Stop Using So Many Platforms

Summary

Podcast Summary: People Magic – "Stop Using So Many Platforms"

Episode Overview In the episode titled "Stop Using So Many Platforms," Gina Bianchini, founder and CEO of Mighty Networks, delves into the complexities of managing multiple digital platforms for personal branding and community building. Hosted by Mighty Networks & Pod People, this episode is part of the "People Magic: How to Build a $1M Community" series, which aims to guide entrepreneurs and creators in establishing profitable and engaging digital communities.

Introduction to Community Building Gina opens the discussion by articulating her vision of a thriving community. She defines a community as "when members are able to meet and build relationships with other people who are in the community" with the primary purpose of helping members achieve meaningful transformations in their lives (00:00). Whether it's understanding complex topics like interpreting the news or navigating professional roles such as a product manager, the essence of community lies in fostering connections that drive personal and collective growth.

Challenges of Multi-Platform Presence The conversation shifts as a guest, referred to as Speaker B, shares her struggles with expanding her brand across various platforms including Instagram, podcasts, Substack, and books. She expresses excitement about building a community but is uncertain about how to integrate these disparate elements effectively (01:05). This scenario is common among creators who find themselves scattered across multiple channels, each requiring time and resources to maintain.

Gina’s Strategic Approach: The Inventory Method Gina introduces a structured approach to tackle the multi-platform dilemma through what she terms the "Inventory Method." This method involves three critical assessments:

1. Personal and Creative Energy: Gina emphasizes the importance of understanding what activities energize you versus those that drain you. For instance, she shares her personal experience with long-form posts, which feel burdensome, contrasting them with the joy she finds in creating podcasts (01:23).

2. Attention and Engagement Metrics: Evaluating which platforms garner the most attention is crucial. Gina advises creators to look at metrics such as Instagram engagement, Substack comments, or podcast listenership to determine where their efforts yield the highest returns.

3. Revenue Generation: Identifying which platforms contribute most significantly to revenue is essential for sustainable growth. Gina points out that understanding your income streams allows for better investment in activities that align with your energy and attention metrics.

Consolidation into a Unified Community Platform After conducting the inventory, Gina advocates for consolidating various platforms into a single, cohesive community hub. She argues that a dedicated community platform centered on member-to-member interactions offers several advantages:

• Enhanced Engagement: When members connect with each other, they have more reasons to return, reducing the dependency on sporadic content drops like newsletters or podcast episodes.

• Scalability and Efficiency: A unified platform simplifies advertising, marketing, and member acquisition compared to managing multiple disparate channels.

• Ownership and Control: Hosting your community within a single platform like Mighty Networks means owning not just your audience but also the relationships formed within the community, fostering greater loyalty and sustained engagement.

Notable Insights and Quotes

• Defining Community Success: "Creating connections between members who are on the same path" is pivotal for a successful community (01:23).

• Platform Limitations: "The frequency and the volume [of member interactions] does not happen on podcasts, it does not happen on Instagram, and it unfortunately doesn't happen on Substack" (01:23). Gina highlights the inherent limitations of existing platforms in facilitating meaningful member interactions.

• Durability of People Magic: "People magic is super durable, it's super sustainable" (01:23). This underscores the long-term benefits of fostering genuine member relationships over transient platform engagements.

Practical Steps for Community Builders

1. Conduct a Comprehensive Inventory: Assess what activities bring joy and energy, which ones attract the most attention, and which generate revenue.

2. Evaluate Platform Efficiency: Determine how each platform contributes to your overall community goals and whether it aligns with your inventory findings.

3. Centralize Community Efforts: Focus on building a strong, interactive community foundation that can incorporate other content forms naturally, rather than forcing disparate elements together.

4. Leverage Member Relationships: Utilize the power of member-to-member interactions to foster a self-sustaining and scalable community model.

Conclusion and Final Recommendations Gina concludes by reiterating the importance of starting with a clear inventory to understand personal energy, engagement, and revenue dynamics. She advises against using all-in-one platforms that aim to serve every function inadequately. Instead, she advocates for specialized platforms that excel in fostering member interactions, which are the cornerstone of a profitable and engaging community.

Call to Action Gina invites listeners to engage further by visiting the People Magic website for deeper insights and encourages them to submit their burning questions about community building through podcast reviews.

Final Thoughts This episode provides invaluable guidance for entrepreneurs and creators overwhelmed by managing multiple digital platforms. By adopting Gina’s inventory method and focusing on building a centralized, interactive community, listeners can create sustainable and profitable digital businesses that prioritize meaningful member relationships.

Resources For more information and to access additional resources mentioned in this episode, visit the People Magic website referenced in the show notes.

Transcript

[A]

My definition of community is when members are able to meet and build relationships with other people who are in the community. And the community exists for those members to achieve some type of result or transformation in their lives. That includes being up to speed and being able to navigate, for example, how to interpret the news. Or that means how they can navigate life as a product manager, for example, when you can have members meeting and building relationships with each other as the core of your business and attention, and also what it could bring you just as a creator, in terms of energy and creativity and innovation. I'm going to unapologetically make the case that that is where you want to be. Hey, I'm Gina Bianchini, and this is People Magic, where we talk about how to build a $1 million community and create a business that you love.

[B]

Hi Gina. I've been expanding my brand for a while and it's all in different places. Instagram, podcast, substack, book, etc. I love the idea of it all being in one place, but it's not. I'm excited about building a community, but I'm curious how you would weave in all these other things I've done on different platforms into my community.

