Hello, and welcome to Bad Community Advice. This is the show about terrible tips and toxic takeaways. I'm your host. My name is Seth Resler, and on this show I feature community professionals. We talk to them about the worst advice they've ever gotten, why it doesn't work, and what you should do instead.
In today's episode, we are going to talk about the difference between an audience and a community, because those two things are not the same. And yet I run into so many organizations that want to use those two words interchangeably. And the difference has real practical implications if you are setting out to build a community.
My guest is a globally recognized author, keynote speaker, futurist, and business consultant who blogs at Grow. It's one of the top five marketing blogs in the world. He teaches graduate marketing classes at Rutgers University and has written 12 bestselling books. His many global clients include Pfizer, Cisco, Proctor and Gamble, Dell, Adidas, and the US Air Force. You may have seen him on CNN or CBS News. He's also been in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Please welcome the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, Mark Schaefer.
Hey, mark, it's an honor to have you on. Thank you for joining us. I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for having me.
So, I am a big fan. I first encountered you a number of years ago when you wrote this book. It's called Belonging to the Brand, why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy. Uh, and we have a lot of community professionals on this podcast, but you are different because you are a, a, a marketing guy, and that fascinates me as somebody who comes from the world of media and marketing, uh, not the world of community building first. Um, but it's not just that you're a marketing guy. You, you cover a broad range of topics. You know, so many marketing folks specialize that the content marketing person, they are the pay-per-click person or the SEO person, and you really seem to follow what interests you. I mean, you've written a number of books, but the topics are on a wide range. Can you talk a little bit about
how you view marketing and how you decide what you're gonna talk about, what you're gonna write about?
Yeah. I may have the world's most unique career,
um, because I, I do, I, I, I follow my curiosity.
Um,
my, my first book, uh, fir, well, first of all, I mean, I, I spent many years in the corporate world
and was a marketing director at a Fortune 100 company.
And then, uh, went out on my own,
started a blog. The blog became popular.
And, um, then I was approached about maybe writing a book. And what really fascinated me at that time,
uh, this was like 2010, 2011,
was that the power in the world was shifting.
I saw that the power was shifting from media companies like TV and radio, which you're very familiar with,
uh, to and from advertising agencies and all these gatekeepers to individuals. Back then, it was basically, bloggers were the first creators, and they were building these big audiences,
and these audiences were eager to hear their ideas and spread their content all around the world. And I saw that influence was being democratized, and I just thought, this, what an amazing time
to be alive. So I wrote the first book on Influence Marketing called Return on Influence, and then I could have been
the influence marketing guy,
could have started the first influence marketing agency, and I would've been bored outta my mind.
That's just not the way my brain works. That's just not the way my career has worked. It's, it's, I always wanna
to kind of pursue the next thing that's, that's where I thrive. So, you know, I've written the bestselling books around,
you know, content, and I wrote the bestselling book on personal branding. And, you know, thanks so much for mentioning the, the, um,
the book on community. Um, LinkedIn did a review of that book and said, uh, this is the seminal book on brand community. And so in some ways,
maybe I'm leaving money on the table
by not leveraging a niche, by not becoming
the influence marketing guy or the personal branding guy or whatever.
But
I have like this new superpower because I do have this holistic view of the world. And so I can go into a company like Coca-Cola or Proctor Proctor and Ga Gamble, where I recently spoke at McKinsey,
and I was at McKinsey. I gave five different talks
about different things I've studied and different, and the, you know, my views of what's coming next. And there's not too many people that can do that. Nobody can do that if you specialize. So it's been a weird career, but, you know, it's worked well for me and my personality.
Well, one of the things that I love about this is that you can kind of see a through line. I, I mean, there's an evolution. Absolutely. And part of it is, is the world has changed, the technology has changed. Yeah. And, and so we've changed in response to it.
Can I ask you to, before we get to your bad advice, um, tell us the story about the evolution of your thinking when it comes to marketing.
