whether that's an in-person engagement, a digital event, there's still these things that you can do to create this sense of community without having to go all in on building this year-round community strategy.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's a good point.
Speaker 3:I would just say on that too, is like you can, especially especially from the event perspective, start and like hyper focus in the sense of if you want to work with folks in a specific geography or segment or industry, like hold, maybe monthly, like virtual round roundups or like roundtables or meetups or whatever for folks in that space, get it in front of them too, and then maybe it simultaneously or other, like the following week or the week before you do like your own event. That's more educational, that you actually like lead and speak at and whatnot. That's also relevant. But through all of these, the point is like you can do something that shows and starts getting the ball rolling to. You're gonna start meeting folks like the more you do and show and truly care about people and the space that they're in, the more they're going to open up to you and say, oh hey, I'd love xyz.
Speaker 3:Um, one of my clients I am working on like a project with right now. They actually just did their first user group and something that they actually heard from one of the attendees was that a great question if they actually had a space for folks to chat off like asynchronously, aka, like a community, whether it's on Circle Slack who knows whatever? But they actually got that question. On circles slap, who knows whatever? But they actually got that question and it was just really interesting to hear someone wanting that from an in-person event. And so it just shows that events can start the conversation. Events can also be like part of the community experience, but I would argue either way they go hand in hand and they work really well together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a great point too, joel, is another, I guess, channel for pre-event community promotion. Kind of tying it back is that you can absolutely use. If you have an existing community, use those folks for referrals To your point. If you have a regional event and you happen to have folks that you know live in Boston or Chicago say hey, we're hosting this dinner, we're hosting this online roundtable, would love to bring like-minded folks together. Do you have any recommendations? Feel free to invite your friends, like just using your existing group of community members, to continue to grow the community and get folks into your events.
Speaker 3:Go ahead. Okay, sorry, this is turning exactly like what misha and I said during our prep session, which was like we would just be riffed, and sorry, but on that I would just also say that like yes, and you can also bring members like into the fold of like actually being speakers or leading events or being on panel or like getting insights into what's top of mind for them. Is it like their biggest pain, something that they want to celebrate in their space, or is it like a platform, like creating a huge wave throughout it, like you get those things, weave it into your experience. So it's again timely, relevant, if it's not either.
Speaker 2:Ideally, both of those luck I feel like now, if you ask people like what's top of mind, everything is just like ai, yeah, that's all. I don't really love it like besides ai, what's?
Speaker 3:top of mind. Everything is just like ai, yeah, that's all.
Speaker 2:I don't really love it like, besides ai, what's top of mind? But I do love the idea of again pre-event asking folks like what's on your mind? What do you want to talk about? What's pressing hot button? Hot takes.
Speaker 3:This event is for you, so you know, help us, help you and make the best use of your time exactly, and that can also be a great way to invite panelists or other folks into it and say, hey, that's a great topic.
Speaker 3:I actually don't know a lot about it. I might be able. Would you be interested in being on a panel of potentially one other person if I bring someone else and if you can find a peer too, and then I could be like the moderator. If you're like the community leader, the marketer or the owner of the company, whatever that could be like a really basic but still impactful way to bring folks along for the ride. Make more of that like one-to-one connection between those folks who you're engaging with, but also then humanize the event itself. So it's not just like you you got three other people, so now you're up to four and you can promote them. You can send out like social packets for them, like all of those sorts of things. So it's just good, as long as I said, one more time to really beat this horse like it just has to be timely and relevant, that's all and you're taking that relationship to the next level by giving them an opportunity to be spotlighted in that event.
Speaker 1:so that's just going to bring in more referrals, more promotion, because now you have multiple people promoting that event. And something I like to use community for pre-event is filling the event. So the easiest lift I've had that had a big impact on my event getting sold out is meetup groups creating meetup groups that are hyper-focused on a specific target audience for that event and meetup will fill those communities. For me it pushes them out to the right people and then I just put those events on that meetup group and they fill so easily.
Speaker 2:so that has been a really easy way to build community around the event but also like gain awareness around it yeah, and I love the meetup group too, because I've seen some in boston or other areas and I think an interesting feature is you can see who's coming to the event.
