Hello, and welcome to the Bad Community advice podcast.
I'm your host.
My name is Seth Resler.
I'm the founder of Community Marketing Revolution, and this is the podcast.
What we interview community professionals about the worst advice that they have ever gotten.
My guest today is the founder and community strategist at Clocktower Advisors.
He's also the co founder of talent led and president of the Community Consultants Collective.
He has over twenty five years of experience in digital transformation and marketing strategy.
In fact, he's worked with brands like Activision and SAP to create strong loyal customer networks and foster growth through community.
I wanna welcome to the show.
Todd Nilson.
Todd.
Hi.
How are you? I'm doing great, Seth.
I've been looking forward to giving you the worst advice possible.
Oh, that's great.
I I I need more bad advice in my life.
I don't have enough things going wrong.
I'm glad you're here.
You've come to the right person.
No.
Absolutely.
Well, before we get into your, uh, advice, I think I wanna ask a couple of questions first, starting with this.
Uh, and this sounds basic, but the word community is one that gets thrown around an awful lot.
And I don't think we often enough stop to define what we mean by that.
So when you're dealing with clients, what are you talking about when you're talking about community? Yeah.
No.
I'm really glad you brought that up.
This this is something that needs to be level set.
At the outset with any organization that I'm working with so that we're just on the same page as as we talk about community because some, uh, executive leaders at least this in years past, I think the ideas become a little bit more complex and nuanced in in more recent times, like, since the pandemic.
But it used to be, like if you said you were gonna help to build a community for an organization, um, you'd get a blank stare from the executive leadership saying, Are you talking about like a Facebook page or something like that? And, um, I'm absolutely not talking about a Facebook page.
I'm talking about, um, the more or less, uh, private community spaces online where people can gather, um, with some modicum of safety and an assumption that the people there are there for about the same purposes you may happen to be.
And so as I'm talking about a community and community definition, my definition, um, that I help them with is usually this is a group of people who are coming together for some kind of common purpose, shared cause, shared passion, shared idea, um, on a regular basis, um, so that they can build better friendships with each other, have a sense of belonging and maybe further that cause or interest, um, in, uh, in the space in in which they're they're operating.
Um, I do make sure that they understand that the community platform is really not the community.
It's just a building where you're meeting in online.
And so, um, if I can if I can help an organization to, uh, understand that definite definition at the outset, it it avoids some risks and misalignment between the leaders and the people that are trying to build the community in that organization.
Yeah.
Uh, I love that definition.
You know, and you said a key word there, which is that we're creating a space where where people can come together.
And yet it's important to remember that the space itself is not the community.
It's actually the people that come together in that space that are the the community.
So that's a that's great.
Absolutely.
I I I mean, I think a a key mis understanding that a lot of organizations have is that they will have a tendency to obsess about the platform itself.
And don't get me wrong.
The platforms are important.
And I think that, um, you know, just like an architect builds a space that is fit for habitation and purpose, you know, for whatever it is you wanna do in that space, whether it's a church, a community center, a home, or a corporate building, um, the online communities we build need to be fit for that space as well, but so many organizations will obsess about creating the perfect building, creating the perfect online space that they sometimes forget about or give short shrift to the actual operation of managing that space for people.
It's about the people.
It's and and if you're not thinking about them first, what they want, what kind of problems they're trying to solve, why they would wanna come back on a day to day basis, That's a good way for your community to fail.
Yeah.
So talk to me about what you are doing in your day to day work with clock tower advisors.
What does that actually look like for you? Yeah.
So clock tower advisors, I started in 2015 as a vehicle for my my personal solo consultancy work.
And I help, uh, b to b and nonprofit organizations usually mid size to large to, uh, really get past the hurdles, reduce risk and get into play a thriving online community space.
And so that means generally speaking that I'm helping their leadership team to build a strategy, uh, that connects whatever their business goal happen to be, um, or their vision goals, if they're non profit, to the actual day to day activities in an online community.
And so once we've understood what their goals are, uh, my role is to validate that kind up with the community members that they're hoping to reach or enable and to help them to match those needs up both their needs and their member's needs to a community platform that's fit to the purpose that they're that they're trying to fulfill.
And so that work, uh, generally takes a couple of months to go through that process a little bit longer if there's an enterprise community form that needs to be integrated with other services.
But, uh, you know, usually within, uh, you know, four to five months, we're able to get well on the road to having a community, um, gear up for launch.
And, um, I'll often help them to identify, uh, the right talent to be the community manager, um, for the organization because I work as a as a strategist and they don't want me running the day to day in the community.
Um, or, uh, or I'll I'll help them to coach someone internally that they've already identified for that role.
