Good morning and welcome to the Monday morning marketing podcast. I'm Esther and
I'm Melanie.
And today we're joined by Lucy Hall from a visual media and digital women. And we're going to be talking about creating and building a community. Welcome, Lucy
Hello!
But first, we're going to hear from our sponsors.
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building a community
or building one, yes.
So the first thing I wanted to ask you, an amazing Lucy, is why did you start trying to build a community, for instance, like digital women? What got you started?
OK, well, that's a great question, thank you, and well basically. It's really funny because about a year just over two years ago, just under two years ago, sorry, I was it just time seems to be merging into one of the moment, to be honest. So I went to. I was invited to a party in facebook community leadership circles, meet up with my friend Dan, who was the lead for London. And when I went, I already had like some small Facebook communities in that kind of thing. I used mainly to run challenges and stuff. But when I when I went to this CLC meetup, it was actually facilitated by Facebook as well. And I met so many incredible people, community leaders that were doing really inspirational things. So they weren't just creating Facebook groups and using it as this kind of like sales funnel, which a lot of marketers do. They're creating really meaningful communities that were really helping people within the community, basically, or they were working with people who shared similar interests or similar goals and that kind of thing. And most of the time they were doing it just because they were with like minded people and they wanted to make a difference. They wanted to build community to help people make a difference. And I spoke to a few people that the first time and literally I felt like crying afterwards, everybody I spoke to because the passion they had around building their communities and the reasons behind doing it was just incredible. And the communities people were building on Facebook aren't just, you know, people who love bicycle's, for example, but they're people who are dishtowels those millions and millions of communities that people are building around lots and lots of different interests and things and health reasons and things they love and things they love to do and things they want to achieve in places where they work and places where they live and stuff. You know, it's just amazing to some communities. So I was like, you know, what am I doing something meaningful? Where is this something I can do that's going to make a difference to other people? Because I just want to because I just thought, you know, I, I, I can do this. This is something I can do. You know, I've built up a good enough kind of like community that's not like a closed community, but around social media. And I feel like I could bring people together and help even more people. And so by that, I was inspired. And then and that's when I thought, you know what? I'm going to set up a community that is going to help to inspire women and empower women through digital skills. And that's when I set up digital women. And at the same time, I was talking to NatWest about doing an event as well called Digital Women to help upscale women in Digital. So it was exactly the right time. So and so that's why I launched Digital Women, because I'm so kind of almost selfish reasons in that I wanted to do something myself to help people build a community and bring people together. But also because I was so inspired by people who were making a difference and I wanted to make a difference, but also because I know the stuff about social media and digital marketing and digital, and it's I'm absolutely obsessed by it. And I've met so many amazing people over the years, women, moms who want to get back into the workplace, women who are really, really successful. And there's this whole ecosystem of women who are just starting out. Some have really been doing stuff ages, but everybody always has a skill gap somewhere. And together, I thought if we use this as a skill sharing community to get that, we can all bring each other up together and not just. Yeah, so that's why.
Well, that's half the podcast on
that's all our questions answered.
Now, this is why we put you on the because of the enormous passion that you have demonstrated publicly and within the group as well. Myself and Esther are both members of digital women and have been probably both.
We're both founding members in.
And, you know, we talk every week, don't we, about things we'd like to cover. And this was actually quite early, but you were impossible to get hold of.
Yeah, it was a very busy woman. And if you could see what we're seeing right now, there are boxes behind Lucy. Can you just explain what is going on around you, Lucy? Just for those people who maybe haven't had the pleasure of meeting you yet or getting to know what a little part of what you do, what is going on around you, why are there so many boxes?
Yeah, because, yes, so few years, I had an idea to create a social media planner to help people to write social media content they wanted to create down on paper rather than having to use. Obviously, we're going to use all of these online scheduling tools, which are amazing, like Agorapulse, which I also love. But actually it's really nice when you're in meetings or when you get inspiration to actually write down what you intend to create and schedule out. And so I thought having a really nice 10 hour window would be a great thing to create. So a few years ago created that and this year and has been over five hundred pre-orders. And it just they just turned up on Monday. So I've been packing like crazy to get as many out as possible. And yes, five. So we've done about four hundred in the last three days. We've got about another hundred and something to go out. And today
I went out before yours, Esther.
