The power of online communities for owners of teeny-tiny businesses

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I’ve just checked in with one of my online communities, which was discussing how to create Facebook Live videos. I’m glad I checked in…video is an area I hope to be braver about exploring this year.

We all know about the downsides of the online environment, right? The lack of boundaries or filters. The pervasiveness and addictiveness of bad news. The temptation to put the verbal beatdown on jerks who we know are simply trying to start a fight. And on and on.

But for all the downsides, there are some startlingly wonderful upsides to it as well. For example, in my post about Facebook, I describe how I’ve remodeled it into a key element of my mental health. For every self-centered bit of ugliness, there are many more beautiful jewels ranging from the thought-provoking to the day-maker to the life-changer.

For those of us who are self-employed in some fashion, one of the best things about the web and social media is the existence of online communities. These can be conversation spaces on websites, web-based communities, or social media groups full of people who share our interests.

Especially if you live in a smaller town, as I do, having a place where I can commune with others who are on the same professional learning curve is worth having to spend a few more minutes online each day, even worth having to dodge an internet troll or sales pitch now and then.

I choose my communities based on a few factors:

What would I want out of a community?

Would it be:

  • A good conversation when I need it
  • Communing with other professionals who do what I do, to learn or teach
  • (Gently) getting the word out about what I do, how I can help, in the places where my primary customer types hang out
  • Avoiding the isolation of self-employment; being around other smart people
  • Learning from one another’s mistakes and successes as I evolve my business
  • Moral support on those days when you just want to hang it up
  • Possible fun collaborations with people who have complementary skills

How big is the community I’m checking out?

You can see that, depending on what you chose above, the size of a community does matter. If you’re trying to get visibility for your work, for example, being in a community of 4000 souls would be a challenge. Many of them are also vying for visibility, and your words can get lost in the cascade of posts every day.

Conversely, if you’re looking for a broad spectrum of ideas, trying to avoid isolation, or seeking good one-to-one conversation, then a bigger community may increase your chances of finding someone out of the masses who’s a kindred spirit (if you pay attention, you’ll spot them).

A small, focused group is best if you’re hoping to find a sense of shared purpose, longer-term relationships, collaboration opportunities, and none of the overwhelm of “200 new posts in your group!”

What’s the vibe?

I can almost guarantee that, if a community has words like “diva,” “b*tch,” or “babe” in the name, it’s entirely the wrong vibe for me.

Similarly, industry power-success jargon like “crush it,” “kill it,” “own it,” or “making bank” just isn’t what I’m up for, so the prevailing atmosphere of the site isn’t likely to be MY cup of tea.

Not all of us have the same preferences there, so to each his/her own. Trust your gut. But make sure the energy and spirit of the group match yours. The last thing you need is one more energy drain—we all have enough of those to go around.

How focused is it?

There are some highly focused “niche” communities that serve the needs of people who work in something very, very specific and want to commune with others who use that same skill or technology.

There are others that are slightly broader. One of my groups is focused specifically on the needs of people building their own small businesses, specifically people who are “conscious entrepreneurs” with a bigger vision for their work than just paying the mortgage.

And then there are groups for people who just love pictures of cats.

So, if you want to get maximum benefit from being in these kinds of spaces, think about these two factors:

Very specific = good for targeted learning, connections, solutions, Q&A. Think of it as something like a club, where you all geek out on the same subject matter.

Very general = good for a sense of community/camaraderie, contented browsing, lots of input, feeling part of something larger. Think of THAT like a big block party, where you have at least one common interest to break the ice. (And, for introverts like me, minus the “party” part 🙂

Is it just one big icky sales pitch?

This is hard to describe but easy to recognize. Many groups, on Facebook in particular, are just elaborate marketing tactics to fill the owner’s sales funnel with prospects, without really providing useful, engaging community-building. You’ll know when you find one of these, and you can decide how comfortable you are with it, and whether to stay or to leave the group.