And so I'm usually kept on for at least a period of time to be, uh, a coach oversight, help set up governance and metrics for for the organization's community and to make sure that everything is ticking along in the way that it should be.
K.
And then talk to me a little bit about the community consultants collective because you're working with a number of other people who do something very similar to what you do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the community consultants co collective was started.
The CCC as we as we call it was started to, um, really be a place to help launch the careers of more independent consultants.
When I started this work back in 2015, there were really only a handful of people that were doing, uh, community consulting as as an independent, not as meaning not working for a company full time, not being a full timer.
And I think that those of us that did start back in that time had to invent a lot of things ourselves.
Um, I was fortunate because I came out of, uh, really my career as a recruiter was, uh, consultative and I was used to writing contracts.
I was used to hunting for business.
Um, same thing when I moved into the community building space.
I was with an agency, and I got the discipline and rigor of building statements of work, uh, service agreements, um, managing projects, managing teams, doing all of that work.
So it really wasn't that huge of a stretch for me to set up an independent consultancy because I already knew how to do all that stuff, but a lot of people who are great community professionals, but want that independence, um, find themselves at sea trying to figure out how to go to market, what's their messaging, uh, you know, do they need legal counsel? Do they know how do you set up of an LLC or another kind of legal entity depending on what country you're in? How do you handle taxes, like all of that kind of stuff.
And we we wanted to provide a gathering place with a community consultants, uh, collective to, um, have resources, uh, fellowship, uh, professional development, and you know, other kinds of resources and opportunities that would help people to to get established in their careers because I I firmly believe we're gonna be at a spot, um, where more and more organizations recognize that community building is part and parcel of your customer success mix, part part and parcel of your marketing, uh, efforts that that you do.
And it's not an optional.
You you need to have it for whatever organization you're trying to run.
Yeah.
Uh, and I'll mention I am a proud member of the organization.
I found it to be very valuable.
Uh, so I'm really glad that you are doing this.
Um, one of the things that has struck me is that there is a broad cross section of community consultants doing different things.
They're all not sort of cookie cutter and doing the same things.
I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the different types of people that you have encountered and the different types of communities that they're building, uh, but also how you've seen that change since you got started in 2015.
Yeah.
Well, I I'll say that, um, that, uh, that difference in the the kinds of community consultants who become part of the CCC is, uh, well, maybe not by design.
It is it is part of what makes it a resilient and interesting organization to belong to.
The, uh, the the the various types of consultancy, uh, that are available, you know, range from somebody that wants to freelance, um, or outsource their time as a community manager for an organization or maybe a moderator, um, all the way to, you know, being a operations or or strategy person, you know, like myself, and, uh, some people wanna do it as a side gig.
Some people wanna do it as a full time thing.
Uh, some are really just interested in working in nonprofits or associations.
We have special interest groups for both of those.
Um, others are just doing small communities or or tiny communities or or startup communities.
And, um, you know, there are gradations and different kinds of advice that you get, uh, for the different kinds of communities that are out there.
Um, you know, a, you know, a big difference between a community that is trying to monetize versus one that is providing support for a product or service.
Um, they just have different goals.
They have different approaches to what they do.
And so that that really, I think created a lot of strength.
And what I'll say is since since I started in the space back in around 2013, um, you know, formally as as a community, uh, community professional in the corporate world, um, that, uh, it's it's actually become a lot, um, a lot more niched, um, in approach.
Um, a lot of the organizations where I found work previously were enterprise uh, companies midsize to large, fortune 1,000, if you wanna think of them that way, or or midsize for large nonprofits.
I've continued to stay sticky in that particular space but I've seen a lot more emphasis, especially since the pandemic of smaller niched communities started up by thought leaders, authors, TED Talk, speakers, other kinds of inflow answers, coaches, um, and and it's become, I think, part of their go to market to have a connected community.
And I think a lot of that's grown out of either gaming culture or or patreon, Patreon.
I've never quite sure how to say it.
But, uh, but that that, uh, that growth of, I'll call them turnkey, uh, startup communities or smaller niche communities has definitely been a trend.
That we've been seen seen happen over the past couple of years.
Yeah.
You know, uh, I come from the world of content creation, and I feel like that's a space where you are seeing more and more talk about the need for community.
Frankly, I think part of that is because it's harder and harder to cut through with content alone now that everybody can create content.
And, you know, we've all we're all walking around with television studios in our pockets and everything else, that there needs to be a differentiator.
And I think a lot of people are starting to recognize that community could be that differentiator.
So Absolutely.
Yes.
Yeah.