Speaker 2:A lot of times they'll preview like x amount of people have already registered or signed up or whatever. So it's social, social proof. But I think if you're not using a third party, that gives you that visibility small, again, small list, but just like introducing people before the event. So, whether that's if you're having an intimate online roundtable here's the 10 other people that are going to be here today or for an in-person event Again works better for smaller events, but hey, here's the people that are going to be here today or for an in-person event again works better for smaller events, but hey, here's the people that are coming to tonight's dinner. Give them an opportunity to like connect and meet with folks before the event, to break some of that tension of like awkward strangers in a room and you're like oh, I already know, this is sarah. Sarah, so nice to meet you in person. It gives them a little bit of that connection before the event.
Speaker 3:Yep, that's exactly actually what one of my community consulting clients does before our monthly dinners. So we'll spin up a specific and private space for all of the attendees of that dinner and then I'll share out the names, titles, companies. I'll share out the names, titles, companies and LinkedIn's of all of the attendees, usually 24 to 48 hours in advance of the event and people exactly like just get to meet check it out. One time specifically, I remember someone was really surprised to see another person from their same kind of industry. I was like, yeah, happy coincidence.
Speaker 1:Glad this worked. That's really good advice. I love that idea and I haven't even thought about doing something like a dinner.
Speaker 3:I love a good dinner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's such a good idea and it's so personal.
Speaker 3:Misha, that's what we'll do when we go international. It'll just be like 10-person intimate dinners.
Speaker 2:I love those types of events though.
Speaker 2:It's like I just prefer to sit and have like long, deep conversations with folks versus a lot of your bigger events. Sometimes they'll do the everybody happy hour and that serves a purpose too, for sure. But I definitely love, like a good, let me just get to know they'll do the everybody happy hour and that serves a purpose too, for sure, but I definitely love, like a good, let me just get to know five people super well and their role and their problems and challenges versus speed date. Try to meet 20 30 people an hour.
Speaker 1:That's a good like introvert event too, intro where you can have those intimate conversations for sure. All right, let's dig into the middle part the community during the event. How do we get more engagement and help people build relationships with each other during either an in-person or virtual event?
Speaker 2:I will speak from the in-person event perspective, just because I happen to be on an event team. We do work on a larger event, conference, so some of this might not translate to some of the smaller events, but you can certainly take your own spin on it. But one thing that we do support is at our event, our event also. I know Inbound does it, content Marketing Institute does it two of my favorite events they have dedicated spaces for their communities at the event. So they have, you know whether it's a dedicated physical space. They might have dedicated events outside of the primary event. You know, little happy hours, a dinner, that kind of thing. But just creating space and having a presence there just for the community members.
Speaker 2:I think it's great to be able to bring people together at your event. It's almost like a reunion, right. I feel that way whenever I go to content marketing world. It's like a big reunion with the people I see there every year. But it also again kind of creates that awareness and can help you grow your community and let people know like, oh, if I come to Inbound every year or whatever event, it is like I'll have this whole community that I can then reunite with every year and kind of keep in touch with throughout the year. So those are some examples of just again kind of bigger scale thinking. You could certainly replicate that, I think, if you do have smaller in-person events, again creating that sense of community and giving folks kind of a reason to engage throughout the year.
Speaker 1:Side note, I also go to Content Marketing World, so we'll have to meet up. Oh my gosh Well we'll see.
Speaker 2:They moved it to the West Coast. I'm like that's really far they did Wait.
Speaker 1:where are they going to have it next year? In San Diego next year? I didn't know that. I know they just moved it to DC. I thought they were keeping it there.
Speaker 2:They moved it to DC. I thought they were keeping it there. I know I think there were reasons why they moved it, which I understand, but I think, from what I've heard they're trying to do, they're going to oscillate now West Coast one year, East Coast one year. So we'll see.
Speaker 1:But I'm like I was very excited for the move to DC Because I'm like, oh, I could take the train, I think, so the timing is a little different too.
Speaker 2:I mean that's a good time to be in San Diego.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Maybe I will see you in San Diego later this year.
Speaker 3:What were you going to say, Joel?
Speaker 1:No, I don't remember. It was all about how to speak community during the event.