And I wanna lay down, if I can, three markers. Uh, and, and
these three things seem unrelated on their face, but I think that, you know, you kind of have a through line that connects them. One is, as you mentioned, content creation
and how that's changed. The second is community building,
uh, and the third is a topic that you're writing about a lot now, uh, which is ai.
Um, how are those things related as it comes to marketing? And, and how has your own personal journey changed in terms of your relation to thinking about those things?
First of all, I wanna tell you how I am, you asked me that question
because you could only, a person could only ask that question if they're very familiar with my work. And you're, and you're right.
Like if you read my books in chronological order, it's sort of like an unveiling of my thinking
of the time. It, it's, it's, it's sort of the, the evolution of, of what's going on in the world. So I mentioned
the book I wrote on Influence Marketing. Okay? So like, influence has been democratized. If we can create content,
this changes the dynamics of marketing. This is not
an activity that's just relevant to an advertising agency. Anyone with a smartphone is a creator, is a reporter, is an advertiser, is a marketer.
So that whole dynamic has changed. Well, the next idea is, okay, well,
uh, so if this is true,
then how do you do it? How do you do this? How do you build a personal brand? So that became the personal branding book. And then I wrote Marketing Rebellion after that,
uh, which was sort of a wake up call to say, look, the whole world is changing.
I saw Mar businesses are basically in like these, these troughs where they just have kept doing the same thing they've always done for years and years, and they haven't looked up to see how the world is,
is, uh, really working.
Uh, you know, after that I wrote the, the, you know, the belonging of the brand
book, you know, talking about, uh, you know, community.
Um, and, uh, yeah. And then I've written a couple books related to ai. One is how humans will thrive, where they will thrive
in this world of ai. 'cause that's a question on everyone's mind. And then I wrote this book last summer about how AI will change your customers. AI is rewiring the psychology of human beings.
And no one's talking about this.
We're talking about prompting. We're talking about workflow transformation, using AI for productivity.
But no one's talking about we are literally being
rewired,
our behaviors, our psychology. And so, um,
we needed to, uh, address that.
Now.
So
I don't have a plan to write books. I've been consistent about it. So it might seem like I have a plan to write books, but I only write a book
when I see a problem the world is struggling with. And I thought, that's where I need to focus. That's where I need to dwell to try to figure that out. You know, I,
writing a book is a lot of effort, and it's a big risk,
and it's a, it's, it's a major decision for me to write a book. So I've got to be really sure that I'm working on the right thing.
And in terms of how content fits through this stream and this flow,
I didn't plan it this way,
but if you look at the books I've written,
it sort of spells out
the pillars of modern marketing
of where humans will thrive. So a lot of activities like media buying,
advertising, buying, even like digital ad creation, that's all gonna be taken over by ai.
So where there's four pillars, I think of, of, of where humans are going to thrive. One is personal brand, no matter what happens with ai, right? We're always gonna wanna turn to human beings who are known in their industry
to help us navigate the truth.
Uh, number two is experiences. Having people really,
uh,
live the brand to experience the brand, to feel the brand. And that's gonna create, uh, if you create those experiences and people are gonna want to talk about you, right? They're gonna spread the word. Third one is community. I'm sure we'll talk a lot about that. But I, I, I, you know, the subtitle of the book,
belonging in the Brand Seems Rather Bold, the Last Great Marketing Strategy.
And it's also one of the greatest overlooked strategies in marketing today. And it is uniquely human.
People often ask me, what's the role of AI in community?
Uh, you know, maybe some admin things,
but people don't wanna AI in a, in a community. There's like, there's a big backlash on Reddit right now where AI is starting to infiltrate some of these communities. We want to connect with humans. It's uniquely human. And then the fourth pillar is where I talk about in the book Audacious, how Humans win in the AI marketing world about the types of creativity,
uh, that will be
where humans will thrive. And I, I don't sugarcoat it.