Um, alright, Todd.
Let's get into the bad advice that you got.
Here it is.
If you build it, they will come.
I'm I I can't do a, uh, James Earl Jones impression, but talk to me about that advice.
First of all, where did you get that advice? And, uh, you know, what happened? Uh, did you actually follow it? You you know, there's a there's an old movie.
Uh, this probably dates me, but, uh, the the field of dreams, and that was that was sort of like the whispered advice from from the go to the spirits of of baseball saying if you build it, they will was implication.
If you build this stadium, they're just gonna these these ghostly baseball players are gonna show up and populate it.
And it and it's become a almost kind of call it an an adage, uh, that scoffed at uh, by by many community professionals.
I think anyone in the in the community space, uh, that hears that will roll their eyes and say, yeah, right.
Sure.
Um, this is this is probably the worst advice And, uh, and and I think by and large companies have, you know, that that that build communities have have recognized that it's bad advice that, um, you can build the prettiest online community space possible and find that nobody shows up if you've done a bad job of it.
Or, um, or or more frequently, if you just build the space and you invite everybody in, you could end up having a ton of people come in, sign up, uh, you know, with stars in their eyes, if there's nothing there for them to do, they're definitely not gonna stick around.
And so I've, uh, I I've generally addressed this with organizations that, um, that have a naive view of how you build online movements, how you build online spaces, um, by making it really clear to them that this isn't a matter of you just turning on the community, uh, a community platform and inviting people in and hoping that they're gonna just show up for you because they get better things to do with your with their time.
Uh, if, you know, like you or me, I'm sure, you know, we're we're somewhat anomalous that we maybe have like, I don't know, fifteen, twenty, 30 can be that we're part of online.
That's an occupational hazard if we're in this space.
But I think you have the average person maybe has at least five or six places online that are sort of beckoning for their attention and not not even talking about the major social media platforms.
Yeah.
So let's take this into parts, uh, starting with this.
Before you build it, what do you like to see clients have? Do they need to have an email list or a social media following or a customer base, or can you build community if you are literally at ground zero and have nothing yet? I mean, I think it certainly helps to have those resources that that you identified.
And I will recommend that if they haven't built those kinds of lists or have a group of fans that they they can tap into.
Um, I'm you know, they they need to build it.
They need to start thinking about, you know, who they're who they're bringing into this.
Um, even if it's just, uh, you know, a month we zoom meet up, you know, that's the start of a community.
Um, but, uh, you know, can you do it without? Sure.
Uh, but the thing that I absolutely wanna see from them at the outset is a clear statement about why they wanna build that community.
Like, what what are you hoping to accomplish from this? What is your goal? What is your what is what is your business idea that's around this? And, um, usually, to help them get to something like this.
I use some something that's been around for a long time.
I've I've got a modified version of it with some modified questions, but it's the, uh, the community canvas.
Um, used to be able to get it at communitycanvas.
org, I believe.
They've done a new version of it that I just don't groove on.
Um, the the older version looks more like a business canvas, business idea canvas, um, in layout, it's really just a kind of a series of boxes that lay out things like the community purpose, the audiences you're trying to go for, um, what are the core values, um, what the success look like, what do people do in the space, and then sort of like what are some of the underlying resources or communications channels that you're gonna be using to to promote it.
If you can at least fill those boxes with some answers to the question, that's a beginning to having, you know, a vision that is realizable for your community.
Yeah.
Uh, and you bring this up.
We should probably point out that there is a difference between the the business purpose of the community, while your organization is starting it, and then the mission of the community members, which, you know, there may be some overlap there, but they're not necessarily the same thing.
Correct? Yeah.
I'm always looking for the Venn diagram.
You know, that that idea is like you've got you've got circle a and circle b and where they overlap those are coinciding interests.
Um, and it's okay if they each have their own, you know, different different sets of interests.
A company may be looking for ideas to improve its products and the, uh, the the members of community may be looking to get their questions answered about what they have, but it's when a community member has ideas for a product.
Um, and and the the company has wants to get those ideas to improve their product, that's where you see the overlap, and that's where where the value of the community really has a chance to emerge and makes everybody happy in the process.
Okay.
Alright.
So let's say we've got an organization that is there.
They, uh, understand the the business purpose of their community, they understand the shared mission of their community members.
There actually is a following or audience or list of some sort that's already there.
Um, you know, but but we're still not ready to build it necessarily.
What's the first step of understanding and figuring out what kind of space you wanna build for your community? Well, I mean, I think a lot of a lot of the activities in an an online community are gonna be driven by the goals of the members and the goals of the of the organization.