Speaker 3:It was probably about a cloud, no, or a star, or a moon, dreamforce, I guess, kind of clouds.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm done clouds, dream dreamforce also does that too, and I would say, like in terms of during it, something that I'm a big fan of, which I love in kind of like b2c spaces and I'm waiting for more b2b to catch up to this, especially like doing and creating spaces, or doing like things that are super, like shareable, like do you have like a step and repeat, where it's a really cool thing, like there is this happy hour from inbound, like a few years ago, I swear they had like a bunch of partners. They bought out this entire brewery. Oh, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3:I was there, actually, zoomed in and read every single logo um because I was just so curious I've seen it that many times like, do something like that, or like, have a really cool like selfie station or like one of those things where you like put your heads in like the things and like, yeah, I don't know, I'm just saying like, like, do things that are also like shareable, because then, like it extends the life outside of just even your community, but more like broadly, like it's great content for your company to engage with. It's great content that, assuming you get permission, you can use as like social proof for like next year. Um, on the landing page for the event, you can do it for a billion, one number of things. But that would be like my big plug is like do things to also extend it and take it out of just like the physical especially, or digital too, and into like other channels.
Speaker 2:I think that's actually a really good example, joel, because that specific event it was, I'm just going to say, like six to eight B2B tech companies that clearly had overlap in the persona.
Speaker 2:So it's a good reminder that even if you know you might be a one-person marketing team, you might be a startup, you might be just exploring the power of events and community, you don't have to do it alone. You can partner with other folks, whether that's formal partners through integrations or just kind of your friendlies that are like, oh, we don't really compete but we overlap you know some in who we're going after. Host events together, you know, bring your community together in a friendly way, and it's kind of a great way for you to, you know, dip your toes into those community and event waters without having to take on the full investment yourself. I will say that to me that was like an A plus example of companies kind of coming together and I had a blast. I feel like I met a lot of people and I would definitely like it left a very positive experience, you know, for all of those companies, for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah On that.
Speaker 3:My like one asterisk with that would then just be figure out like who or how the post like post event experience is going to be owned by like is it if you each have your own rcp page, you each like handle it appropriately for your own like rcps or like some other way? Just because, like the one thing I wouldn't want to have happen if I were working on an event like that is like another company that I as an attendee didn't sign up with or like because of, but they got my information or they like acted in like a really like negative way, and so then it impacts all of the brand's, like reputations, who were involved with the event. So, like that would be my way. Like one really big asterisk next to that is figure out that up front, not after, because either then you're going to be delaying the follow-up, which then isn't really timely or potentially relevant to and we both know how I feel about that, especially by now or it's going to be chaotic. Neither of which of those options are good, by the way.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, definitely some logistics to figure out, for sure, and creating that great experience for folks not only at the event but also post event as well before we get into post event, I want to just touch on some elements that you could bring into virtual events.
Speaker 1:So it could be like content marketing. World, for example, had an app where you could build community in there. You can direct message people. We created like a solo travelers group on there where anybody who went to the event alone can meet up. What are some other ways that you encouraging conversation during that digital event and making manufacturing the conversations and little pools within your chat? Do you guys have anything that I haven't thought of for building community on a virtual platform?
Speaker 3:uh, at least this is kind of a different take on that. Um, I was going to an in-person event in the fall of last year and not through their app or anything like that. They, the company that was hosting it, specifically owned, but in a different community that was for the same like persona. We actually had a dedicated private space for folks in that community to chat about it. Um, and I guess the reminder is like to me it's not, it wasn't top of mind or something that I wanted to do in their formal space.
Speaker 3:Um, I also don't really know too many people in their space or like community, but I definitely did in this other community. So I went to like where, automatically, I felt comfortable and confident to have that kind of conversation, to build it. So I chose to build it like where I want to build it. So I guess the end all be all of this is you can do all you want. Equally, people are going to go where they want to go, not always to where you like want them to go, and you just sometimes have to be okay with that.
Speaker 1:That also just made me think of like kind of community jacking, where you could be your own brand and going to an event but you can create a community around it in order to gain some of that audience for yourself, like if they're missing the mark and they didn't create a community around it, you can do that I mean they have at least that specific one, they have a community space.
