In this episode of the Social Lights Podcast, podcast host and Social Mediology founder Kate vanderVoort chats with Tania Cheng (She/They), Director of Process Innovation at SheEO and part of the team that creates and curates of all aspects of community at SheEO. SheEO has more than 7000 activators globally and combined online communities of over 50,000 women and non-binary people.

About Tania

Tania leads initiatives related to community experience design, online community engagement, feedback and evaluation, team learning and development, process mapping, and storytelling through design.

Early on, Tania has been involved in intentional communities and their own personal journey of finding the places where they belong has led to find the value of community and value a sense of belonging. Tania naturally gravitates to work and people who care about the community and who care about relationships.

BIG IDEA 1

“We are working to shift mindsets and paradigms” (08:32)

As an organization and a community, Tania shared the impact they are trying to make; that they are showing the world different ways of doing things; different ways of funding ventures, different ways of doing business, different ways of being in community and different ways of being human. We are working to create more opportunities to have these conversations about equity inclusion, about power and privilege about decolonization around justice, all of these things that are essential to transforming systems.

These mindsets that are deeply embedded in the way they co-exist as a community and how they build a community. Tania added that it's all part of this broader theory of change of transforming ourselves in order to transform systems and creating the systems that we need that will work for everyone.

BIG IDEA 2

“The magic and the secret sauce of community is having the mentality and mindset of giving and generosity and trust and knowing that you can come and show up as you are” (13:11)

Having a “How can I help?” mindset and knowing that you can offer your support and it will be received and you can ask for support and it will be given is one of the magic of communities. Tania says that community should be a space where you can let go of all the things such as being and looking a certain way. She said that we should strive to create a collective place where you can show up as yourself with no judgment. 

We recognize that people are at different stages in their lives and have different things going on and how we can create a space that whenever you're here or whenever you participate, you're in the right place.

BIG IDEA 3

“Feedback is critical to our processes. ” (37:32)

Tania shared the process on how they handle feedback.  She said that their role as enablers in creating the systems and platforms and tools for the community to self-organize, is to get to action and transform systems. After every engagement event, there is always some feedback form and so they are able to immediately look at the feedback, react and respond as needed.

Their theory of change at the core is their values radical generosity and abundance transformation. She says it's about how they embody the values in day-to-day practices and knowing that when they do that, they create the relationships that then leads to the transformation that we want to see in the world. At the end of the day, it’s all about relationships.

Social Media Links:

You can find Tania Cheng at:

SheEO:

In this episode of the Social Lights Podcast, podcast host and Social Mediology founder Kate vanderVoort chats with Nicole Millard, co-founder and community manager of Australia's biggest privately owned parenting and women's blog, Stay At Home Mum.

About Nicole

Nicole has worked tirelessly over the last 10 years alongside her business partners, Jody and Brendan Allen, to build a huge online community for not only Stay At Home Mums, but all parents (including dads!). Their online communities have more than half a million members.

As a natural progression from creating this community, Nicole created Tenacious Digital, which is a small digital marketing agency offering services such as website design and social media coaching to small businesses and start-ups.

BIG IDEA 1

“The community grew because we were them, we were our audience” (07:22)

Nicole shared that they started their group to share some budgeting tips and how to save money but then people started talking about their kids and family and it became a parenting website.

She said that it grew into a massive community and portal of information where so many women (98% of the group) and dads as well, came to them for help. She believes that part of the appeal was that they were mums just like them, and so, the community had that affinity with them.

BIG IDEA 2

“It's just more for people to put their confessions anonymously on there.” (10:45)

On starting an anonymous community, Nicole talked about the long process it took for them to decide on it. She said that want to have a community on the website as well as on social media so they gave an anonymous forum a go and just see if it works.

Nicole shared that they had to build a lot of security measures to get rid of the spam posts and trolls, etc. They had it set up so that they can block people even though they don't know who they are. In addition, they managed to get a bit of a culture going there and a report mechanism where the users can report spam or inappropriate posts. However, she admitted that most of the time they let things go and run their course.

BIG IDEA 3

“People appreciate authenticity and honesty” (20:51)

Nicole recalled when they were building the community, they just straight out ask them how they could help people with their problems. She added that in order to keep your community engaged, you need to keep asking questions and finding out what they want to know.

 On handling her community, Nicole shares that she has been depending it very much on instincts compared to statistics. She says that in order for you to grow your community, it takes a lot of dedication, work and time but you have got to be on your authentic self and show your face because people want that connection.

Social Media Links:

You can find Nicole Millard at:

Stay At Home Mum: www.stayathomemum.com.au

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StayHomeMum

Instagram: http://instagram.com/stayathomemum

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/SAHMum/

We’d love you to join us for future episodes of the Social Lights podcast, produced by Social Mediology.

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In this episode of the Social Lights Podcast, podcast host and Social Mediology founder Kate vanderVoort chats with Paul Bradley, who is head of global community at Agorapulse. 

About Paul

Paul started his journey in blogging and growing social media accounts as a social media expert. He eventually started his career as a community manager at Intel and has continued to be a part of the community manager profession.

BIG IDEA 1

“We want to create a hub for people who are interested in this industry to better themselves.” (19:52)

Paul shared his take on community going beyond the basics. He talked about launching a community and doing enough discovery to get to know what actually motivates people.

He added that it goes beyond the product or platform that you are selling because you have brought in this other element which is around education.

BIG IDEA 2

“People need to use you to get through their day” (31:06)

Paul described what community management is all about. He says that you can do all kinds of fun things within your community but ultimately, your goal is to solve people’s problems from day to day.

He added that everybody's point of view is valuable.

BIG IDEA 3

“You need to know what your goal is” (35:14)

Paul advised that the first thing you need to know when starting a community, is knowing what your goal is for the community. Is your community trying to create a revenue stream or is it going to provide support to your customers?

He said that when starting their new learning community he started conducting interviews and the consistent answer they heard was that a lot of people want help. They want help learning how to get better, they want help learning how to up-skill providing social media services and they want help with their career.

Paul’s boss told him; just keep doing them until you start hearing all the same stuff over and over again. This is a great strategy for all businesses who want to start a community!

Social Media Links:

You can find Paul Bradley at:

Agorapulse: https://www.agorapulse.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-m-bradley/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaulBradleyCMGR

We’d love you to join us for future episodes of the Social Lights podcast, produced by Social Mediology.

You can connect with us on Facebook at @SocialLightsPodcast and find future episodes at socialmediology.com.au/sociallights.

Thanks for your time and stay inspired,

Kate vanderVoort