Hello, and welcome to Bad Community Advice.
This is the show that's all about terrible tips and toxic takeaways.
I'm your host My name is Seth Resler.
I'm the founder of Community Marketing Revolution.
And on this show, I bring on other community professionals to talk to them about the worst advice they've ever gotten.
We find out why it doesn't work and what you should actually do instead.
I'm really excited about today's episode because we are going to talk about something that is crucial, and we haven't talked about it yet on this show.
That is onboarding.
That is the process of welcoming new community members in giving them their first taste, showing them what the community is all about and how they should behave in the community, how they should participate.
My guest today is a fellow community strategist and the founder of Heather Lynn Angel LLC.
She helps people launch their own communities Please welcome Heather Angel.
Hi, Heather.
How are you? Good.
It's okay to be here, Seth.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Uh, look, let's get into right away your bad advice because your bad advice, I think so important, and it's something that we haven't talked about yet.
And that is this.
We can set up the onboarding after we launch.
This sounds like something that, uh, I I don't know come from a client, it was like, we're gonna we'll we'll worry about that later.
Is that is that where that came from? Yeah.
It's exactly who it came from.
So let's start by talking about what onboarding is.
Because that's a term that we usually use when we're talking about online communities, but sometimes it's called something different when you're talking about offline communities.
And I think often about colleges and universities where they might call it something like orientation, or maybe you'll hear initiation or or sometimes just welcoming, you know, something basic like that.
But what is onboarding and why is it so important? Yeah.
It's funny you mentioned that Seth because it's onboarding carries across all all avenues.
Right? It carries across even new hire, um, orientation like you were saying, um, and colleges and that kind of thing.
So, um, onboarding is just essentially getting somebody comfortable with their new environment.
Their community in this case, um, but just going ahead and getting them comfortable with it, important to make connections once you're in there.
So that's a huge thing that people miss out on if you're not getting the onboarding right is the sooner you can make the connection with somebody else, the sooner, uh, they will interact, they will engage with the community, and the retention is gonna go up after that.
Yeah.
So that's So that's an important point that you bring up that one of the first things you wanna do when you welcome somebody into your community space.
Is you wanna connect them to other members of that space.
It sounds like right off the bat.
Talk a little bit about how you encourage that.
How do you make that happen? Yeah.
So the really, the first thing that I do is I send a DM saying, welcome, you know, with confetti and that kind of thing.
And then in that DM, I tell them to do a very specific thing.
And that thing is the onboarding challenge.
And what that challenge includes is different activities for them to go through the community and to learn the community, but also to engage.
So for example, One of the things is, um, sign up for an event.
One of the first things that I want them to do in the community after the onboarding course or the onboarding challenge, as I call it, is to go to an event.
And again, that's because cause is if you're at an event where you can actually see people, talk to people, you're going to inevitably make a connection with somebody, which means you're going to come up, come back and show up to time after time.
So that's a really important thing.
Um, in the onboarding challenge, we also have, like, a couple of of different activities for them to do to know their way around community.
So as an example, set your notifications.
And that way, they're going to different parts of the community so that they learn where everything is, but they're also doing quick activities, which gives a quick win, which helps with that, um, like, I did something successful.
You know, it's just a very quick win that gives them almost that adrenaline, um, push and that excitement, I oftentimes will gamify gamify the, uh, quick win, which means when they're done with that onboarding challenge, they'll get something like a badge.
Um, you know, and and that signifies that they've done that, it also rewards them for it.
And it ultimately helps them to engage with the community at the same time.
So there's a lot of different kinda angles going on, um, and it it accomplishes quite a bit.
You know, I recognize that you are talking primarily about digital communities, online communities.
And I imagine that you're, you know, we we had talked before we started recording, you're building spaces, for example, in the heartbeat platform, you know, maybe things like circle or mighty networks, um, if some people are even using Facebook groups or Slack tools like that.
But there's so much that I I I think it it is helpful when thinking about this to use analogies from the real world.
And as you're talking about, hey, we wanna show them the space and where different things happen, that's very much like you mentioned when somebody first starts a new job.
I always think anytime I've started a new job, the first thing I need to learn is where are the bathrooms? Yeah.