I'm still waiting for mine, but hopefully by the time this podcast airs, hopefully I'll have it. Otherwise I'll be on Lucy's doorstep and banging down the door waiting for it. But I have the planner for the last two years as well. I have 2019, 2020, although that one didn't get used as much. But just I mean, things happen. We can plan things and then other things happen. But that's one of the one of the things that I keep hearing from you, Lucy, is the word help. Because a lot of people that I know start Facebook groups just to pick themselves up or just to get credit.
Well, yes and no, no no no, I'm going to
Maybe I know the wrong people.
Well, maybe, yeah. But I'm going to knock in there because I think it's important that as a business, you build a community for your business so that people feel they can approach you and speak to you. But what you've done with digital women is quite unselfish. I know you actually said you felt it was quite selfish, but I've got to disagree with you there as well. Here I am disagreeing with everyone. And, you know, I think it was less selfish because she wanted you to actually have a specific mission. Tell us what your mission is.
So the mission of the community. So I think it's really important for creating the community to have a mission because it's something everyone can get behind. And it means it's something that tells everybody together, makes you think, yeah, I want to be part of this. I want to get you know, I want to help to reach this mission and reach this goal. So our mission is to empower a million plus women through digital skills and know that might seem like a lot and it might seem crazy. And our community is now just almost 6000. But it's not about how people in the community it's actually about how far the reach goes of those people who are learning and then sharing their learning outside as well. So I think it's possible for us to reach that mission. It's just have to bring the right people into the community and get them spreading the word and getting other people to say. And you know what? I think it's really important that women see other women that are like them and, you know, on stages and speaking and talking about the skills they have and, you know, sharing their talents and that kind of thing for them to go back to the you know, I always give myself permission to do it as well, you know, because I think we suffer massively from costs in your time. And you look at all of the panels and that kind of thing, especially in digital, over the years, it's just been middle aged white men. And I'm not middle aged white men. Don't get me wrong, that does need to be more diversity. And that's not just women. You know, that's different. Lots of different types of people from all over the world who are in digital need to be sending, you know, standing on stages and and we need to be more inclusive. And I just I just feel like part of this is that as well. So we cool things out if there's not, you know, if there's no women on panel, so there's no women speaking in the Line-Up in that kind of thing, because we know that we've got thousands and thousands and thousands of amazingly talented women who don't put themselves forward. So it's almost we have to check them out, you know.
Yeah. And you do have I mean, you spoke there about having an event with digital women with NatWest, but you've also had some with a visa media as well. You've had Digital Day. You know, there's loads of other events you have from Social Day. Yeah. Was that the one I was thinking of them.
Yeah.
Yeah, I attended it, I should know. But that's one of the things that always stands out too from your events, is that you have a diverse bunch of speakers.
We were we were that. Yeah.
Then why you let us on. But the.