And it's, it's, it's not an easy problem.
Uh, the message of the book is, if you are competent,
you are vulnerable,
you are ignorable, and AI is going to eat your lunch. So this book is a framework
to sort of rise above competent
to stand out and thrive in the AI world. So that's sort of the, the unifying theory of where I see marketing and content right now. Yeah. Um, so much of this is because the technology has changed. Uh, you know, when I started my career in media 30 years ago, I, I wanted to work in radio broadcasting. And at the time, if you wanted to create content and distribute to the masses, such as through a radio broadcast, you needed a, a radio tower, a television studio, a printing press, big expensive equipment, I had to go to college on the other side of the country so that I could have access to those tools. Um, they've since shut that radio station down because all the kids are like, why, why do I need to get up at four o'clock in the morning to go into a radio station? I can just do this on my phone and publish it to YouTube.
Um, and so the world content creation became easier because of the technology. The barrier to entry sort of dropped.
Uh, I spent 10 years teaching radio and television stations, uh, content marketing as a strategy because now all of a sudden they needed to be creating content, not just for their airwaves, but an email newsletter and a blog and a podcast and, and social media and everything else. And we were in that window where it felt like everybody could create content. You could build an audience. Um,
I almost feel like we've now crossed that window, uh, because now everybody's creating content and there's so much content competing for people's attention that it is harder and harder to cut through. Um, I came to this realization a couple of years ago where I just went, there's too much content competing for a finite amount of attention. And I thought I was brilliant for coming up with this observation. And then I uncovered an essay that you wrote about content shock 10 years earlier and went, oh, there's somebody much smarter than me who got to this. First, can you talk about what content shock is and what that means? And, and, you know, we'll get to why that's so important for community building?
Well, at the time I wrote that post, it was, it was, um,
I remember it quite clearly.
Uh, I think it was January 6th, 2014.
And at the time,
it was regarded as very controversial. It's probably one of the most famous blog posts I've ever written on the marketing scene. It took on a life of its own.
And
I offered this opinion
that content marketing was not going to be
a long-term sustainable strategy. Now, if you think about that timeframe, 2014, you've got every, you know, e every marketing person on LinkedIn declared themselves as a content marketing
expert and strategist. 'cause that was the hottest thing. And everybody was trying to sell these content marketing services. So when I say, I said, Hey, this isn't sustainable, you know, it raised kind of a ruckus.
I didn't regard it as controversial. I regarded it as common sense.
Whenever you have too much of something
in any human,
natural, or economic system,
the system has to change. It has to accommodate this flood of whatever it is. The whole dynamics have to change. And when you have everybody creating content when it's not, uh, unique anymore,
and whenever you have all this, uh, competition,
then
it becomes an arms race.
So you talked about TV stations, so if you're in a metropolitan area, they might have three or four, you know, network TV stations,
then they're all creating this content, and they're all competing. So what do they have to do? They've got spend more ti more money
either on the quality
or on the promotion of that content,
or maybe both.
And then they do that, and then their competitor does it, and then they have to do it, and then the competitor does it, and then they have to do it. And eventually at some point,
somebody has to drop out or find another way around this. So, I mean, and, and what I predicted,
of course it came true. I mean, everybody's experiencing this, right? I mean, it's very, very hard to establish your voice and, and build an audience and build a community in this world. So that's sort of the story of content shock Many people have since come back and apologized to me.
But so much of the conventional wisdom is, well, if you wanna cut through, you just need to create more content, or you need to create better content. And, and I think this brings us in a lot of ways to belonging to the brand, because you're offering a different way beyond just content, uh, a different way to cut through and, and capture people's attention and engage with people. And that is by building relationships through community building.
Well, well,
so let's
go up one level.
So what are you trying to do in, so there's two different kinds of marketing.
One is performance marketing. That's advertising. And SEO
you know, maybe even content marketing you, you might put into that to some extent.