So if you have those things, we can start to put together a list of the kinds of features that we need to have in the community.
Do you need a resource library in the space.
Do you need the ability to have private or secret subgroups to be able to meet within the space? Is it even important for me to have a customizable personal profile, um, in the space? All of these things are gonna have an impact on what kind of community platforms you might wanna look at there.
And I'm I'm tracking close to a 100 community platforms.
I'm sure it's not a comprehensive list, but they're the ones that are on my radar.
And they all have different use cases.
They all have different strong suits of what they do.
Some are some are mobile first, some are, uh, desktop first.
Uh, you know, some are some are friendly, you know, in in both of those worlds.
Um, just depends on what that particular group of people happens to need, what their demographics are, what their psychographics are, and then, you know, trying to match them up with the the feature sets that are gonna make the best use of that.
So, um, making a good selection for platform is important, uh, needless to say because you're probably gonna be on it for at least a couple of years.
As quickly as software changes.
Um, you don't want to have to do a lot of migrations, you know, from one platform to another, especially if you wanna be taking that data and the richness of those conversations and ideas with you.
Yeah.
Uh, and if I'm hearing you right, before you build it and hope that they come, you actually wanna be talking to the people that you are hoping will show up.
Right? Oh, heck.
Yeah.
Oh, heck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, if you're not having those conversations, if you haven't identified, uh, you know, at least a group of five to 15 from that from that, you know, from that larger subset of followers of what you're doing who are really seem to have the potential of being your super fans in the space, then, uh, then you're gonna you're gonna have a little trouble getting off the ground.
Um, I'm always I'm always looking for sort of that core group of founding members, people that you know are at least more like to interact and offer their insights unbidden, um, online, like people that are probably social media active or at least they're good collaborators, they're communicative people.
You don't wanna be inviting your initial members into that space or having conversations with those people, um, who are, uh, you know, shy about, you know, what they want and, you know, don't have strong opinions.
They're kind of blase about your concept.
Like, those are not gonna be the people that you want in there first.
And and really those those early conversations, even before you launch the community, need to be spent really honing in on the people that you think are gonna be your big backers when you go into space because there there's, uh, you know, one failure point that that hits a lot of organizations, if you depend on your community manager to do all the heavy lifting to be like the sole evangelist, um, and they're greeting everybody coming into the community.
They look like a desperate party host handing out the dip and hoping that people stick around at their party that is doomed to feel from the beginning.
Yeah.
Uh, that makes a lot of sense.
So how do you find those people? Uh, and how do you have conversations with those people? I mean, are you literally just talking to them on Zoom? Are you doing surveys? Like, how do you get an idea of what they would like to see in this space? I mean, ideally, you know, this is this goes back to what we were saying a little bit earlier is you you hope that that customer that that you're working with has already got a mailing list that has identified people that they think would be good.
Um, I'm generally asking them as stakeholders to say, hey, who do you consider friends and family of the brand? Who would talk to us, you know, about, uh, about this community concept that that that you have? And you create a list of, you know, 15 to 25 people.
I'm I generally wanna talk to everybody on that list.
And from that list, I usually find, you know, five to 10 that are more likely to be, you know, a little more active with the brand.
They probably already pause positive about the about the the brand or the organization, and it's not, uh, requiring a lot of arm twisting to get them involved.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, what I'm taking away from this is that you know, as a guy who comes from content creation, where I get to control it until it's published and it goes out the door, this is a much more iterative process where you are constantly getting feedback and making sure that your community members are helping shape the space.
Uh, and that's a little bit of a different way of thinking.
Yeah.
I mean, and I guess for me, it's, uh, it's come relatively easily because I came out of a background as a recruiter.
So you're always recruiting.
You're always trying to make, uh, make it an invitation for people to participate and to be involved, uh, with what they're doing.
If someone says to you, hey, I had this idea for something I wanna do in the community, um, your job is to enable them, you know, to to do that as long as it's within the guidelines and federal statutes that they could do it, uh, you know, legally, uh, you wanna make you wanna make it possible for for people to do that and to iterate the concept of the community over time, all communities change.
These are these are social constructs.
It's not like a widget.
It's not like a robot.
It's not your AI.
These are people who have changing needs, attitudes over time.
And do you need to spend a little time thinking about how those needs are gonna change and try to anticipate them, but again keep asking them questions about what they want, um, in this space as well.
And, um, you know, for for me, you know, as a as a strategist, that's that's really fun work to do because I can think about, um, what do people want when they come into the community maybe months one through three, but once they've been there six months to six months to a year, their needs have probably changed.
And the kinds of things that they're looking for, the kinds of resources and conversations and defense, um, that they wanna find in the community, have absolutely matured.