Speaker 3:Um, it's just not one that I've gained exceptional value from, I would say, and, as we all know by now, I need that in my life, for me to come back to a space. So with that, I just kind of did this in sync set and went bye, bye, bye and went to a place where I was happier.
Speaker 1:So yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 2:I think, for digital. I know I also one of my prior role was at a digital event platform, so I would be remiss if we didn't, you know, list some of the again like very low effort, high impact ways you can promote your community, engage your community. A lot of these might be kind of obvious, but I've seen events where they kind of position it as sponsored by the community, which it's not like there's probably dollars being exchanged internally, but it might be, you know, this event by our community just to kind of position it as a thought leadership event and you're putting the community front and center. That could be one way to attract folks to come and again kind of elevate the community. There's so many features within these platforms now where you can add in different CTAs or change backgrounds or add in, you know, pre-event slides or sizzle reels, so there's just a lot of like small branding and marketing opportunities, I think, to really highlight and remind folks about your community.
Speaker 2:And then I think one of like the sneaky ways that and this is something that I think a lot of people just turn off because they don't want people to get distracted. But I personally love events digital events specifically that have the ability to connect and chat with other attendees one-on-one. I've definitely been on like webinars or digital events where I see like oh, oh, joel's there, like let me like sneak in and say hi, or, you know, you see people there, you kind of the B2B marketing community, you kind of run in the same circle. So there's that ability to like connect and be like, oh, what you know, what do you think about what they just said? Or kind of having conversations around the event. I personally love that and I don't think it's distracting.
Speaker 3:And I love, again, that ability to engage with folks during the event. I definitely agree with misha on that point. Um, I'm not sure if we've ever done it, but I've definitely done it with other folks too, at events and like whether it's being like, oh my gosh, that was so good. But or being like a little snarky um, because you need like all you need the full commentary, you need all the commentary um on it. But I think that it just makes it like more memorable for you and like there's someone else who you're engaging with, so you also are staying like more engaged in the content itself too. I would say it's part of it. Um, and I totally blanked again on something else. I was gonna say this this is so bad, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:I think another like hack for your digital events too, just to again like the on the theme of during the event, trying to connect people, trying to continue conversations, like obviously prompt people to use your chat that's like digital event management, one-on-one. But definitely like encourage people like hey, do you want to connect?
Speaker 2:Keep the conversation going, drop your linkedin people love it it's like such an easy thing to ask people to do and then, once somebody does, you'll get a flood of 100 people and then they're going and connecting with each other and, you know, hopefully commenting on each other's content and building those relationships, which is awesome uh, I just remembered to misha's point earlier about branding events as like presented by, or whatnot, like their community.
Speaker 3:I've almost gone the extreme other way of. It's not the companies at all, it's solely the communities. And then it's just like everything. It's like completely A to Z rebranded community, everything. It's like completely a to z rebranded community. Nothing from the company um ever touches that person during that experience, like end to end um, and I think it's like good in a lot of ways, excuse me, because it just makes people feel like more relaxed, like they know that there's not anything like coming down the pipe it's just you're not like.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's another post to that email.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna have to unsubscribe to try to sell me on xyz software yeah, you get your walls up when you know you're going to be sold to exactly so I think that that helps and it also opens up, especially from the company perspective, like the who, the what, like all of it, because it's not always having to be tied back directly to like your product specifically to your customers, to your exact prospects, like you get more bandwidth because it can be related to helping folks just be successful too with their careers, especially in like the b2b space. And like people, especially now, more than like in the last like 20, 50 years, like are changing companies, like so many more times. So therefore, if someone has a positive experience continuously, like with your company, like they really be a multiple-time buyer, even in a relatively short amount of time and I wouldn't under cut or under value like that sheer monetary value of like.
Speaker 3:I know from a past experience like someone who was a multiple time buyer at a company I worked at and I found out about it through being in the community. I built a relationship with the person. They told me people internally didn't know so yeah, I actually.
