Building Strong Communities with Meetup.com Group: Pints N' Pearls

Pints and Pearls. If you were to guess what this group or this community does, what would your guess be? I'm not gonna give you too long because you could probably obviously guess that on one hand they drink beer pints, and on the other hand, pearls, they do some sort of craft work. In this case, it's knitting. Well, my team had the opportunity to go visit the Pints and Pearls meetup group of New York City. And I have to say, instantly my team felt connected to that community because from the mom, one of my team members walked in, they instantly were bonding with everyone else at the table because everyone at the table was opening and welcoming to us as new members. They instantly asked questions, they got to know us, they built the relationship with us. And what was funny is that as the meetup went on, it was actually kind of hard to know who was in charge because everyone felt like they were giving feedback. Everyone at one point was kind of leading the meetup. And I always say the, the best communities are the ones where you're not quite sure who's leading it, because the leader has built up the whole community to be self sustaining without them. But being a part of the Pints and Pearls meetup also highlighted another key aspect of a strong community. It's that from the moment a new member walks into your world, to your sphere, someone should be connecting with them to help them to feel welcome, feel connected, and feel engaged. We call that the door greeter. The ones who as soon as they spot someone new, they go over like, hey, my name's Tom, nice to meet you. And they try to build some connection, some relationship with them, because that person is most likely going to feel a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit awkward. And so our challenge as the leaders is to connect with that person, build the shared interest with them, and then connect them with members of our group. That's what happened at Pints and Pearls. There was an instant connection there because they introduced themselves to our team member, they built a relationship with them, and then they connect our team member to the rest of the community. Because by the time the meetup was done, we now had connections with so many people within that community. And of course, another final aspect about this community that I see in all the communities we work with is that there was a shared common interest. And in this case, the core was knitting. They were passionate about the topic of knitting. Beer and drinking was kind of the side lubricant to it all. And as I remember seeing once when I passed by a gym in New York City, there was a big banner on the outside that said, come for the equipment, Stay for the community. Because the final thing we noticed here is that while they were all knitting, every single one of them talked about how they love this community because of the relationships in that community. So if you're building a community and you want to increase the engagement, think about what's the core topic? Second, how are you building everyone up so that you are not the sole leader? Third, what are you doing to engage those new people when they come into your world? And fourth, how are you building those social connections between all the members so that it's not about the activity, but about the relationships that happen around the activity? My name is Tom. I'm here to help you to engage your people. I'll see you in the next video. It.