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Are private communities the future of the creator business? Let's talk about it. Welcome to the Muthership Creator Strategy. I love to talk about my takeaways from my one on one consulting sessions, and a few that I've had recently have led me to the place of sharing with these creators that potentially they have a community opportunity that is a monetization outside of brand deals, outside of digital products, influencer selling, shopping shop items, and that kind of thing. And what it is is doing the subscription type of thing.
Helen:And the reason why I wanna talk about it is I've been deep into the learning about it since I started my community. I was originally not even into the idea years ago. I was like, no, no, that's not for me. And I'm too I was so deep into production, I couldn't see the value in it. And so much has changed for me since then.
Helen:I I always wanna say never say no, just say not now. Because a lot of times, something might not be right for you at a certain time, but then the time comes and it is right for you. So I want to make sure that you're getting the learning from my experience as I usually do share. And one of the things that I've figured out is that something about the community thing fulfills something in me that I didn't expect. And it starts with if I really go back in time to when I used to live in the suburbs and I was a mom, a suburban mom, and I would have dance parties at my house and the ladies would come over.
Helen:And a lot of the women from my neighborhood, a lot of times I didn't know the women who would come over because they were a friend of a friend and who someone else invited them. And those those dance parties were so fulfilling to me on another level. I used to think about branding them and taking that whole concept on the road. I mean, I've always I'm I've always been that entrepreneur spirit of how can I make this into a business, you know? But I loved it so much because the connections that would happen at the dance parties, not necessarily directly with me, but this person would meet that person and then they'd find out that they know each other because their kids go to school together or people would connect and say, oh, well, how do you know Helen?
Helen:Well, how do you know Helen? And so things I was bringing people together that would very unlikely have been friends before, but it was happening. And I remember that so clearly. It is almost like tangible to what I feel like I'm doing now in the studio. I try I try hard to attract the right people so that they come in, and then they get to know each other and they're supportive of each other and they're cheerleaders for each other.
Helen:And when we're uplifting each other, we are so much greater than the individual self. And I truly believe that. So I just love it so much. And I think that what we're missing when we're all thinking about content creation, and we gotta make these videos, and we gotta sell these products, and we've gotta think about how we're gonna monetize. Sometimes it's right in front of us, and I'm gonna share that on one of the recent one on ones.
Helen:I said to this woman who's going through a transition transformation, a personal transformation, and I was like, you know, you should bring people along with you, and while you're in it, maybe get a little group together and do like a little subscription program. It doesn't have to be on a higher higher level. It's just a way of creating a space for people to learn together, to transition together, to feel like they're a part of something and not alone. And especially as a content creator, because a lot of times we do feel like we're alone. We get overwhelmed.
Helen:We can't think of ideas. That's what I've hoped I hope to provide with my program is support, ideas, collaboration, a feeling of belonging, a feeling of when you're having a down day, someone else posts something and it makes you feel good, and they're sharing it in the studio, and now we're all on a path of, like, celebrating that person. I love it, and I love when everyone shares their wins because it's like, let's go. We're all trying to do something. We're not competing with each other.
Helen:We're really part of a collective spirit in in this creator world. I think it's so important. So I will I'm just gonna go through a few of the things that I wanna share about why I think private community can can help you in in your content creation journey as even if it's just planting a seed for it now and it's not the right time, you'll have this thought in mind when the right time comes to your, like, comes in front of you. And I say it all the time, but the algorithm is so tough. It's you're not always getting your videos seen.
Helen:It's really frustrating at times, I mean, for all of us. But when you have an email list, you are reaching people directly. So the first step to building community is building that email list, and I've talked about this on podcast before. But having direct access to your viewers, your followers who are most invested in your content, and the first step is very simple, is to get that email list together. Because then one day when you do wanna launch something, whether it's a community or any kind of a subscription program or maybe you're selling a book or whatever you decide to do, you have your audience in hand.
Helen:And even me, like I don't spend enough time building the email list. I spend more time talking about the studio, more time talking about how I can help people. And really, my first foot in the door should be to get people into the email list, so I should probably take my own advice. But anyway, the email list gives you direct access to your audience. And so there, you can control the experience.
Helen:You can actually share specific things and know people are going to see it. And for the most part, people who sign up for email lists, they do stay with it. I mean, our my email list, the one that Julie and I do, we we have a really high open rate very consistently. And it's because we're offering a certain value that people are expecting week to week. So if you can figure out what that rhythm is for you, that people, and you're giving them something that they want, they're more likely to remain invested.
Helen:And even if they don't reply to the email or engage with the email, they're reminded. You know how I know this? This is so funny. I have to do a little tangent. But supposedly right now, not supposedly, actually right now, on social media, a lot of people are not necessarily engaging, but they're viewing.
Helen:They are seeing what you are doing. And it's the same with your emails. Okay? Because here's what I'm gonna tell you. Oh my god, I love this insight.
Helen:I have so many relatives and friends. Now, when I post certain things in my stories, they'll engage. If I post something about my kids or something, then they engage. But I know my family, my friends, my peripheral friends who see my stories are seeing them. They're not commenting.