You know, where where is the coffee maker? Where do I, you know, who do I go to if I need pencils or whatever paper whatever supplies, things like that.
I mean, showing people around, when somebody comes over to your house, uh, and and as a guest at a dinner party, it's like, okay, here's where you hang your coat.
If they take off their shoes, here's where you do that, that kind of stuff.
The other thing that I notice is that you are showing people how to participate, uh, and it's not just about, hey, here are the rules, and here's a list of things that you shouldn't do.
You're actually showing people what to do.
Can you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah.
I think it's so important to, like, one of my questions in my onboarding questionnaire is what are the things that you can contribute to the community? It's not just all about what do you expect from the community.
That's important.
We wanna make sure that we're giving them what they're looking for However, we want to also recognize that they have value.
And, you know, just through their life experiences, even if they're not an expert in that particular subject that you've got a community on, their life experiences give them value.
And so their knowledge is important.
Their interaction is important.
So if you can let them know right off the bat, you're also expecting them to engage, then that becomes such a an empowering thing for them.
It also makes it a much more dynamic community because you're already setting that expectation.
Uh, you know, I think that's something that a lot of people don't realize is that they assume people join a community just for what they can get out of it.
Yeah.
But a lot of people will step up and they're in there because they enjoy exactly what you're talking about, making abutians, and and it makes them feel valuable, uh, and, you know, really contributes a lot to it.
Um Yeah.
For sure.
So let me ask, when you hear this bad advice, when you've heard this from clients who are like, I'll set up the onboarding later, Um, why? Is it just a matter of time and they wanna launch as quickly as possible? Uh, you know, what is the reasoning behind that? Yeah.
So I get a couple of different types of clients chance.
Some that are very gun shy.
They don't want to launch because they're scared.
They're scared of of succeeding.
They're scared of failing whatever the case is.
Right? There's a lot of, uh, kinda, mindset pieces that we need to work through.
However, there are some that are so anxious to get it started that they just want to create the thing and then start inviting people in.
And so that that onboarding piece just becomes one more thing that they have to do.
And until they understand the value in it and all of the things that it actually does for the community and for that member, then, you know, it's it's a little bit hard.
I think to wrap your head around like, oh my god.
I've gotta set up one more thing that has all these pieces to it.
And think about if they're, um, you know, not very tech savvy or if they are a team of one or two.
And they're trying to set this thing up.
This is an extension in most cases of their business, the community, um, piece of it.
And so it's a little bit overwhelming for a lot of people.
And to have one more list of things that they need to make sure they set up can be overwhelming to address, And so that's I think the biggest, you know, piece of that that I've seen, um, but definitely something that needs to be addressed.
So let's break it down and make it simple.
If somebody is sitting there and they are planning out their onboarding, uh, you know, and they're they're saying essentially how do we welcome new members into the community for the first time and how do we show them how to participate and how to engage? Start with the goals.
What what do you think are the important goals? What are you trying to accomplish with that onboarding? And how are you measuring that? How do you know if it's working? Yeah.
So the goals, and that's such a huge piece of this.
Right? And and it's thank you for bringing that up because it's not something that you often think about, especially with onboarding, but you need to make sure that the the new member is feeling comfortable.
You need to make sure that they know their way around so that they don't get into the space and then just feel completely overwhelmed.
They also need to make connection.
And that is one of the most critical pieces of that.
Um, and then it goes into, you know, how you know it's working is if they drop off after depending on, like, my my community is a quarter at a time.
And that's because you need to be in there for a little while to kind of learn some things and pick up the pieces and I've got a lot of templates and a lot of checklists and courses and that kind of thing.
And so you need to be in there for a little while to to be able to digest that and not get overwhelmed with feeling like you have to do it in thirty days.
And so my, you know, depending on whether or not you are quarterly, whether your monthly.
That depends on how fast you want them to get through it.
But at the end of that time, are you, you know, seeing that there's a drop off? So they leaving after your thirty days? And if they are, there's something that they're missing.
Uh, because if a community is set up properly.
Now I say that very loosely because every community is different.
Every goal of a community, every vision is completely different.
And that's one of the things I love about community.