[A]

Yeah, this is a great question. Let me just start by saying being in different places, it's a personal decision. Where you invest, what brings you energy, where you want to be, how it is attracting the people that you want it to attract. And look, in modern life, there's a lot of things fighting for our attention as creators and then as human beings and members, I'm a huge believer. Like, take inventory. Start with the data. And not just the data, but then also your own inventory of how it's making you feel, what it's generating for you. Is it helping you be more creative, less creative? Is it something that's always hanging over your head? Like, for example, like, posts for me, like long thought pieces always feel like papers that are hanging over my head with like, leftover from like high school or college. And it just bums me out to like, have a weekend where I'm like, oh, I don't want to, like. So I do it every, like, quarter or something, but it's just not necessarily something that I'm like, really excited to do. Now, on the other hand, cruising up here to this room in my house and making some podcasts with people who are cool and have interesting questions and are excited about these kinds of businesses. We call people magic businesses that I could do all day long. Number one, figuring out what you have the most fun doing and what's also dragging you down, that's kind of, that's kind of inventory one and then inventory two is what's getting the most attention. Are you getting attention on Instagram? Do you have a substack that is working really well? Is the comment section of your substack actually generating some, some interest and attention by your subscribers or by your readers? And then the third inventory to do is what's making you money. And so understanding what is making you money is going to also be really important because the more money that you're able to make, the more that you're able to invest. Going all the way back to the first inventory, the more you're able to invest in things you want to do. And maybe that's I want to not do Instagram or I might want to not do my podcast or I love my podcast and I don't really want to do Instagram. So really taking a step back and doing a thoughtful inventory of sort of the human cost and also the human return on investment, the what's actually getting attention and then finally what's actually generating revenue. I think that's probably the best suggestion that I can make is, is get real clear about what each piece is doing for you and having a clear intention for each piece. Super, super important. Now let me make a case for what it would mean to bring these different pieces together. Number one, when you have social media and Instagram podcast, you have a newsletter and those things are different, it sometimes feels like they have to be separate or it feels like, you know, your, your newsletter platform just added X or Y or Z. So maybe you can build a community here. My definition of community is when members are meet and build relationships with other people who are in the community and the community exists for those members to achieve some type of result or transformation in their lives. That includes being up to speed and being able to navigate, for example, how to interpret the news or that means how they can navigate life as a product manager, for example. So all of these different things when, when you can have members meeting and building relationships with each other as the core of your business and attention and also what it could bring you just as a creator in terms of energy and creativity and innovation. I'm going to unapologetically make the case that that is where you want to be because number one, it's going to make you more money. When people are connecting with other people, it means that they have more reasons to come back to your brand than waiting for your next newsletter or waiting for the next podcast, drop those things you can do when you have your core community, which is all about, again, creating people magic, Creating connections between members who are on the same path. And then your podcast, your newsletter, you. You can integrate those in really effectively. But it's very different than thinking about all of those pieces first and then trying to stitch them together with like, some tape and gum and like, maybe a couple staples. So thinking about having your community again, member to member connection, monetized with a membership, monetized with courses or programs, monetized with challenges, monetized with events only a community where members are able to meet and build relationships with each other. Because there's profiles, and not only profiles, there's profiles and dms, but all customized and tailored to your particular brand and your particular transition or intention. That then becomes something that can scale much faster. It's easier to advertise, it's easier to market, it's easier to discover, it's easier, it's easier to share. And then once you've done your inventory, you can decide, well, wait a second, I can actually do my newsletter from within my community, so I don't need to have a email list or an email newsletter. And by the way, I own not just the audience at that point, but I own the relationships that they are building with each other so that they're much more likely to come back because they have many people to come back for, not just you. When you push something out and then the question becomes, well, do you want to keep doing a podcast? And if that's bringing you joy and energy and new people who are coming into that community, and also that community is giving you great ideas for your podcast, keep doing the podcast. Same for Instagram, same again for the newsletter. But when you think about where the world is going, number one, as an individual, you probably don't need four more places to go. Probably not. That's one of the reasons why, you know, so many new services and things are kind of doa. Because it's like people are like, oh my God, I cannot do, I cannot do something else. What we have found as it relates to people magic and creating people magic, the beautiful thing is that it's super durable, it's super sustainable. And because people are meeting and building relationships with each other and that's only getting more and more interesting and fun, that becomes something that is the strongest foundation to build on. And then you get to do all the other things that you like to do as they come naturally and you like doing them, and they're fun you're able to bring more people in, but your members are also bringing other people to your community as well. So the TLDR start with inventories. Understand what brings you energy, where you think you want to scale to what brings attention, what brings revenue, and then consider how you build the strongest foundation. Not with a all in one platform. That that's not what I would recommend. That's not what we do. The the problem with sort of all in one, if that is your driving motivation, it you really are going to find things that are like kind of doers of all, master of none. You want to you want to believe in platforms for the thing that they do better than anybody else. And we've chosen People magic because with 93% accuracy we can predict whether your business, whether your community, whether your courses, your memberships, your challenges, your events will succeed or fail based on one metric, and that is member to member conversations and those member to member conversations. The frequency and the volume does not happen on podcasts, it does not happen on Instagram, and it unfortunately doesn't happen on Substack, even though there's really healthy debates that happen in the comments. And they've certainly gone ahead and added some really cool features like live streaming. And they're trying to be TikTok now. All great, but they're not starting with how to offer you as the writer or the creator or the host. How am I actually able to create the most valuable relationships within the community you're creating on Substack or the community that you're trying to create on Instagram? How am I creating that network effect? So that's probably the best way to think about it. And those inventories are going to be your best friend. I'm Gina Bianchini and this is People Magic. Thank you for being a part of People Magic. If you want more of a deep dive in any of these topics, but certainly having the framework of People Magic profit, head on over to the website. The link is in the show notes. Have your own burning question about creating People Magic? Well, I want to answer it. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to just drop your question in the review section wherever you're listening to this podcast and keep tuning in.