Helen:They're not engaging. They're seeing. They know what's happening. I see them in real life, and then they're like, oh, I know what you're doing. I saw you on Instagram here, there and there.
Helen:Yeah. But you didn't engage, you didn't like, you didn't nothing. There was no reciprocity. It was just a one way thing. And that's what creators are finding right now is this voyeuristic experience as a viewer that doesn't engage is so much more prevalent now.
Helen:Think of how many videos you swipe by and you don't even tap the like button. I mean, we're we're all going so fast, we're just watching and moving on. And sometimes I'm like, oh, I saved that video. I'm sure I did. No, I didn't.
Helen:I was moving so fast, I watched it, I forgot to hit the save button. So we're in a space of social media where the content is coming so fast and furiously at us as viewers. We're not even doing their thing. We're not even engaging. But people are seeing it.
Helen:And this is the same with you put out emails and you think, is anybody even looking at this? Who's looking at it? Or whatever. Then you put something in one of the emails and that is of interest to someone. Suddenly, I'm getting a little reach out from a friend who gets my emails, never engages or clicks or anything on the emails, messaging me.
Helen:Oh, I see that you, you know, you launched your event. Oh, really? So even though you think people aren't seeing and you feel like you're throwing these emails out to the wind or you're throwing the content out to the wind, people are seeing it. People are seeing it. They just aren't taking that little extra half a second, which I'm guilty of as well, of hitting the like button.
Helen:Sometimes we're just really we're in voyeur mode and we're moving too fast. Okay? So having that email list, having that direct access to your audience guarantees that you don't have to wait for an algorithm to feed your content to them. You can do it yourself. And that's the first step to thinking about what you want to build in terms of community.
Helen:So if you ever think like, oh, maybe one day. Okay. Someday, one day, someday is now. Hi Felicia. But someday is now.
Helen:There's there's a creator I spoke to that is using that as as one of her, slogans. But anyway, it is. It's someday is now. We always think, oh, we're gonna do that. Maybe we're gonna do that.
Helen:Maybe someday, whatever. And you don't even know how what you do now can someday and can get you to someday sooner. Even if someday isn't right now, someday might be soon. And if it is, you wanna be taking the steps in that direction. Okay.
Helen:So that's the first thing about having your access to your audience. The power of going through something together is what holds people together, and I talk about this with exercise. If you're going wins feel bigger when you're when you're doing it as a team. Struggles feel less difficult when you're doing them with others. When people build friendships inside a community, they're they're not just now transactional.
Helen:They're really creating bonding, and that keeps them interested in what you're doing. It keeps them together in your community. And these are the types of things that I've learned, and it's so cool. I'm gonna digress for another second about timing, but I have really wanted to do an in person meetup. And I can't really do, okay, the type of job that I have, and I'm flying to do shoots, and I'm traveling to do this and that.
Helen:I can't I can't really be just willy nilly about like, let's make a meetup because what if I get booked on a production shoot and then I have to go and do something. So that's not really the world that I can can throw myself into, but what I can do is make a solidified event and then commit to that and book an itinerary and make it almost like a little production and then invite people to it. So of course I decided to do this and what do I do? I pick it I pick New York City as the first place, most expensive city in the world, whatever. And I make a whole itinerary and it just launched today to my studio members first.
Helen:And we're trying to at least give people the opportunity to decide if they wanna do it or not before I release it out to the general public. And what I'd like to do is I mean, I'd really like my studio members to be able to meet with each other. I realize that always price is an issue that if you're going to something and you have to, number one, get to it, then you have to pay for accommodations. But everything in the event itself is included, and that's the way I wanted to do it. I have attended events where I've spoken at them, and then we'll go on a the team dinner, and then everyone has to take out their credit cards for this team dinner.
Helen:I mean, I've never heard I couldn't believe it. I was like, these people paid a ticket price to come to this event, and now they have to buy their own meals and buy their own lunches and buy their own tour tickets and all this stuff. I was surprised by that. So I didn't wanna do it that way. I I was like, I wanna have it where it's all inclusive.
Helen:You come. You're gonna get me for three days. You're gonna get all the events included. And I mean drinks, dinner, the works. The studio that we're gonna be working at, the places that we're the tours that we're gonna do, and I have things all laid out and on hold and ready to go.
Helen:Because I want it to be an all inclusive experience that you don't feel like you come to this event and you're just getting me teaching you, but then you have to pay for your dinner, pay for your lunch, pay for your thing. So I I just chose to do it that way because I think that if I'm attending an event, that's the way I like it to be. I don't like to have to reach into my pocket and pay for everything individually. So but my point of doing the retreat itself is so that people can connect together. I get to spend time with them.
Helen:I get to teach in person. My expertise is valuable. I know that when I do shoots, I can see people coming over when I'm sitting with my phone editing. I have the clients coming over to see how I'm doing it. And it's I want to share that in person.