Speaker 1:I was doing a strategy session with a client not that long ago and they were telling me that almost all of their new work comes from someone bouncing to a new company and bringing them along. So it's really undervalued. Keep maintaining that relationship with people as they transition. Just having their email address, you're going to lose them. You need have them on attached to you in multiple ways well that.
Speaker 3:But I would also say it's like I don't know I there's an element of when someone bounces like jobs, um, like don't just say like high floating up kind of thing. Like be thoughtful, be thoughtful, please. Like the worst thing. Imagine if you got the note that you were about to send. Would you be like oh, this is really great. Or like thank this person because it's just like a congrats kind of note, where it's just like super light, nothing crazy. Or would it make you roll your eyes, like I've definitely gotten some that like just made me roll my eyes and like I'll respond because I'm nice, but I don't expect anything from this. And it's exactly true like most of those come in the form of things from my podcast that I host not so much like business, thankfully, but nonetheless like if someone got some of these messages that I've gotten, there would be many more eye rolls in the world.
Speaker 3:Give me an eye roll message example please uh, my favorite most recent one was someone sent me hi, joel, I saw you recently started a podcast. Uh, I'd love to learn more about it. Uh, there was also no period after the learn more about it. Uh, that's just one. Two recently, like yeah, in the last few years. And three just do better. Like look at the caliber of guests who I've had on my show. If you think that you, like, with that little dinky pitch or thing, is ever going to make it into a lineup with people like that, like I don't know what to do other than say, like, best of luck to you, because it's well I know we're a little off the rails, but I do have a very high rolly thing, since we're on the topic next up sarah yours, so yeah it's just the linkedin connection request and it's like I get it.
Speaker 2:I'm not the best at always sending personal messages. If I see we have 100 people you know in common'm like we're probably running the same circle. But you know, I try to. You know, put out a little note, like connecting from XYZ community or I see you're also a B2B event content marketer, whatever Just the messages I get, sometimes like oh, you did zero work. So I got one, literally like, checked it last week and it said Misha, notice, you are following XYZ Tech Company. That has nothing to do with your job. I'm not going to say the name of the company, Thank you. Would you be open to an intro call and demonstration? Would love to show you the latest Thanks, Because I follow your page on LinkedIn. Now I want a demo and naturally did you not know that.
Speaker 2:That one. Just I was like let me dig this up because I just saw it and it's like I have feelings, clearly.
Speaker 1:My cringes are pretty similar to that where it's like a 300-word message on LinkedIn just telling me all of the places that they have gotten guest posts or whatever. It's always some SEO company. It's like I can get you featured in blah, blah, blah, blah. But those long drawn-out template messages aren't going to work. I don't want to read them. I don't want you to sell to me and I don't know who you are.
Speaker 3:I love that someone spent 300 words when I get maybe like 50 and they're still just as bad. Oh my god.
Speaker 2:You can be terrible with 50 characters. You can be terrible with 300 characters. You can be terrible with 500 characters. If your content isn't relevant and timely, it sucks Boom sucks, boom, okay, now we're done, literally so we have to get to post event.
Speaker 1:This is like arguably the most important part of yeah you are right, misha, let's talk about post event community, because you cannot maintain your relationships with your event attendees if you don't have this piece, let's talk about it.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll start with this of like, share it Literally, put it on demand. It's not hard, you should be doing it already. Unless it's like Okay, in person, like dinners don't record those, that'd be creepy and weird. And like intimate roundtable things. Either be like extremely mindful of it and let people know or don't record those either. But if it's like a webinar, if it's like a webinar, if it's a panel, if it's a fireside chat, if it's like you presenting on something and it's like 40 minute presentation, 20 minute q a like record, record, record, and I'm going to say this a million times.
Speaker 3:I'm sure misha will so to and agree to, hopefully, um with this is like the content is great and then you just repurpose and put it in a billion and one other places to keep like remarketing it. It's just like when you're marketing anything else. Like you need like a billion and one touch points for it to just like when you're marketing anything else. Like you need like a billion and one touch points for it to actually like stick in your brain and to keep being like top of mind. I guess. Like it's the same thing with your content. Like it needs to be intertwined, it needs to be utilized different ways. It needs needs to be valuable and shared out continuously and in different formats. Make a quote card, get a 30-second video clip, drop three great takeaways in a LinkedIn post, do all of them over three weeks following it and just do that.