What form does it take?

The smallest sort of community: Your own blog or business page on social media.

This is the option over which you have the most control.

If you have a blog on your website, you can create a conversation space just by opening up your blog posts to comments (which you can approve before they appear). On social media, you can regularly post useful material and invite people’s feedback around it.

In either scenario, post something interesting and engaging, and when you share it with people, treat it as an invitation to start a conversation about your topic. Ask questions. Invite comments and experiences.

Web communities

There are many, many niche groups on the web that serve as a gathering place for people of specific professions, people who all use a certain software product, fans of creative arts, and tons more. There’s Kinaxis (supply chain experts), Radiolopolis (radiologists), Journalverse (journal writers and facilitators), and Barista Exchange (self-explanatory!).

Social media communities
Facebook has over a million public, private, and secret groups, both paid and unpaid. My own short list of groups includes communities who discuss different kinds of conscious business, healthy entrepreneurship, community gardening, WordPress, storytelling, and meditation.

LinkedIn groups “provide a place for professionals in the same industry or with similar interests to share content, find answers, post and view jobs, make business contacts, and establish themselves as industry experts.” They come in all shapes and sizes and degree-of-noisiness. You can join to see what the vibe is, and leave if it isn’t your thing. Find groups to research by using the search feature at the top of your LinkedIn.

Coaching or professional community private groups are usually started by a coach, consultant, or marketing expert to create a conversation space for their own clients. Some are free and open, but the majority are paid and private. Don’t let that necessarily be a dealbreaker; sometimes it’s the only way to keep a group sustainable. For example, the Awarepreneurs community costs $5/month for their online group, group networking calls, support and coaching, and more.

How to find a group to try

Search Facebook groups by logging into your account and looking in the left column for Explore >> Groups, then clicking the Discover tab and using the search box at the top to search for your area of interest. When you join a group, remember to see the Notifications button at the top, where you can dictate which notifications from the group, if any, show up on your page notifications (the globe in the upper right).

To search LinkedIn groups, n the search box at the top of your LinkedIn homepage, type keywords of interest, and click Search. On the search results page, click the Groups tab (it’s under “More” near the top left).

You can also search Google with terms like “online community for veterinarians” or “Facebook groups for women entrepreneurs” or “online discussion group for WordPress beginners.”

. . . . .

Online communities are no substitute for real human contact. But they do come with the crazymagical modern ability to connect with a concentrated group of faraway people who share our specific challenges, who may have answers to the questions keeping us up at night, and who we can help with our own knowledge and experience. That’s something that’s hard to find in all but the biggest cities, IF it can be found at all, and so it’s been well worth it to me. Try it out.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

If you have a heart-based business and this message resonated with you, I’d love to have you keep in touch (in times like these, having a community of people who ‘get’ us can make all the difference between a great day and “I’m just going back to bed”). Here are some ways:

  • I send out a monthly email missive with stuff of interest to people like us – from non-geeky tech tips, to new resources for small businesses and freelancers, to feelgood stories of what’s working out there. Give it a try and see if it’s of interest to you.
  • I’m on Facebook at https://facebook.com/websitesforgood and we have some great conversations there. It’s also a great place to see new writings of all kinds.
  • Think about a free 30-minute consultation with me  (completely non-icky, with zero sales pitch at the end) to tell me what you’re up to, talk through new ideas or directions for your work, or talk about how to better tell your story online.

How I use Facebook to stay happy, calm, and productive in my small business

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I still have many clients who avoid Facebook, even though they know it may have many benefits for their work and their business. They have an impression of it as a squawking coop full of unfettered narcissists, over-sharers, and attention seekers. The land of the angry, the bigoted, and That Guy Who Loves the Sound of His Own Voice.

I’m not here to argue any of that. But since there are some very strong business reasons to use Facebook, and because I’ve managed to make it into a place that actually helps me to stay happy, productive, and connected, I wanted to share how I do it.