And it's, you know, it's relatively easy to measure. You can put money in and you can see money come out.
And that is sort of top of funnel sales leads. The other type of marketing is brand marketing. Brand marketing is about building
an emotional connection to what you do. It, it creates an emotional expectation. When someone hears your name,
something comes to mind. And that something is an attachment that you nurture and create over a long period of time. Now, that's more difficult to measure, but it's no less important because over time, that's really the only thing you own. Your competitors can copy everything else. And it is what is going to differentiate you and separate you from your competitors, um, over time.
Now,
how do we create that emotional connection? Alright, everybody's on social media,
but that represents, normally there are always exceptions.
A weak relational link.
I have,
I think if you added everything up, I have like a half a million followers on social media. If I went out on X or Facebook or whatever, and I said, Hey everybody, I've written a new book.
How many people buy it?
Almost none.
I mean, probably not many people would even see that post.
You know, and, and maybe just because they give me a like, or they follow me, it doesn't mean they're gonna open their wallet.
Now, the better strategy is to use that reach of social media to bring people to your content. So they subscribe.
I have an audience, right? You, you, you talked about the difference between an audience and a community. I have a blog audience. I had a podcast for, for 13 years. I just sold it last year. So that's, you know, that, that chapter has ended. But whether it was my blog or my podcast,
I had an audience. And if I said, Hey, everybody,
I have a new book. How many people would buy it? A lot?
Because they've opted into me, they subscribed to me,
and they're waiting for me
to write a book.
Now, that's where most businesses stop.
But the highest level of emotional connection of all
is a community.
Because in a community,
they don't just love you,
they love each other.
And when I wrote belonging to the Brand, I think the most important thing I learned,
maybe the most important lesson in this book
that is filled with hundreds of lessons
is
that
the goodwill and the friendship created in the community
extends to you and the brand. It spills over to you. It almost suggests
to build your brand reputation. It's almost more important to help these people become friends. 'cause once they're friends in your community,
they're never gonna leave.
They literally belong to the brand. Now I have an online community
for forward thinking
digital marketers.
If I go to my community and I say, Hey, everybody, I have a new book. How many people will buy it?
Everyone.
And they'll also say,
how do we help you promote it?
Because we're a community,
we're a neighborhood, we help each other.
And now you've got
advocacy, human advocate, advocacy,
saying, look, hey, world, I'm in this community with Mark Schafer. I just learned, he wrote this new book. Oh my gosh, I just read this thing. And you have got to get this right away. You cannot buy a better ad than that. So that's why I say
I have this bold subtitle, the last great marketing strategy, because it is the ultimate way to build this emotional connection to your brand.
So that is going to bring us to your bad advice. And, um, I love this piece of bad advice because it's something I talk about all the time. And I was shocked when you submitted it. 'cause I went, oh, I can't believe we haven't talked about this on the podcast yet. So I'm so glad that we did. I can't believe it either. 'cause I can't remember what it was.
So you're, well, this is gonna be a, gonna be a shock to me too. Well, we've touched on it already. Your your bad advice was an audience is the same thing as a community. Yeah.
And
as you've alluded to, they're not. Can you talk about what the difference is between an audience and a community? Yeah, that it absolutely drives me nuts,
to be honest.
Um, look, an audience is great. It is great. And, you know,
keep building your audience.
And it's, it's very, very helpful. And, and you can monetize an audience, right? There are three main differences between an audience and a community.
Number one,
an audience. It's one way. It's me,
two you
people in my blog audience. They don't know each other
in a community, you know each other like a neighborhood, you know, who's there. You know, I go to my community
several times a day
just to see what are people posting and what's going on, and, you know, what are they observing about marketing that might be interesting and relevant to me? So it's, you know, it's, it's exciting and we get to know each other. And then we have live events. We become friends and we create these bonds.
And that doesn't happen in an audience.
So
in a community, there's communion, there's connection.
