Dear Bri: Community Strategy, Fiascos, and Drama

Where is the best place to build my online community? With Community Strategy Consultant, Noele Flowers

13 snips

Aug 20, 2024

Noele Flowers, a community strategy consultant based in New York's Hudson Valley, dives into the intricacies of community platform selection. She discusses the chaos of online interactions, touching on the pros and cons of using Slack and Facebook versus all-in-one platforms like Heartbeat. With insights on intentional onboarding and the learning-to-connection ratio, Noele emphasizes the importance of choosing the right platform for genuine engagement and connection, offering a roadmap for effective community building.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Nextdoor As Comfort-Watching Chaos

Noele describes her local Nextdoor as chaotic and unhelpful but addicting to read.
She keeps aggressive email notifications to follow the drama as a comfort watch at night.

INSIGHT

Network Effects Lower Onboarding Cost

Facebook and Slack offer network effects because members already have accounts and familiar behaviors.
That habituation can cut 50–75% of the onboarding effort for new communities.

ADVICE

Use Platform Choice To Reset Norms

Consider reestablishing expected behaviors when using habituated platforms to avoid unwanted energy transfer.
Hosting in a new platform can force a pause and help train members to new norms.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

In this episode, we’re hearing from Community in a Conundrum. Our letter today deals with the question of where to host a new online community. Specifically, as it relates to Facebook, Slack, and all-in-one community platforms like Heartbeat.

To better help Community in a Conundrum, no one better to talk about whether or not to host your community on Slack than the Slack-slayer, herself, Noele Flowers. I thought of Noele specifically after reading a newsletter she sent out with the subject ‘Why are we still using Slack to run communities?”

We’ll go over all the different variables you should consider when selecting the best place to host your community, and the pros and cons of the most popular community platforms out there. So, tune in for a fun and light episode that’s filled to the brim with really good community strategies.

In this episode:

(03:43) The joys of keeping an eye on the Nextdoor chaos

(06:09) The communitea: Community in a Conundrum’s letter

(08:08) The dilemma of wanting the benefits from both social networks and all-in-one community platforms

(09:46) Why we are still building community on Slack and Facebook

(17:06) The differences between Facebook, Slack, and all-in-one community platforms

(23:09) Intentional onboarding and community engagement strategies for all-in-one community platforms

(30:25) The learning-to-connection ratio and what it means for your platform choice

(33:06) Community Builders & Community Managers: Go beyond connection!

Expect: Community building best practices, marketing strategy, and practical advice around community strategy.

Resources Mentioned:

🎬 For examples of great Slack communities, watch these community dissections: When a Newsletter Becomes a Community: A Study of Lenny’s Community and A World-class Example of a Cohort-based Community: The Community Community hosted on Slack.

🤝 Check out Tightknit if you want to layer more community functionality over your Slack community.

📩 Subscribe to Noele’s Newsletter here.

❤️ Sign up for Heartbeat. Bri’s recommended all-in-one community platform.

💛 Join Ember. The place for go-getter community creators building community-powered businesses.

Noele Flowers:

🖥️ Website

📱 Linkedin

Bri Leever:

🖥️ Website

📩 Newsletter

📹 Youtube

📱 Linkedin

Hosted by Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.