Speaker 2:It's not hard. It's's not hard, but it is hard.
Speaker 3:I will say like it's not, like it's just like go do these things, like it's not yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it takes effort, it takes time but.
Speaker 2:I do generally agree that for the right types of events, like repurposing and redistributing your event content is a natural extension of the event and it's still a great way to continue to if it is a community event, you know celebrate and highlight your community members. Or it's a good way to reach new people who, again, might not be aware of your company, might not be aware that you host events, might not be aware that you have community. So totally like plus one that I think. To go back to my very boring first recommendation of email, still a great way to reach people, even post event. So I think having a very thoughtful post event, you know, communication strategy where you can introduce the community, is always nice and I think, um, now I'm having that. I just forgot what I was gonna say. Moment, we're full of them today.
Speaker 2:This is why we're friends oh, okay, so now I remember. Um, so you know, having your post-event thoughtful outreach strategy is great. I think your goal, when people are at the events, to an extent, is to get them into the community, whatever that means for you. So is that to get them to? You know, join your? So is that to get them to you know, join your Slack group? Is it to get them to go? You know, register for you know a place on your Circle portal, whatever it is, I think your goal would be to get you know in person. Brought them to our community event, had a great time, great. Let's keep the conversation going. Please join us throughout the year. This is just like a sneak peek of what you can expect. So definitely, whatever like that means for you.
Speaker 3:You know, post event you know, try to get people into your community uh, from that I would say, especially for like in-person events I've done this, you can do it during, but also after too is like take pictures and share it out. Like you can share like thank you so much for like everyone, like loving the buzz right now in the room, like that's kind of during. Then you can do like thank you so much for everyone who came out today to xyz thing. They can do like a third one on like interesting conversations you heard or like participated in, or if it was a somewhat larger and there were actual like formal takeaways, like do some of that stuff too, but like humanize it, like with the pictures. Don't just like tell people, but like show people, I would say is a big thing.
Speaker 3:And for other, like virtual events and pushing people into like a community, just like how do I say this? And pushing people into like a community, um, just like how do I say this? Make it like smooth, like make the process smooth, make it easy for folks. So it's also not like 28 steps, don't make it like painful, because it's just like when you're signing up for anything else and you have to do more and more things. It's just every opportunity is another step for someone to drop off essentially. So be mindful of that too. I'd encourage, instead of gathering every single thing under the sun about them up front, maybe wait a little bit, just a little bit.
Speaker 1:One of my clients does these CFO sessions where they have a CFO dinner and they always write articles about the inner circle insights that come out on finance and they do articles on that and I always thought that was really interesting and you're getting to just like be a fly on the wall in this really important conversation. So that's a fun way and an old school way that I try and build stronger relationships with my attendees after I host an event is I try and connect with them one-on-one Like. I will connect with each of them on LinkedIn. I will try and get on connection calls and just like who can I introduce you to Like what? What would be helpful for you at this season?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's an important like thing to keep in mind is you know, I think communities a lot of people think scale gross have to do everything. It's like I feel like it's more impactful when it is that one-on-one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially if you're a service business, because they are like when they are buying something, they are buying you as a person, like they have to actually like you and trust that you know what you're doing, and building those one-to-one relationships are the best way to do that.
Speaker 3:No, no, not at all Treating humans like humans, what I know right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be crazy.
Speaker 1:How do we scale that? Yeah, well, that's like.
Speaker 2:I went.
Speaker 3:AI.
Speaker 2:I have like an example. I went to an event last fall. It was a small like in-person dinner for, like event marketing. People had a great dinner, great conversation, and then a couple months later, like the person who runs the community has, you know, stayed in touch via LinkedIn. You know just has been building that relationship, and then they reached out at the end of the year.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know I remember, based on our conversation you'd mentioned this would you be interested in being featured in an article, like very one to one type stuff? But I do think that's so important to keep you know that relationship going throughout the year. And it's a good way to also, you know, tap your community members, for you know your own content right, like user generated content that's so powerful you know it's not what I think it's, you know, let me tap my community and get some insight from them. So I'll just an example of you know to your point there, that kind of like really human experience. I'm like, wow, okay, like they do care about me as a person in this community, not just you know gross at all costs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it makes a massive difference. Like, okay, I actually want blogs. Been there, done it pretty much all Except for paid Paid. I've done once and I don't love it. Sorry, it's just not my thing.
