A conversation with Erin Mikail of Orbit Model. Uncommunity #44
👋 Hi everyone, Biswa here.
Welcome to the latest issue of Uncommunity - the newsletter that helps you become a better community builder. We bring you community experts’ interviews, content on communities, tools to scale community or events, and jobs to be applied.
Now on to the regular stuff.
This week we have Erin Mikail with us.
Erin Mikail Staples is currently a Senior Community Advocate at Orbit. Outside of Orbit, Erin is an instructor at Studio 20 NYU, and stand-up comedian. She's always been very online, from early geocaching forums to being CEO of a virtual mall. Erin conducted graduate research on fandoms and online creators and tends to rant and rave about these things on her blog. You can keep in touch with her at erinmikailstaples.com or on twitter @erinmikail
Let’s begin. 🖖
100 days of Twitter Spaces? Doing this consistently for 100 straight days is nothing short of remarkable. What are some of your biggest learnings?
For me — I think there were two big learnings: 1) the importance of building community through conversations, and 2) the power of showing up.
Rosie and I had so many folks that joined in on the fun that we built deeper relationships with because of the conversations had and the open format that we took in these chats. These relationships and conversations happened because we showed up, even when it was tough.
How to earn trust from your members when building community?
Earning trust starts by giving trust. Trust in the words that the community members say, and the actions members take. Be vulnerable with your members — share when things aren't going well and when you're celebrating a big win. Invite the community on your journey as a community builder as well.
I've found that this not only allows me to earn more trust with the community that I work with, but also increases empathy that the community has with me as well.
Community building is like playing an online game. How can we better implement learnings from the game design while building community?
Community building and games are more alike than apart — they both take the form of interactions. Many of my early community experiences come from the game world, whether through it the Sims Custom Content Creation, or even through sharing explorations on the Geocaching.com forums.
Community is built through doing something. It takes two to tango, right? The world of games is all about interactions and collaboration. There's an article by Sid Meier, who's the creator of the game Civilization in which he explains the power of interesting decisions. How can community builders create interesting decisions for the members that they work with and advocate for?
Interesting decisions happen through play — and play is only fun if everyone is on the same page and knows how to participate through what he calls an informed decision. One quick way to make a game not fun is to make it a game you can't win or understand. Game designers are pros at setting the stage and providing a top-tier experience throughout the entire journey.
Should everyone focus on building product-led communities? Why not?
Definitely not. I've seen a lot of big fails come to mind when product communities. A common misstep happens when community builders and product stakeholders are misaligned. Whether it is a misalignment on what is the function of the community or a misalignment in community's role in product development — setting clear expectations is crucial to all parties working cohesively and having success. This process of setting expectations will likely have you realize that there will be times community and product will be at odds with one another. How you handle it and set the ground rules for how it will be handled can have significant impacts on the success of a product-led community team.
What's the best article on communities you've read ever?
I've got a few I really love, here's a list I have bookmarked
- We Don't Do That Here by Aja Hammerly on culture and moderation
- The Sims: A Retrospective by Ludovica Price on Participatory culture and creator habits
- A Good Scrap: Why Disagreements are Vital by Ian Leslie on good disagreements
Advice to someone who's just getting started in community management?
You probably know more than you think you know in the world of community building. Don't underestimate the magic and power that can come from continuing to hone your skill in how you communicate and advocate for yourself and the community as a whole.
*INTERMISSION*
Feel free to take a break. Stretch, breathe, get some water, etc. Then come back.
There are only a few sections left now: What else we’re reading including few tweets.
You good? Ok! Let’s dive back in 😅
What else we’re reading?
Community-sourced Content: The Best Content for Your Community Comes From Your Community. When you look at your community, you already see the bounty of great ideas, conversation pieces, thoughtful questions, and so much more. It’s a direct window into the questions community members have, what topics they’re passionate about, and what they want to know more about.
With community-sourced content, you’re creating content you know the community wants because they’ve told you so, either indirectly or directly. More on this here.
Just One Community Manager’s Take on Elon’s Twitter Takeover. What does “free speech” mean to someone like Elon, and how will it affect your experience on Twitter? Carter Gibson opines in this blog post.
How To Set The Right Targets And Build A Great Community Dashboard. Richard Millington writes about setting the right goal, exactly which metrics you need to target within the community to impact the goal and build a full dashboard.
Commarketing. Markommunity. Community Marketing. You get the point. Holly Firestone is here to talk about the beautiful relationship between community and marketing.
6 lessons from my first 6 months as a manager for an online community.
Seeking benchmarks? You may be looking for a long time. As a new community, we found ourselves asking, how are we comparing to others and what should our goals even be? It is of course important to understand where you stand in comparison to other communities to identify successes and areas for improvement, however it is not a one size fits all sort of exercise.
Read here.
Setting up a community? Start with research! Peter Staal lists pointers for research and list of questions to ask yourself while you’re at it.
How to start and grow a community. A 4 step process and guide you can follow to grow your community.
[EVENT] Why You Need to Start Building Employee Advocacy. RSVP
[PODCAST] Dani Weinstein - CLIX Conference and Building Thought Leadership. Tune in here.
[NEWS] Reddit announces the Community Funds Program. Read more about it here.
Where is your focus?
Food for thought:
Agree?
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