CEO & Co-Founder Mighty Networks, a community platform. Past: A16Z, Ning. Passionate believer in people magic. Technologist. Entrepreneur. Human.
What matters to a community? 3 things above ALL ELSE— ⭐️ Member Engagement ⭐️ Relationships Between Your Members ⭐️ Viral Growth Otherwise known around @mightynetworks as People Magic. They are the 3 most important things to a successful paid membership or course. But it’s easy to get distracted. So, if you’re making platform decisions based on: ❌ Keyboard shortcuts ❌ Renaming features ❌ The placement of error messages You may want to think again. Not that these aren’t annoying. They are. But may also need to be balanced against the bigger picture. The ultimate success of your community depends on it.
While engagement, relationships, and growth form the essential trinity of community success, there's a fourth element that often gets overlooked - the community's shared purpose or mission that transcends the platform itself. Leaders who obsess over technical features without first establishing a compelling "why" for their community are essentially building a beautiful house with no foundation. This mission-first approach is exemplified by companies like Peloton, whose community thrived not because of platform features, but because members united around the shared goal of personal transformation through fitness.
One community thing that I thought was so key early at Tumblr was paying attention to emergent community behavior and nurturing that. For instance, Tumblr meetups were all self-organized at first; once we noticed that a lot of people were posting about meeting up IRL, we started adding tools to help make that easier.
If your platform can make it easy for people to connect with other people and deliver what they came there to find? Job done. 😀 Gina Bianchini
Gina Bianchini, how about people's needs and interactions? Just sayin'.
I love your platform, and am in 2 communities that use it, Gina Bianchini!
The focus on relationships and engagement hits home after running several online communities over the years. Too often teams get caught up in technical details when the real magic happens in those member-to-member connections.
Building real connections between members beats any fancy tech features - simple as that.
Spot on. People Magic is the real key to thriving communities. with strong engagement, viral growth becomes a natural outcome.
Hi Gina. I thought you might like to know you're comments about "member to member" engagement are being taken to heart. My community (www.theAIconversation.com) is new and only has seven members (although two more might join this week). But everyday I check the #MightyInsights metrics. This past Saturday five member to member conversations took place. FIVE out on only seven members. I don't know who was talking to who or what it was about but I was happy to see that. PS - Thanks for these posts. I read everyone of them!