Speaker 1:I hate paid too. I always prefer it out.
Speaker 3:I don't hate it. I want to be very clear Don't hate it.
Speaker 1:I hate doing it. I think it works.
Speaker 3:But it's expensive it is expensive, but it's expensive, um, it's expensive, but at least from my perspective, like I don't think that you really have community truly like yet until folks actively want to participate in stuff with you, like it's about the feeling of making them like feel connected and like wanting to do something and like go down the path with you, um, whatever it is. And so, from my perspective, whether it's like content for an event, a blog quote card, whatever, um like, if none of that's happening yet, like you need to spend more time, you need to get closer to your members, or else, like what you have I would probably just argue is like an audience, not an actual community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there's a distinct difference there that I don't think a lot of people recognize Like consumers of your content aren't necessarily your community, they're just students. Is there anything else you guys want to add before we wrap up?
Speaker 2:I will just plug. You know some companies that we have talked about and if other folks have great examples you know, share them. I think we're all marketers looking for inspiration. But huge shout out to my Content Marketing Institute peeps. I went to Content Marketing World a few years ago as a solo traveler here by myself and I just felt so welcomed by their community and now I'm a huge advocate for them. I think they do a great job. Hubspot always is an example of great marketing Dreamforce. A lot of you know marketing tech company examples, but I think they do a great job. So if you are looking for inspiration, those are definitely good companies to kind of check out and see what they're doing in the community space. And I'm sure you have other examples too. Joel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm totally blanking on the name of the event, but I always hear about it every year. It's Six Senses in-person one and it I want to say it's in like Arizona, but it's really interesting like their whole strategy and thoughts behind it. So huge shout out to Six Senses. Others I would say I love Lattice's like virtual event, um every year. Rfh, uh, virtual, and what other ones do I look forward to? I don't know. I'm gonna have to think more. I didn't plan that um learning for a future podcast episode, um. But in general I would just say like, have fun, Like if it's not fun too, like is it really also human, and that's kind of the whole point of community too.
Speaker 3:Like community is probably, and possibly arguably like the most, if not one of the most human centered like functions within a company. So be personable, do the things that don't always scale, build relationships like one-to-one all that, um, it'll be good. Just got to be intentional.
Speaker 1:Be thoughtful, have some fun that's a good end note for this. How can people find you online and work with you?
Speaker 3:uh, linkedin would be the best place for me yeah, same, I'm on, I'm on linkedin.
Speaker 2:Uh me shibu kikio.
Speaker 1:I'm extremely findable, so feel free to connect I will have both of your linkedin profiles in the show notes page. And do you guys have? Is there a way that they can work with you? Do you have anything that you want to share?
Speaker 3:Like magnet wise.
Speaker 1:Just me yeah.
Speaker 3:Misha's just offering me up as a service now.
Speaker 2:But it's insulting, I know yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is, I'm doing consulting, but, but no, I don't have any like formal place, just like send a note, um, include a note in it, um, because if you don't, I probably won't accept it honestly. So, yeah, uh, but yeah, that'd be the best place for me, okay, yeah, yeah, same, I am just here for the connections and good vibes.
Speaker 2:So please reach out, but yeah that'd be the best place for me. Okay, cool, yeah, yeah, same. I am just here for the connections and good vibes, so please reach out. I'm happy to chat. I love coffee chats. I love connecting with other marketers. I freelanced for a long time, I did grad school, and now I'm happily doing nothing on the side. So let's just have a coffee chat and chill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, misha and I. That's how we met was a coffee chat. Then we met via LinkedIn in the comments section LinkedIn community.
Speaker 2:Where the magic happens truly. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you. If you enjoyed this episode, please, please, please, remember to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and rate and review, but, most importantly, tell your friends, share this episode with a friend so other people know about Tiny Marketing and our Uncut Summer series. I will see you next week with another great one.
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