Uh, number two,
there is some unifying motive,
right? So people might read my blog for lots of different reasons. Maybe they are interested in marketing, maybe they're interested in me. Maybe they like my writing style. Uh, you know, who knows?
Um,
in a blog community, there's an intersection between the needs and the goals of the company, or the brand, or an organization,
and the needs and the dreams of the community.
The sponsoring organization has to think, how can we
make a bigger impact on the world? How can we be more successful if our customers come along with us?
And for the customers, they wanna grow,
they wanna learn,
maybe they wanna be entertained,
and maybe they wanna change the world. And they see this community as a path to do that. So there's this intersection,
right? Between there, there's alignment and, and the, you know,
example that a lot of people seem to easily understand
is Patagonia.
If I say Patagonia instantly, you think this is a company
that really stands for responsible environmental recreation, take care of, uh, the earth,
and, uh, and, and, you know, protect the planet. I have a friend, he only buys
Patagonia clothes.
They are not the most beautiful clothes. They are not the most inexpensive clothes,
but he literally belongs to the brand because there's that intersection between his beliefs and the company's beliefs. That's number two.
The third piece is, it, it's, it's like evolution. So if, if I have a strategy, right?
My
audience
has no stake in what I write
or on my podcast, they have no vote in what I do,
right? I, I pursue what's interesting to me, I interview the people that are interesting to me.
In a community,
the direction is driven by the people. Now there's boundaries.
That's the job of the community manager. You have to make it safe. You have to keep it focused. You have to, you know, keep it, you know,
compelling and relevant and, and lively.
But where the community goes,
where, how it changes, it's, it's really impacted by the people, not necessarily the brand. Now, if you scale that
and say, oh my gosh, we're getting first party
information from our customers telling us what they want next.
Wow.
From a marketing perspective, that is extremely valuable. And like I said, it's sad because most companies completely overlooked that.
Yeah.
You know, I think it's important to point out that, that this is not just a semantics distinction. This is not just about language. This distinction is important. It's ex it's existential, right? Because it has real impact for the, for the strategy. I mean, you alluded to one of the things that's, that's different. You know, when you're building an audience, you know, you are the creator. You go to the overlook hotel, you hold yourself up for the winner, you write your, uh, your novel, and then you release it to the public. Um, whereas, you know, you kind of alluded to this, you are building that community with your members. It is something, and they, they have an influence over the direction of where it goes. Can you talk about some of
the ways the strategies go? I mean, my, yeah. I mean, my, my, my greatest hope is that,
uh, well, it's more than a hope. I, I,
I know my community will outlast me. I mean, it's, it's a legacy. It's already self-sustaining. Most of the conversations and most of the activities in my community don't come from me. It's, it's people taking leadership roles to drive the community to the, to the next level. So that's a lot of,
uh, a a lot of, uh, fun for me to see. Um, you know, I think, you know, my, my strategy is, as I said, to keep it safe,
to keep it on track,
you know, to make sure it doesn't start wavering into like,
you know,
I I think we need to stay consistent in terms of the, of the, of the focus and the goal and, and, and where we wanna go. And that's kind of my job.
And then I think the third role for me
is dispensing status. Uh, I, I think
people come into the community
hoping
to be seen, hoping to be heard.
Uh, a community is like a status machine for, for, for some people, you know, not everybody, but for a lot of people, they, they, they want to be part of this organization. And so I try my best, especially when people are new and they're, you know, communicating maybe for the first time to make sure I, you know, give them a little lift, give them a little thumbs up, maybe make a comment, compliment them. And so that's, that's really the third
major role for me, uh, as, as leading my community.
Yeah.
You talk about how it's self-sustaining and how, you know, you think it will outlast you. And, and I think this is also one of the differences between an audience and a community. I mean, I often describe it as when you are creating content and building an audience, you are the engine.
