Here’s what i’ve been getting up to in ContentUK world this week; speaking to members, referral scheme-ing, speaker requests, launching a competition.
I’m #buildinginpublic as part of the Rosieland Adventure course i’m doing :). Post 1 is here.
Speaking to community members
I’ve been having 1:1 calls with community members and the aim has been to listen, listen, listen.
I’ve been learning what different members are working on, their challenges, goals and how they actually use the community (not how i think they should use it!)
The Mom Test book
For anyone doing any research calls - whether that’s for community member research, audience research or customer research, I recommend reading Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test.
It encourages you to ask useful, not shit questions :D
If you ask ‘is this a good idea?’, everyone will say yes.
Better to ask questions about past behaviour like ‘what was the last podcast you listened?’, ‘which courses did you buy in the last 6 months?’. These questions give you objective information about how people actually behave as opposed to what they'd like their future self to do.
Chuffed from a member call
Had a nice surprise from one of these member calls! We’d been chatting about their content career plan and challenges.
I made a few suggestions.
They wondered if i’d charge for similar calls as the chat ‘saved them six months of mistakes’.
This was wild to hear as these calls are so fun. But this made my day!
Referral schemes
Referral schemes (i.e a member is rewarded for recommending your community) are a community mechanism i’ve been pondering.
In theory, if done properly, it means as a community leader, you can focus most of your energy on improving the member experience instead of ‘growth-y activities’.
You can earn a referral through genuine value.
I’ve simplified the ContentUK referral scheme.
Instead of codes, once a new member joins, they’re now asked if a current member recommended them on the onboarding form. That referring member gets a free month :)
Down the line there are options like Rewardly but i've gone down a simple route for now!
Q2 event speakers - make those big asks!
I've made a few ‘speaker’ asks this week for upcoming ContentUK events.
Carrie Rose has been high up my Ideal Speaker list as the content her agency Rise at Seven make for clients is OFF THE ROOF.
Thrilled that she said yes straight away to run a webinar for the ContentUK crew soon!
A reminder to always make asks for your ideal speakers instead of assuming they’ll be too busy, no matter the size of your community. I got a no this week from another speaker high on my list too but that’s also okay! You win some, you lose some :).
And also make asks for speakers who are NOT on people's radars. Which first time speakers can you ask to get involved? People can often resonate and learn more from those who are at similar stages of their journey than those who have years of experience.
Diversity is the sweet spot!
Launched a competition
I’m working with a sponsor this month -the video production agency Interesting Content.
We thought we’d try something different as an experiment so they're giving out 5 ContentUK memberships via a competition which i’m thrilled about. I filmed a short video to launch this which felt a bit scary! But hopefully it's a cool way to give other content marketers 3 months in the community and to support a sponsor beyond the typical newsletter ad route.
Homework this week is: studying your people
My RosieLand community course homework this week is all about ‘studying your people’. Will feedback next week on how this goes.
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