However, they need to understand what what it is that they're trying to achieve.
And if they're not getting that in that short kind of that quick win, whatever that looks like for you, whether it's thirty days or ninety days as it is for me, then if they're not getting that, they're not gonna see the value in paying time after time.
And so if your community is set up to continue to see value, then they're going to, um, stay.
And so the biggest piece of that is retention.
That's how you can kind of tell whether or not they are getting getting that value whether that onboarding has done its job.
The other thing is if they remain completely silent, so there's some cases where people are not because whether they're shy, they're extremely busy, um, extreme introverts.
I've seen all cases.
They're not gonna show up all the time.
Maybe they live in a different part of the country.
Maybe they're in Australia, and it's completely different time zone than we are.
And so they can't come because they can't come in the middle of the night or whatever the case is.
And so they remain a little bit quieter.
Well, that, in that case, they are very important to the community, and a lot of people think that because they don't show up or whatever.
They must not be getting value.
They must not be be liking it.
And one of the tips that I would kinda say I'm going off a little bit, but one of the tips I would say for that is to check-in every month check-in.
Maybe more often than that depending on the member.
Um, but check-in with each member that you have or or, you know, whether you automate that or whether you individually check-in with them.
The people that you're not seeing as much.
Just make sure that they're getting value.
And so it's that that connection piece, which is part of what community is all about anyway.
Um, so silence, all of that to say silence doesn't necessarily really mean that there is an issue because sometimes they are just a silent observer.
They're there for the education piece.
But the more act they are in the community, the more vocal, the more the rest of your members are going to get value from them as well.
And so you don't want this to be a community just about you or just about one person.
It, a community, it a a hole is all of us talking to each other.
Um, so I I kinda went off on a little bit of a tangent there.
I could talk about that forever.
But that's great because, you know, first of all, I love this idea that it's about retention.
It that at the end of the day, you want people to from that first impression when they enter your space and they enter your community, they feel welcome, they feel a sense of belonging, they know what to do there, they know how to get value out of the community, and they know how to contribute value to the community.
And you're gonna know if they don't because they're gonna stop coming back.
Right? Yeah.
So it's so I I think one of the things that becomes really important is that, um, you know, sometimes when we deal with people who are launching a community for the first time, they think it's it's all about the grand opening, and it's all about day one.
And we got x number of people through the doors on the first day.
And then there's this drop off because they aren't thinking about how do we, you know, we have to get them back over and over again and retained by continuing to provide value.
And I think the other thing that's interesting that you really said there is that, you know, I don't know if it's you're saying that onboarding is never really done, but certainly that that idea that you have to always be checking in and getting that feedback and figuring out, you know, whether people are getting value, you're always working on that retention.
Right? Yeah.
For sure.
It's it's never ending, and you wanna make sure that you're giving the appropriate value to everybody, not just your core group of people.
So let me ask about something that you mentioned there because you talked about how with your community, you are bringing people in quarterly.
And, um, and some communities do that.
Some people have you know, like a a registration that happens at certain times, and that's when people, again, thinking about a university or a fraternity where, you know, it happens at the beginning of, you know, every fall.
Um, and then there are other communities where people can join anytime.
I was part of a swim club when I a kid, you know, and you could you could join in July or August or February or it was California.
We could do.
Right.
We could do that.
Uh, so, um, talk to me about the advantages of doing that model that you're talking about where you have specified periods of time where people can join as opposed to always having the doors open? Yeah.
So There's pros and cons to both.
And so for mine, just to kinda clarify that piece, I actually do keep an open model where people can join at any time, but you have to pay for three months at a time.
So it's still a low price point.
It's not, you know, a massive amount of money or a huge investment, but they have to pay three months at a time.
And the reason is I've actually had people come into my community, and they've been very upfront with me.
I've got very honest people in my community, which, you know, I I think what you see is what you get with me.
And so that kind of resonates with my members.
Um, but they've told me, hey, I'm coming in.
I need the templates, and then I'm leaving.
And that's fine.
But there's more value there.
There's there's value in the connection piece, and there's value in what they can give my community.
And that so I don't wanna set it up as a one and done where you just come in, take, you know, and don't give back.