And the moment you stop, you don't publish that next podcast episode. You know, when you run outta Game of Thrones books to film,
it's over and the audience goes somewhere else. But when you build a community, it's more like you're creating a container. And people come to that and they find value in each other, and that's why they keep coming back and they start stepping up. And it, it continues even if you aren't continually putting out new content all the time.
It's also one of the most uncomfortable ideas
as it applies to a corporate structure,
because
in traditional marketing,
you have a campaign.
So you have an idea, you have a new product,
uh, you need to launch a product. So you get a budget approved, you go to the advertising agency, you work a strategy, you develop the creative,
it gets approved by the legal department. Then you execute, you run your ads. And when you run outta money, it's over. And you move to the next thing.
The community
is a social contract.
And I'm not saying you can't pilot it and try it and stop it, you know, if it's not working.
But to really create
a sustainable community that works and grows and becomes more valuable over time,
it's a long-term commitment because you're saying, okay, we're providing the space
and the functionality and the content
to make this worthwhile for you.
And people are going to emotionally
connect and commit to this thing. And if you pull the rug out from under them,
you're hurting maybe some of your very best customers. So that's a big, big thing to think about. Uh, and, and an unusual,
uh, aspect of marketing when it comes to a brand community. Yeah. It's, it can be a little intimidating for folks who are used to having Yeah. All the control. Um, I wanna talk about a little bit more about your, your friend and your example of Patagonia. Because one of the things that, uh, I learned from your work is that I had been thinking about radio station t-shirts wrong the whole time
that I had always assumed when I was working in the radio industry, and we gave away swag with the radio stations logo on it, that the point was to promote the station. The hope was, oh, this person's gonna wear this T-shirt, and then somebody else is gonna see it and tune into the radio station and it's gonna promote it.
Um, and what I have come to realize, a a and you reminded me of this when you're talking about Patagonia, is that, um, when people wear that clothing or that brand, they're not saying something about the brand. They're saying something about themselves. Yeah. And it is this concept of social identity. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Yeah, I, I, I wrote this in one of my books.
I think this was in Marketing Rebellion,
that I think
my goal is to be a laptop sticker.
If you think about, well, I'll, I'll give you a little example.
So I gave us a talk in, uh, Wichita, Kansas a couple years ago, and there were a bunch of college students there. And at the end of my talk, the college students, they all had my book. And they said, Hey, can we take a picture with you?
So this 20-year-old college student raises her smartphone. And on the back of the, the, the
smartphone was a, a sticker for
Yeti,
an ice cooler,
an expensive ice cooler, a $400 ice cooler.
And I thought,
why would a 20-year-old college student
take up the whole back of her smartphone
with a sticker for an ice cooler?
And, you know,
you would let someone borrow your car
before you would let them borrow your smartphone.
It, it, it's, I mean, this is, this is intimate,
and yet she's giving this smartphone over to advertising space for Yeti. So I said, what, what's, what's the deal with this sticker?
And she just launched in to this whole
about what this brand means to her and the lifestyle and what she's trying to do and what they're trying to do, and how, yes,
you know, it's expensive, but she makes sure at Crispus, she buys at least one Yeti thing for a member of her family. And
so
that's the same with the t-shirt, right? It's, it's not about promotion. It's like, it's like building an emotional connection
that says, this is part of me. I am part of this community. This is part of, you know, I am part of this brand, and this brand is, is part of me.
And that is the ultimate, you know, emotional connection when someone
happily and proudly
wears your shirt
or displays your laptop sticker.
You know, one of the cool things, I, I have a, uh, an annual, uh, marketing retreat.
And, um,
one year I gave away, it's called the Uprising. And I gave away the, these like coffee mugs.
It says the uprising on it. And I started noticing people that had been to the uprising
in the, like in the back of their office like this,
they'll display their mug
that says the Uprising Audit, right? And it's, it's a symbol
that this is something I'm proud of. This is something that's part of my identity. You know, I'm not being paid to promote this. I'm an advocate because I simply love it.