I think it's really important that we represent everybody and as much as possible, because, like I said, you know, digital is not going anywhere, right. This skills gap, especially in the UK, is massive. And so businesses and businesses still without the skills they need in order to thrive. I mean, because in 2020, obviously, things have happened that have set that up a little bit. So which is great, I think. But yeah, there's a massive skills gap. And I think girls growing up need to be able to say that they represent it as well and that they can go into these techie careers and that kind of thing. And it's not just they can run businesses where they're using digital every day and that kind of thing rather than thinking otherwise. I just think it's important. But I mean, it's incredibly tough if you want to talk about communities to sort of things like just, you know, it's not OK. It's not all like a bed of roses grows quickly and all of these different things, it's really very difficult. And just from some of the community leaders that I know, I can tell you some spend four or five hours a day on their communities and they don't get paid for it and they don't get any funding for their communities. And which is really, really which is really great because they're doing it obviously because they love the community and they want to make sure everybody's happy and that the community and that represented the community and that kind of thing. But they're not getting paid for it. They do it out of pure passion because they want everybody to feel like they're in this safe space. And so that's why that's part of the reason why a lot like this year, actually, a few months ago in April, we launched a digital women membership as well, because in doing all of the stuff for free and in my case, I'm getting my stuff from Visa media and stuff saying you can help me out. Can you do some of this? And my partners, like, you know, well, you can't keep pulling people from the Business Institute or women if you're not getting any money from the business because it's taking money away from our business. So I'm like, but I've got this go. I really want to help all of these people and that kind of thing. But I don't want to take money from people and say, I'm closing this down because this is one tactic people use. They closed the group down so the people pay to do something and then they take basically from them. And I just don't ever want to do that. That's not something I'm about. And so I thought, you know what, like we've got all of this great content and we can support people. And why didn't we launch a membership that people pay for? And I thought, you know, maybe we'll get a few people join. But it's good because if we get some money in, it helps to support the community. So I can spend more of my time on this and less of my time on this side of stuff and that kind of thing. And actually because because people are so behind it, we manage to think like more or less. Four hundred just over four hundred members paid really quick, quite quickly. Oh. So that's so I don't call it I cycle that funding the community. So then when we start getting money and we can spend more time on the community, which means more people have been joining and we're able to do more free training as well as more community based training and community based training as well. So, yeah,
I think what makes you quite unique as well is CPD training, that's not something I've come across previously over the last seven years, which I would normally associate with like life insurance or finance or something. But it's quite a novel treat to get CPD training in social skills.
The thing is, if you so say you want to get your working digital already and you have certain personal development goals or you work in marketing, you have certain personal goals. If you do take CPD training, then you can show, you know, I've done this I've been doing this training and I'm actually satisfied for doing this training, that kind of thing. It's really good when you go into lawyer and saying you're continually learning. And so I thought and even if you run a business, you know, show people or if you if you run a business or even if you coach people, would you say, I'm always learning, I'm learning these new things all the time and I'm getting identified cause I thought it's not great for everybody. Not everybody is going to need this, but for the people who are working in digital, for those people or in marketing or whatever, this is actually really good or even if people run like I am. So if you're an osteopath, for example, you have to get a certain amount of continual personal development points. So if you if you're not dependent, you're on your own business, for example, it's great to get these kind of points from different areas, including like digital.
They count as well.
Yeah, they do. Yeah. I say like, for example, if you're doing you if you if you have an. If you pull certain things like digital marketing, these different things, you have to get a certain amount of points every year to show that you're continually developing as a marketer or you continue. There's a great thing to have and we make sure our offence is like social right and that kind of thing as well. Because if you're yeah, it's not for everybody, but I think it's just a it's a great way to say actually, I've taken this training. It's structured as well because you can just do any old training online. But the training that I get, CPD certified has been through an assessor to look at it. And actually this is good. This training is good. It's got great learning outcomes and that kind of thing. So we'll make sure that the certified.
OK. So do you have some top tips because remember, we're helping people here try and build their own communities. You know, it's a big goal for any business at any time of year, but that's, you know, building awareness, building consideration, building conversion. So how would you do it?
Right. OK, so the first thing I would like to tell the Monday marketing podcast, the Monday morning
morning market got
finds is that a community and an audience are different things. OK, that's number one thing that you need to know, because an audience of people who kind of follow you and they look at you in the following year and want to see stuff you're doing, OK, a community is where they're not following you. They're part of your part of a community together around an interest that everybody can get behind, that they're all in it together. So it's not about you. It's not about your business. It's about the community. Does that make sense?