And so I've purposely set it up that way because because it does take longer than just a month to go through everything and to to get the, um, the pieces of community building that you need.
And because my community is for community builders, it's everybody in there is building their community.
So there's a lot of things going on, and everybody's on a different journey.
So that's one of the cons is everybody's on a different journey.
And so it would probably be easier for my community if I opened up quarterly.
And then closed.
And maybe eventually I'll do that.
Um, because then everybody comes in at the same place and then they kinda get to the same place and then they continue on.
But right now, It's just completely open and people can join whenever they want.
So the benefit of having a closed model, which is you come in, you you join at a certain time.
So everybody joins at that same, you know, time frame, whether it's a week launch or whatever that is.
And then the model or then the community closes and not the community.
Sorry.
The enrollment, it closes.
So they're not able to join until the next open enrollment.
And there's huge benefit to that even though I'm not, you know, using that model.
I do know there's huge benefit to to that because you can take everybody on a specific journey.
It's just not something that I choose to do in mine right now.
So there's definitely pros and cons to both sides of that.
Let me ask about another word that I heard you use, which is overwhelm.
And I I work a lot with content creators, and content creators, you know, their value, they they they believe is the comes from the content that they create.
And so there is this temptation to sort of load up your community, especially if you're doing, you know, a, uh, a community of practice or one that is focused on teaching or transformation to just load it up with content.
And put as much content, and the more content that I can shove into this community, the more value that I am providing.
And there is a danger of that overwhelm.
And I think one of the mistakes that sometimes, uh, you know, new community builders make is they they almost overarchitect.
Or they put too much in, and it gets too complicated.
And you get in.
And and so what is your advice with that? How can you avoid overwhelm? Please don't put too much in your community when you're first starting.
That's my best advice.
Um, it is so easy like you said, Seth, to to just want to create so much immense value for everybody that you start your community with all of this stuff.
I hear it over and over and over again.
Well, I just have to put more content in, and then I'll be ready to open.
And that never ends.
Right? There's always more content to build, more content to create and things that you think your members are going to need.
But this is the important piece.
Community is very fluid.
It's ever changing.
And so, again, another thing I love about community because I love change.
So for me, for someone like me, that's very exciting.
But for a lot of people that gets overwhelming, where, okay, it's gonna change.
So how do I know? Like, you kinda overthink the the whole thing.
And what you should do is and this sounds very, very simple.
In my community, we keep everything simple.
Um, and that's kind of the theme.
It's just simplified.
If you have to think more than a day about it, then kinda back up.
And, you know, it shouldn't take you forever to create a piece.
And start.
The other piece of that, though, is because it's fluid, because community is ever changing, and because your members need something at different stages, that thing that you've spent so much time creating may not be the piece.
That that particular group of people needs right right now.
And so you need to be able to kinda create on the fly.
Um, and that is a little bit controversial for the people that are, you know, my type type a people that are really planners.
And I get that.
I, you know, so I say that cautiously.
I know that's not a possibility for everybody.
But if you can create for very, you know, short time periods, um, and focus on that.
Ask your members what they need.
So do a survey.
Maybe it's every quarter.
You're kind of doing this survey to interact with your members.
Find out what it is that they're liking, what they're getting, and what they need.
And you're gonna find a lot of answers in that.
The other thing is listen in your meetings.
So I have a weekly q and a.
And in that weekly q and a, I have gotten there was one time.
Uh, I believe it was about two weeks ago.
Maybe three now, that they were riffing off each other, all my members, and there was just ideas were popping like crazy.
And so I wrote all of those down and I heard several times in that conversation.
Oh, we should do this or we need to talk about this more and get what? That becomes now content for the next just from that one meeting.
I think I got content for the next two months.
And it was things that they specifically said they needed.
So listen.
A lot of listening in your community, a lot of watching, a lot of, um, just kind of behind the scenes, just just being observant and caring.
Something that I've noticed as a content creator.
I mean, because that's where I've spent most of my life in my career.
You have control over it until the moment you hit publish, and it goes out into the world.
And that's when you release control of it, whether you're a podcaster, whether you're a filmmaker, whether you write a blog, you know, whatever.
And community is not like that at all.