When we talk about that sense of shared social identity that people, uh, you know, become such fans of the brand, like, you know, like they've got that sticker. Um,
I mean, the effect of it is that they become evangelists for your brand. Yeah. I mean, they, they go out and start talking to everybody else about how great it is. And that's really part of the power of, of community when it comes to, yeah. I'll give you a great example of this. So my community is approaching, its its fifth anniversary.
So we, um,
you know, we've, we've grown and we've evolved and we, we, we've become friends
and people in the community started bubbling up this idea.
They said, my, my community's called Rise.
And they said, we would like to have
a Rise t-shirt.
I'm thinking, nah, let me come on. You know, why would we put our effort in in, into this? I was, you know, really skeptical.
And finally this group of people came together,
I didn't lead it. They let it, and they said, we are going to create a promotion committee.
We're gonna create a merchandise store.
We're gonna create a new logo,
brand identity.
We're gonna create a presence, uh, on LinkedIn so that we can put a, a, a Rise community badge
on our bio,
our biographies,
our profiles on LinkedIn. And this is being led by the community, not me.
I was skeptical of it. And so we are actually doing this
right now. We've, we've started the, the badge thing on LinkedIn.
You know, people are starting to, you know, connect to the community and link to the community and their posts on, uh, LinkedIn to kind of spread the news. They want to spread the news. It's become an important part of, of their pride, of their identity, of their, of their meaning.
And, um, you know, I
I probably in a week or so, the, the merch store's gonna be open and,
you know, it's pretty cool. I'm, I I'm gonna buy some of this stuff.
That's awesome. So people, I mean, this is a great example of people will actually step up in a community. You don't, I, I don't wanna say you don't have to do all the work, but, but people want to contribute. They, they don't just become takers.
They turn around and they become givers. Yeah, it was, it was really like this whole new mindset for me. 'cause whenever you work in a company
and you say, Hey, everybody, we need a volunteer.
Everybody runs for cover.
But in a community, if, if something needs to happen, people believe in the community, and they'll love the community so much, they'll step up and they'll say, yeah, if someone comes to me with an idea, it's a great idea for the community. I'll say, that's great.
Why don't you do that?
And they'll say,
me,
I, I could really do that.
Oh wow, I'm so honored. So there's like a whole different mindset in community that's just really awesome. And it was hard to believe at first. 'cause you know, I grew up in the other world where you run for cover, but in this world, people just, they, they love it. They're committed to it. And you know, they love to be there.
Uh, I absolutely love that. Uh, so we've talked about the difference between audience and community, but, uh, give some practical advice. Talk to somebody who has spent their entire career building an audience, whether it's as a marketer or it's as a content creator, and they're now starting to think about community building for the first time. Where would you recommend that they start? What's the first thing that they should do?
Well, I mean, here, here's, here's a great example.
And this actually is a case study in the book.
So I have a friend
over in, uh, the London area,
and, uh, he had a marketing agency. He started creating a newsletter.
And, um, a couple people wrote him and said, you know, it would be fun
to get together
to talk about the ideas in your newsletter. So
this is the first seed
of that
intersecting purpose we talked about, right?
So that's the first thing you need to think about is listen to your audience. Are they pulling you into something?
So he started a lunch club. He just said, well, let's meet for lunch. And I think the story goes, he had maybe four people there.
And they met, you know, once a month just to talk about these ideas that he has in his newsletter.
And then a couple people said, can I bring a friend?
And after a couple more months, you know, they took up a whole room in the restaurant and this began their community. And today
his community is his business.
He's abandoned the marketing agency, and he's setting up satellite communities in cities all around the United Kingdom.
It arguably
the biggest
community in the world
is Twitch.
Now, this was started by a guy, he created this video
platform
to record and display, uh, how you just, you know, how you live your life. It's just like a live streaming platform.
And a couple people came to him and said,
we're using this
to stream ourselves playing video games.
And people are watching. He said,
you gotta be kidding me.