In order to have a Facebook business page, you need to have a primary/personal page first. That, more than anything, is the place where things can go off the rails and get very problematic. Consider this post to be a guide to managing that part of things so you can enjoy and benefit from your business presence.

Set it up right to begin with, for maximum security and quiet

So many people jump into the potential bedlam of Facebook and don’t bother changing its default settings. So their world is a pandemonium of “friend” requests, private messages pinging day and night, and other people posting on their own personal space. There are also privacy issues, with all the annoyance and even danger of people sharing what you’ve put up there.

Facebook itself has tools to help you through all the settings you can tweak to control who shows up, who can see your stuff, who can contact you etc. Time magazine also published a useful guide to this last year: http://time.com/4166749/facebook-privacy-settings-guide/

One of the most critical ones for me is not permitting anyone but my closest friends/family to private message me, by the way.

Filter out what makes you crazy with FB Purity

I honestly don’t know what I’d do without FB Purity. It’s a little extension (software thing) that you can install, which then automatically filters out a huge percentage of what makes me insane about Facebook. You get it going, and it does the rest.

Don’t want to see the word “Trump” (pro or con) in your news feed any more? Set it up in a filter and all the rants are gone.

Hate that “Trending” thing in the right column that tempts you down the rabbit hole of mindless clicking? Gone.

Bothered by those oh-so-helpful interjections by Facebook guessing at things I’ll like, memories from ten years ago, games, even some ads? Gone.

A list of all that FB Purity does is here: http://fbpurity.com

I encourage you in no uncertain terms to use this, starting now.

Be ruthless about decluttering your so-called “friends”

I know some people who are collectors of “friends” on Facebook. As a result, they are bombarded day and night with the collective sharing by near-strangers of hundreds of baby pictures, funny dog stories, pithy quotes, gripes about jobs or life in general, off-color jokes, stream-of-consciousness questions, sports teams, and worse.

In what way is this a useful way to spend our life’s minutes?

For those who are considering joining Facebook, and those who are already in the soup, I want to ask you to be ruthless in paring down that number to 150 or (preferably) less. The anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who studies social networks, said that any grouping of people larger than 150 starts to strain the capacity of the human brain. We can’t effectively manage relationships with many hundreds of people—real or digital—and it creates cognitive stress that we may not even be aware of. Hands up: Who out there needs more cognitive stress in this era? Anybody? I didn’t think so.

The idea of being able to keep tabs on endless schoolmates, childhood friends, real-life acquaintances, old next-door neighbors may have sounded nice to begin with. Facebook “sold” the product to us and gave us the tools to build, build, build, convincing us that the more people we “friend,” the better.  But it’s just not helping, and in fact it’s hurting.

Go to your “Friends” list. Scroll down the list. Hide or (preferably) unfriend: The negative, the loudmouths, the insulting, the ones you have to tiptoe around, the ones you haven’t spoken to in years and don’t miss them. Get rid of the ones who frequently have meltdowns, the people you didn’t care to hang out with in school anyway, the ones that – if they showed up in your neighborhood – you WOULDN’T want to go have a cup of coffee with. Be cold. This is your peace of mind and your focus at stake.

Get down to a list of no more than 150 people that:

  • you’ve actually met and love, or with whom you’ve consistently had meaningful and mutually beneficial one-to-one exchanges; AND
  • you know are often positive or optimistic or otherwise good for your peace of mind; AND
  • are good human beings who it makes you happy to have conversations with (those colleagues, clients, and community members who add to your life)

Root out any trace of FOMO (your fear of missing out on news of something happening to someone somewhere) and be merciless in your decluttering. Your real friends will know where to find you.

If you’re already on Facebook and receive lots of postings from news outlets, public figures, and celebrities, purge them accordingly as. You’re making space for what matters. (Get your news somewhere else, by the way…DON’T have it shoved in your face automatically every day/hour/minute. That’s a recipe for extreme agitation and stress, and the world needs you calm and clear-headed.) 