And and so it's kind of a mindset shift, and that's exactly the thing that you're talking about because you're really co creating that space with your members so that you can meet their needs.
And so you need those feedback loops that you're talking about, those surveys, those that listening that happens in those groups so that you can figure out.
And it's it's a it's a tough thing to do because, you know, I am one of those type a people.
I like that control.
Yeah.
And it and it's hard to be fluid and be on the fly and go, oh, we need to shift and do this.
So I think what we're saying here is don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
That You could have said it better.
Yeah.
Um, you know, for sure.
I wanna go back to the onboarding campaign and talk about the tools you're using because you mentioned DMs you know, what other tools do you think about when it comes to creating that actual onboarding campaign? We know what we need to do with it now.
We know that we're measuring it in terms of retention and participation.
Um, do you like to use emails? Do you like to use DMs, are you using just the tools that are within the online platform that you built the community in, uh, or are you having Zoom calls with new members? Like, what do you like to do there? Yeah.
The great question.
I so there's as much as you can keep it in the community.
So depending on the platform that you're building on, that's more possible with some platforms than it is the other.
And that may be one of the things you think about when you're choosing a platform, but that's another conversation.
Um, but some of the the tools that I do like to use or or the things that I like to include in the onboarding is the DM.
So I prefer, like, and I use heartbeat and and and I know circle does the same.
I believe Miting Networks does same, um, but you can automate a DM so that when somebody joins the community, it sends them a welcome in heartbeat.
You can throw up confetti, and it's just kind of a fun, like, they get that as soon as they finish their on their questionnaire and profile picture and a little bit about them, that kind of thing.
The other thing that I like to do personally, and I've gotten really great response from this is to send them a quick video.
So I recorded on Loom typically just because it's it's quick and easy and I can just include the link.
And I put that on their profile, not on their their actual profile, but where they introduce themselves in the community.
I will read that and then I relate something to it.
So in the or in the video, I might, you know, hey, welcome.
Super excited to hear that you are, you know, taking this journey.
Let us know how we can excuse me.
How we can help But at the same time, I also relate to something that they've written about in their bio.
To let them know that this is not a generic message.
This is actually me picking up my phone recording a loom and welcoming you because I truly value you.
So that's something that if you're able to do that, if your community is not thousands of people, um, you know, and you have a smaller pocket of people joining at a time, then if you can do that, do that.
And that's a very less than one minute video.
It should not be long.
The other thing that I do in my questions that I ask for them to fill out when they join the community is, and this is not a form uh, to get them to join the community or to approve them.
This is after they've joined, they have to ask a certain set of questions.
So when I refer to the questions, that's what I'm referring to.
And one of the things I ask is what is your favorite karaoke song or shower song? And the reason I asked that is because I've created a Spotify playlist for them.
And so every new member that comes, I add their song to the Spotify playlist, and it becomes an internal playlist just for our community.
And it is the most eclectic playlist that you would ever see.
And it's so much fun.
And people get really excited about that.
So that's kind of a fun way that I've incorporated some.
It's kind of gamification, but it's a very personal touch to just our community.
So that's like our little secret, um, our secret sauce that only we share.
And then, um, other tools I like to use are email.
Definitely.
If you can create them in the community platform, that's great.
I also like to set up an email sequence.
It's I do a very short one.
I know of other people that do longer and that's, you know, however you wanna do it is fine.
I set one.
It's a three mail three email welcome sequence, and it goes every two days.
And so the first one as soon as they join, and then two days later, and then two days after that.
And it's a list of certain things that you should include in your email to not only welcome them, but let them know, like, make sure you do this.
And have you signed up for an event yet? You know, make sure you sign up for an event and just kind of reiterating what that onboarding challenge did, you're reiterating those pieces, but a few things at a time.
You're also mentioning like you might throw in your welcome video in there and that again, that should be like a sixty second video less than two minutes for sure.
Um, but you can throw that into the first one.
You can do several different things.
But this email sequence, the reason why I like to have it off of the platform is because they may not be used to checking that platform yet.
And so now they're getting a separate email, which we're all used to checking.
They've got a button to connect them back of the community.
And so it's giving them something for I make them very fun.