Who would watch people play video games? And there were like five of them, and they said, no, no, no,
really,
can we start a community
about using this technology
to watch video games,
watch people play video games?
And, you know, and he said, well, okay, sure.
That became Twitch.
You know, that tens of millions of people.
So it's, it starts with this shared idea,
and it starts with five people. That's all you need
is five people who believe
most of the great communities start with, you know, five people. And then I think the other thing that, that is ideal
is you, obviously you need an online platform, and there are lots of those, but most of these great communities also have an offline component.
So even Twitch, millions and millions
of members, they have an annual conference, one in America,
one in Europe, where you can meet your friends and you can meet your favorite creators and, and, and gamers.
What I try to do
is I go around cities, around the world, I try to bring my rise community together,
you know, if they're close to that city, we'll just have dinner together or something. And that reinforces,
uh, the bonds. So those would be the ideas I would suggest
in terms of how to get started.
Hmm.
That's great advice. And I love that, you know, it starts small. 'cause I think so many people are tempted to think, oh, we gotta do a grand opening. It's gotta be like a, a nightclub grand opening. We know a ton of people, but it doesn't necessarily can start. But, you know, it's, it, it, it, it, it reminds me of another great, great, uh, idea in saying,
so it really, some, somewhere in this mix,
it starts with trust.
It has, yeah, like, I trust a person,
or I trust a brand,
or I trust a friend that's bringing me into this community. So that's why it's usually started by, you know, a person or a brand that, that has this, this element of, of, of trust.
But to have that trust,
you know, it takes time
to establish your, your presence, to establish your, your personal brand. I mean, there's a interesting connection between personal brand and, and community. PI mean, almost everybody joins my community 'cause they like me and they trust me, and they wanna be part of this.
Um, but once they get in, then they learn to like other people and trust other people. So this might hint at a problem that a lot of people have is they'll say, oh, I'm just gonna start with a community. You have to earn the room. You don't start with the room. You have to earn the room.
And that's, that's an important distinction.
Yeah.
Alright, mark, this is the last question I ask everybody, and I'm especially excited to ask you because I know that you have been delving so much into AI lately. Make a prediction. What do you think we're gonna be talking about when it comes to community building? Five years from now?
I think we're living in a world
where people are very isolated,
lonely,
and depressed. We see this in the news all the time. It's not just young people. It really reaches across every generation. And we're starting to see
pockets where community is coming back, both live and online, especially with young people.
Uh, I I, I had this conversation with this, this student one time, and he was telling me that he has this fear that his generation has no shared experiences.
He said, I consume my entire world through my earbuds, by myself in my bedroom,
all my media, all my news, all my books, all my podcasts, and nobody else even knows what I'm doing or who I like.
And we're starting to see, you know, book clubs
coming together to watch a movie and talk about it,
coming together to listen to music
and talk about it. So this, so c community, uh, uh, I mean, it, it is the right idea at the right time. It absolutely is. I think COVID sort of gave it a push because this depression and isolation and loneliness,
uh, became the norm for everybody. And we turned to community. And that momentum has continued. It'll, it'll continue to go into the future because AI
reinforces isolation instead of community.
Well, mark Schaeffer, it's an honor to have you here. Thank you so much for taking the time. Uh, you're the author of, uh, 327 books, probably more by the time we actually publish this. Uh, I'm gonna point out a couple of them. Um, first of all, belonging to the brand, um,
an absolutely fantastic place to start. If you are new to the world of community building, especially if you come from the world of content creation, uh, or marketing. Uh, your latest book is how AI changes your customers. Uh, and, uh, you know, again, I would encourage people to, uh, you know, there really is a through line. I mean, there really is an evolution that you can watch. Yeah, and I think it's, I think it's fascinating. So thank you for coming on and sharing your thoughts with us. Yeah, thanks so much, Seth. It means, it means a lot. Thanks for being so well prepared. It was a real joy to talk to you.
Uh oh.