Yeah,
that's the one thing that you need to work out. Like, are you building a community because you want people to follow you and buy stuff from you? If that's the case, you're probably not building community. You're building an audience. OK. Whereas if you want people to come together around a common cause, they feel like they're part of this amazing thing like digital women, that's the community, right? The second thing is to just understand the why of your community. Why are you doing it? What is the mission for it? Because it isn't right for every single business, because it takes a lot of time and effort and you have to really be in it for the long run. It's not something you just closed down. Smart, because that was if I presented it to women's master to contracts and I seriously ruined my credibility
long term thing,
it's something you have to really think long term about. How are you going to keep this community engaged? What are you going to do after after five years? What's your strategy for this community? It's really important to think of it like that. And then also, aside from that mission as well, I think it's really important that you set some values for your community. So we have a set of values for our community. Just saying, you know, here we are, what we expect to be doing, that kind of thing. If you're creating a community on Facebook, it's amazing to have so many tools available is absolutely free. And there's some great things that you can do to make sure you're not getting all the weirdos in your community and you get occasional, like odd person that slips through the net like it's not commenting on everything with their like with telegrams, spam. And luckily there's some great tools with even Facebook's. You can just press a button and all that comment. So if they go on a massive spree, like commenting on everything in the middle of the night morning, you've got 10 messages, somebody is spamming in the community and you have to go check it out. So you fully utilise the tools if you're creating a Facebook group just to see what's available. Great things like mentorship, you know, just having to figure out go and fix that blueprint as well. And Facebook.Com/communities, I think because there's so much information about people who have built these amazing communities, a lot of my friends as well, like. And also, I think the other thing is set some rules and some boundaries for your community, what is expected of a community so that if they do share something spammy in there, you can just click a little button, it sends them a message to say you've broken the rules, don't do this again, basically, otherwise you're gone. And the people then stop doing it. Or they can make if they don't want they don't want to be of that. They can just go on because we feel something that's great for everybody, not just for the few
You make it... You look like a swan.
Yeah.
Gliding across a lake on your feet, obviously going nuts underneath
but it's not it's not just that as well. And it's just making sure that at first so individual personal stuff and the comment, they talk to each other. But at first it's really hard because it doesn't start like that. It's not like you're having to always post in there, getting the conversation going. And then if someone comments in how you do this, a lot of the time I know the answer. But I would never answer all the questions because there's a thousand women know the answer to this question. So I try and talk to people who I know that are going to know the answer as well. And also I bring up to other people to act in the community as well. So people who are really active in the community, I've made them admins because they like to do it and be part of it. And also because I know I can trust them because they are always commenting on certain questions and doing stuff anyway. So I think it's really important. Your community grows, you bring trusted people into become your moderators and admins as you know how to do it yourself,
whether invested in the community already, only the community.
And it's to them as much as it is for me and everyone else. It's not for me, it's for the community. So, yeah, that's I think that's really important. Yes.
And just at the minute, your group is only in English, but that doesn't mean that you exclude people who speak other languages. Right?.
No, anybody can join the community and people who speak other languages, is something I thought about actually long and hard because I don't speak any other languages. So how would we have thought about this? Because we do have people, quite a few people from Europe joining. And I would love to create like a Spanish speaking or Italian speaking digital women community. Does that make sense?
Yeah, like digital women espanol.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And and then, you know, they can have their own meet ups and that kind of thing would be facilitated by a Spanish speaker.
Oh, my gosh, Esther
Hi, Lucy. Hi,
it's me. When when we can travel again will be over in Spain.
Yes.
And this is stuff, I would like to keep more global because at the moment it's very UK focussed. We have a few people, we've got people all over the world. We actually have a lot of people from India in the community, funnily enough, which is really interesting. I think it's like the third. So it's like English, Irish, Indian and American. And then you're more European.
Oh, I didn't realise.
Yeah. And and the other thing I used to do, I've done for a while is share the insights of the community people and see where everyone's from and how much we're growing in that country.
That would be cool to see it again.
Yeah, that will be very cool.
And we talk a little bit of time. Yeah.
Yeah. We don't find time this week.
No, no, no. We're just stressing her. You have we have taken up enough of your time, Lucy. it has been wonderful to talk to you today. And thank you so much for joining us and thank you for creating your community and for allowing us to be part of it as well. If you would like to find out more about the community, you can find it on Facebook. We we will add the links below this podcast and you can join the open group for free. And then we highly recommend becoming members as well. Thank you very much, everyone. I hope you have a wonderful day and we'll see you next week.
It's
Thank you very much.