Um, and so it's giving them something fun to read setting the tone for the community while also giving them a button to connect back to the communities so that they don't forget to log in.
Or in some cases, I mean, how many times have we we signed up for something? And then didn't save the link, and we can't find it because we didn't get an email saying, hey, so glad you joined.
Here's a link to, you know, whatever it is.
And so Um, that's kind of my way of double double verifying that they're, um, they're able to get into the community, but also reinforcing I want you in the community.
So click the button, come back.
Click the button, come back.
And build that habit.
Yeah.
Uh, alright.
So you've you've offered a lot of great insights, and so I wanna pull them out because, again, this onboarding peace is so important.
And like you said, the goal here is to make sure that people, uh, feel welcome.
They feel like they belong, uh, and that they know how to participate in the community right from the bat, and you're gonna know whether that's working or not because you can look retention.
You can look at whether they come back enough.
Um, some of the things that I thought that you said that were really interesting is one of the first things you wanna do is connect them to other people, and you're using events to do that.
That you really wanna try and get them to an event right off the bat, it sounds like even more than connect them with content, you wanna get them connected to other people.
Uh, and and some of the mistakes here that people make is just overwhelming them with too much stuff.
Uh, yeah.
Uh, so so this is really great.
I I I really appreciate it.
Are there any other mistakes that people make with onboarding that they should watch out for? Oh, um, really I could talk about onboarding literally all day long.
So this is probably a loaded question.
Um, yeah, keep it simple.
You don't have to complicate it.
People say, oh, I've gotta do this onboarding thing.
And again, with the overwhelm for the creator, it doesn't need to be complicated.
Start with something simple.
Start with a few of the things that I suggest and then build it as you go.
As you can.
Do not let onboarding be what holds you up from launching, but do not launch without onboarding.
And I have seen that.
Um, I don't believe I said this before, but I have seen that with that client that told me they weren't going to do the onboarding and their community closed within six months.
Uh, because they didn't have any connection going on with those people.
So it's really, really critical.
Alright, Heather.
Here's the last question I ask everybody this.
Make a prediction.
What do you think we're gonna be talking about in the community space, say five years from now? This is hard.
It's hard to predict five years because of how rapidly, technology, and even community is changing.
However, I think we're going to go through a period where people think they can run their communities on AI.
And I actually had somebody say that to me.
I'm going to build a community and then just let AI run it.
And that's not truly community in my viewpoint.
I didn't work with them.
Um, I wasn't the right fit.
Uh, so I think that there's gonna be a period of time where AI where people just think, oh, you know, we can we can do this automated.
And I I I don't it's not gonna stick.
So I think we're gonna come back to a time where community, not just online, but also in person, become so important and such an important piece of our business that we kinda get back to the basics.
And I hope that's happened sooner than five years from now.
Um, but I do expect that we're going to acknowledge that within that five years.
Yeah.
I I mean, community run by AI sounds like the matrix to me.
It just Oh my gosh.
Uh, not not that there aren't features of uh, running a community that I think AI couldn't be helpful with.
You know, I think flagging, you know, offensive content or or things like that.
AI could be hugely helpful.
But you know, like you said, that that video introduction where you're reacting to a person that you do and you try very much to make it personal.
Yeah.
You can do that with AI.
You know? No.
No.
Uh, alright, Heather, thank you so much for joining me.
So, uh, if wanna know more about you, the website is heatherlynnangel.
com.
Uh, and you have something you said for, uh, for people who watch this or listen to this.
I do.
I have a complete onboarding playbook.
I do typically charge for this.
I am not for your community.
So I appreciate what you're doing, Seth, and bringing all of our community people together and, you know, people that want to learn about community and what you're doing is simply amazing.
Um, so if I can offer this, that would be amazing.
It's heatherlandangel.
com/seth, and you can get onboarding playbook.
Well, thank you so much.
That's fantastic.
And and, I'm glad you're doing this because all I'm doing is giving people bad advice.
So it's nice that you actually have a playbook full of good advice to give to people.
I appreciate that.
Well, Heather, thank you so much for joining me.
I I this was great to talk about onboarding.
It was so fun.
I really appreciate you, Seth, and everything you're doing.
Uh