Start building or rebuilding your Facebook page as a positive space

Now that your feed is no longer cluttered with ads, games, rants, selfies, red carpet photos, etc., you can start filling your account with ONLY the positive, the beautiful, the hopeful, the educational. This will vary wildly from individual to individual, but below are some of the things I’ve loaded mine up with, giving me a solid stream of encouragement, love, and good news all day every day (search for them in the search box at the top of your page, or search for “good news”):

Good News Network
Good Good Good/Goodnewspaper
Tiny Buddha
Center for a New American Dream
Greater Good Science Center
Sweatpants and Coffee
DailyOM
Preemptive Love Coalition
The Daily Flame (Inner Pilot Light)
BBC World Hacks
Elephant Journal
The funny local sign whose puns make me groan (right)

There is literally not much room left for the negative news and inflammatory rhetoric to squeeze in, and if it does, I filter it out systematically so it can’t come back. And that’s the whole point: Craft the space to be the world you’d rather be living in: Good, generous, helpful, intelligent people all around us. Many of us actually ARE living in that world.

Become part of communities that help you, and that you can help

The best parts of Facebook are the opportunities that present themselves to be part of a community. There are thousands of groups on Facebook covering every topic from community gardening to graphic design to meditation to … surviving owning your own business!

If a group is active and has more than just a couple of people in it, it’s an absolutely fantastic way to make some new connections in the world with people who “get” you. You’ll meet kindred spirits, learn a ton of new things, have a place to share your knowledge with others, and grow as a person and as a professional.

Look in Facebook’s left column for the word Explore, then Groups. At that page, you can click the word “Discover” at the top to search for something in your areas of interest. I get an enormous amount of benefit from the groups I’m part of. If you aren’t yet part of any groups, I’d encourage you to give one a try…or start your own!

Tend a business page that helps people

There are lots of resources on the web to help set up and properly use a Facebook business page. I can only say that my page has been, for me:

  • A place to write and share things that help the people I care about most
  • A way to reach a wider audience with the things I offer the world
  • A learning experience, as people share what they want and need from me

Once the personal side of Facebook has been tamed and isn’t obtrusive any more, your business page can be a place to really dip into your zone of genius and connect with those you’re most trying to help.

Oh, and turn off all intrusive push notifications. Right now.

Make sure your mobile devices aren’t receiving notifications of every damn thing that happens on your Facebook feed. The only things I get on my mobile are the occasional private messages from friends (who are almost always real-life friends and colleagues) I’ve set to be allowed to do that. If you are addicted to the invitation to distraction, the binging and bonging of constant notifications—”They like me! They really like me!”—call that out and take steps to get it out of your life. There are far too many people who permit themselves to completely shred their limited waking hours in this way, and then wail that “there’s never enough time!” (I was one of those.) Life really is too short for that.

Do you have questions, concerns or fears around using Facebook for your business without going mad or being overwhelmed? Drop me a line and let do this sanely together. I’m far from an expert, but I have experimented with many different ways of using that particular tool, and can share what I know and what has worked.

You might also enjoy my blog post, Social Media for the Sensitive Entrepreneur, which has other helpful tips for using these tools well and wisely.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

If you have a heart-based business and this message resonated with you, I’d love to have you keep in touch (in times like these, having a community of people who ‘get’ us can make all the difference between a great day and “I’m just going back to bed”). Here are some ways:

  • I send out a monthly email missive with stuff of interest to people like us – from non-geeky tech tips, to new resources for small businesses and freelancers, to feelgood stories of what’s working out there. Give it a try and see if it’s of interest to you.
  • I’m on Facebook at https://facebook.com/websitesforgood and we have some great conversations there. It’s also a great place to see new writings of all kinds.
  • Think about a free 30-minute consultation with me to tell me what you’re up to, talk through new ideas or directions, or talk about how to better tell your story online.