Helen:I think learning in person is so much more tangible to how you can become a better creator. So that's what I that's where I'm at. So in case you're interested in that, you might wanna get in the studio because I'm really only releasing it to studio members first until June 30, and then we'll open it up to the email list. But I think that, you know, circling back to this whole idea of creating together of creating a community of people who are doing things that are transformative together is an untapped resource for a lot of creators. And most of them, aka me, us, have delayed it for a long time for one reason or the other.
Helen:Maybe it seemed too daunting, Perhaps. Maybe it's just, oh, it's not the right time. I'm too busy doing this. I can't afford to take away from my day job to do this. Whatever the excuses and the reasons, not even excuses, whatever the actual reasons are, you don't have to start on that high of a scale.
Helen:You could start by something that's a free community. You get people in. You get people invested. It's not gonna cost you a whole lot of time because people aren't paying, so therefore they're not expecting a lot. They're just gonna be there and creating the community.
Helen:So you don't have to right away say, I'm gonna do this and have people sending me payments. You can start with a free community, building those connections, creating that warm audience, and then when you do decide you want to launch, at least you have people that are already invested in the experience. I I think that we don't realize the value in that. So I wanted to make this episode really lean on that. You the thing about a community is you get to serve people on a deeper level deeper level.
Helen:You're not just creating this content that's like gonna be forgotten and gone. If you wanna do something in your community where you're putting out a piece of content specifically for your community only every week like I do. I do tutorials and lessons specifically for my members only. And it's like I even my tone of voice is a little different in those videos because I'm now speaking to my classroom versus my TikTok audience. And there's this slight difference.
Helen:I can't even put it into words, really, but there is. I feel that I'm speaking to the family now, and I'm, like, giving them a little extra information about why they should do this and why this works better. And all the background thoughts of ways to use this content instead of just how to use it. So I like to think, I actually know, that for my studio members, I'm I'm delivering content that is a different kind of value. And so you can think about what is your value that you can offer to a community versus your outside audience.
Helen:You can decide to do it for free. You can decide to do it on a very limited simple platform. You can do something more robust. None of them are that are unaffordable in the beginning when you're just building. If you do want to grow it and you wanna get into the pro versions and have all the bells and whistles, of course, the numbers go up.
Helen:But if you have people that you are if you're a coach, I'm thinking of my fitness coach people in the studio. If you're a yoga instructor and you want to bring together other yoga instructors to have commiserate with each other, there's a safe space that you can create for that and the value of that just brings people together more. So you don't have to start with a community. You can start with an email list. Make sure you're talking to your email list.
Helen:Make sure you're putting yourself out there. Know that what you whatever you're creating, it's becoming it becomes like a ripple effect. So somebody likes it, somebody tells somebody else about it, somebody else about it. And you can create a ripple effect. I'm not saying that your community is necessarily gonna sell your community to other people necessarily, but if it if you have a free community and people are just really enjoying it and talking about it, they will likely bring other people in.
Helen:It's pretty easy to do that on that level. So food for thought is just think about how you might what you could offer if a community might be right for you. And then the way to get the community started, there's so many different options, and we can always talk about that. By the way, if you have any interest, can I can gladly make some content on that? But it's just about a way of serving your audience so that you know you're reaching them.
Helen:And it's finding the the posse of people that you really enjoy being with and bringing them together. And it makes it's great. I have, my meeting today with with the studio, and I'm already looking forward to it. I'm thinking about what I'm gonna teach them in the meeting, what I'm gonna learn from them in the q and a, and it's something I truly am passionate about. The other night, I was on a TikTok live reading the testimonial comments that some people have written to me, and I couldn't even get through them.
Helen:I was getting teary because it's real for me. So, I mean, I know it's also a business, but it's more personal than it is business at this point. Feels more personal, and it feels more real, like I'm making an impact and I'm I'm actually making a difference. So I love doing it. And thank you for being a part of it if you are.
Helen:I appreciate you so much. Hope you're learning every day. Hope you're inspired by the others that are in there. I hope you're making connections that make you feel like you're getting better as part of the group versus by yourself. And if you need anything, just drop it into the community chat, and I'll be happy to accommodate because I've made a few tutorials, a few exclusive tutorials recently and some TikTok content from the requests that I get inside the studio.
Helen:So there's so many perks and fun things about being in there. And perhaps you have the desire and you think it's not right for you. Perhaps you have thought about it and pushed it aside because it seems too daunting or it seems like too much work. But let this be a a little little I don't know. Like a little sign or a little jiggle of the thought to say, is the time right?
Helen:Is it something I should be thinking about? I know a lot of the creator industry folks are saying that this is the future of the creator industry. So the takeaway here should just be start thinking about it, and for sure, get that email list going. Poke poke. This is me reminding you.
Helen:Because if you grow it slowly from your existing audience, this way when you do decide you're ready to do something, you have that pre existing audience kind of primed and ready. That's it. I'm just planting the seed. I'm going to sprinkle it with some water. Have a wonderful weekend.
Helen:See you next week.