And then, you know, again, for people that have been in the community for over a year, um, who are the veterans.
Wow.
You know what? They want a totally different set of things.
Maybe they wanna give back.
Maybe they want, um, greater visibility for things that they're doing or working on.
So they're having having some kind of roadmap for, uh, that journey of how people are gonna develop and have their needs develop in the community over time is is really critical to put together as well.
Yeah.
So let's do this.
Let's rephrase the bad advice and turn it into a good piece of advice.
So instead of if you build it, they will come, how would you rephrase that advice to make it good advice? I I think planet, build it, validate it, and they will come.
And, uh, and that, you know, they they need to be they need to feel invited into that process of co creating whatever this community is gonna be.
Alright.
So co creation is key.
Um, I love that.
This is fantastic.
Uh, thank you for sharing the bad advice.
What happened? Did it did you follow that bad advice? Did it not work? Um, I've been in plenty of communities where, uh, where they tried to follow that advice.
It didn't work, and that's when they came to me to try to say, what what went wrong? Where where do we where do we where do we make a wrong turn here? And, uh, and and have tried to offer, you know, directions for them to to get to a better spot.
Um, but it, you know, it inevitably, um, requires me to go back out to the members and say, hey, we noticed you haven't been around very much.
Uh, you know, what would make this more compelling for you to return? And if I'm hearing things like, uh, you know what? I just haven't had the time or I just, you know, I've been I've been busy or I try to jump I'll try to jump back in when I can.
You don't want people to be throwing you a bone, uh, for that.
There needs to be a compelling reason for them to come back.
And if you haven't lighted on that, um, you really need to to go back to the members, Think about them, think about their behaviors, look at the data that you've got and reconfigure what the purpose of that community was from the outset.
Alright.
Todd, I love that.
Uh, one last question, and this is something that we're gonna ask everybody that comes on this podcast.
Uh, make a prediction you have been in this space for over ten years.
Now five years from now, what do you think we're gonna be talking about when it comes to community? I you know, I'm I'm I'm not great at crystal ball gazing, uh, but what if if if you press me to make a guess, uh, for for where things are gonna go.
I I think in five years from now, we're going to be, um, much deeper into niched communities.
Uh, so so smaller community spaces, where people connect to each other a little more intimately than they do in the big social media platforms.
I think we're already seeing, like, if the continued degradation, um, I, the court doctor would call it the notification of those platforms, pardon my French, uh, for that.
But, uh, you know, those those spaces are falling apart because of their com commercial, their mercantile interests in just keeping your eyeballs fixed on the site.
That's I think gonna inevitably lead over the next five years to, um, a strengthening of more private online community spaces where you're connected to each other.
Um, the double edge of that particular sword means we might be more disconnected, you know, from from each other from people that have maybe slightly different viewpoints than our own.
We're we we we really are in a crisis of the comments, uh, right now, like, where where can we get together, to have those conversations with people who are maybe not like us, but where we can have not just these ephemeral social media interactions, but deeper, um, more qualitative conversations with each other about How do we make this society to live in better? Yeah.
Uh, alright.
I think those are really important questions, and I think that's a a great prediction, uh, for what may happen.
Uh, people can find out more about you by going to clocktoweradvisors.
com.
Is that correct? That's right.
Absolutely.
I I, uh, I blog there on a regular basis.
I've got some ebooks that are available, uh, for download and, uh, some other kinds of resources there.
So it'd be lovely if people would check it out.
And the community consultants collective, uh, we should point out that there's a reason to go there if you are a community consultant, but there's also a reason to go there if you are looking for a community consultant.
Talk to me about where people should go if they're falling to either of those categories.
Yeah.
That's right, Seth.
So if you are a community consultant or you are consulting curious.
Uh, you just go to communityconsultants.
life and, uh, join the community.
Um, it's actually free, uh, to become a member of it.
And so if you are exploring the concept of, uh, becoming a community and you'll find resources there.
If you are in fact looking for a community consultant, uh, we feature the profiles of members, um, from our collective on our, uh, sub domain direct.
communityconsultants.
life.
And there you can search, uh, with some pretty great tools, uh, that we're developing in conjunction with one of our partners, all peeps to, uh, find people with exactly the right profiles and platforms that you may happen to be looking for for help with.
It's a really great tool to get connected with a consultant who is the right match for your needs.
Cool.
Uh, Todd Nilson of Clocktower Advisors Thank you so much.
I really appreciate you coming on and sharing horrible advice with us.
I was really glad to share it.
Uh, and, uh, thanks for having me on.
Uh
