When big brands and big communities collide 💥
Reflections on VidCon, InstaMeets, and #LinkedInLocal
A recent episode of the “Get Together” podcast brought our correspondent Mia Quagliarello and me (Bailey) into conversation with Anna McAfee, the co-founder of an organic community that took over the LinkedIn platform. At its height and without any formal support from LinkedIn HQ, the #LinkedInLocal movement had more than 1,000 hosts leading events in 650+ cities across 92 countries.
Our discussion brought both Mia and me back to our early days at YouTube and Instagram respectively. Organic communities would spring up around the brand and on the platform, and we were left wondering how to interact with them.
As early community employees at those platforms, we had to walk a tightrope with these informal partners. (Specifically, with the leaders of the Instagrammers community who ran Instameets around the world and VidCon, YouTube’s creator conference.)
Mia published a lovely reflection on her experience. Though both our Instagram community team and her YouTube community team kept our grassroots communities “at arms length,” at first, Mia argues that brands should behave differently today.
Here’s an excerpt:
These kinds of real-world events and splinter communities, whether generated by the brand or by the community itself, are so integral to strengthening bonds and helping people feel more invested in the community that they are literally helping to build.
At this point, I think this kind of organic traction is something that any community manager would see as a sign of a community’s health — assuming that the entity upholds the same values.
What can your team do to cultivate—not squash!—a groundswell of enthusiasm, like LinkedIn ultimately did with #LinkedInLocal? (see below). Mia recommends the following:
Embrace their value. “Splinter communities” can help diversify and expand your reach.
When I look at how Burning Man Project has navigated this, for example, their community grew out of a single event in the desert. They could have kept this exclusive but instead they encouraged people to take the principles and the cultural tentpoles and add some regional flair. There’s Fuego Austral in Argentina, Melting Man in North Dakota, and Kiwi Burn in New Zealand (to name a few).
Be clear about what is and isn’t OK with regards to the usage of your brand.
Here’s Mia reflecting on her work at Flipboard:At Flipboard, we provided assets or guidance such that people could easily promote non-official events like a Twitter chat or conference talk. Or maybe it’s really important that the community not use your name or logo: that’s on you and your team to make super-duper clear with the community organizers.
Acknowledge the community’s contributions.
Send swag or figure out other ways to show these people some love! They are doing the good work for you. Think about how to say thank you, learn what motivates them, and give them more of that.
I love Mia’s recommendations. What would you add to those? What other brands and communities have faced these tensions? Share your thinking with us in the comments.
Onwards!
Bailey
The remarkable story of #LinkedInLocal
Anna McAfee made a simple post inviting people on LinkedIn in her hometown of Coffs Coast, Australia to get together. At the last second, she decided to include #LinkedInLocal. The online response was what would change Anna’s life and the hashtag transformed people's relationship with the platform.
Fifteen people made it out to the first Coffs Coast event and three strangers—Alexandra Galviz in London, Manu Goswami in NYC, and Erik Eklund in Brussels—raised their hand to also host a #LinkedInLocal in their city. No one could predict what happened next.
Host requests started pouring in from around the world. The founding team was soon hosting after-hours trainings six nights a week to help new cities ramp up. For two years, Anna and her co-creators led, mentored, and managed the #LinkedInLocal global community. At its height, #LinkedInLocal had more than 1,000 hosts and had rallied over 300,000 humans, in 650+ cities across 92 countries.
Eleven months into this journey, LinkedIn HQ noticed the burgeoning community and reached out. The early conversations were positive. “This was changing the way people use the platform. It was creating an enormous amount of very rich and authentic content,” Anna told us. The internal LinkedIn team explored non-financial ways to support the community (e.g. a #LinkedInLocal content filter and badge).
Then, two months later, the conversation shifted to focus on protecting the LinkedIn brand. Ultimately, #LinkedInLocal and LinkedIn never formed a partnership, keeping their separate identities and diluting the community’s momentum.
When Anna and the founding team stepped away in 2019, their stewardship of the host community was what the #LinkedInLocal community lost. Participation has shrunk as a result. And it’s a tragedy. With adequate resources, Anna believes the #LinkedInLocal community could have grown to three times its size.
More on all things People & Company and Get Together here.
We published a book, host a podcast, and coach organizations on how to make smarter bets with their community-building investments.