Why You Should Prioritize Community Over Content
Hi travel creators! Today I'm going to talk about community. It’s a word that is thrown around a lot in the online space, especially in the creator space, but what does it actually mean? We’ll get into all that today, but first, I want to start with a little reminder. Don't forget about the people you already have in your community who are already in your corner.
It's so easy to just want more and more. More followings and a bigger community. But don't forget about the people who are already there cheering you on, because they are almost more important than the people who you are going out to try and capture.
Building and Retaining a Community
It is so much easier to retain your current community than it is to try and build a bigger one, which is totally possible, but don't forget about the people who are already there rooting for you.
What is a community? Essentially, this online community you're trying to build that you've been working on building forever, but maybe don't even really know what it is, is the same type of community in your daily life. Think of all the cozy community neighborhood vibes. That's the same, just online.
The Importance of Engagement over Size
It's the people you can ask questions to without shame. You can learn from these people and you can lean on these people. And another important note about your community is that it doesn't have to be big either. There's a misconception that the bigger of a following you have, the higher your income will be.
I have found that to not necessarily always be true. I know plenty of creators who have small followings and they make a lot of money. Never let that stop you from continuing to create, but that is just a testament to the community they already have. They might have a small following, but maybe their community is so engaged it doesn't even matter.
That's the place we want you to be. If you have a big community, that’s awesome. But how many of those people are actually engaged? We’re working towards a place where your community loves you, and they can help you achieve your dreams. So, your community is going to be made up of a bunch of different people, but all of those people come to you for basically the same core reason.
Ideally, everybody should have the same goal in your community. And part of this goal of why people should come to you can be pulled from your brand, which is the foundation of everything you do in your creator journey and something I will not stop talking about. I don't think people understand how important it is.
Don’t Be Afraid to Just Ask
So let's dive into how to learn more about this community you've already built or are trying to build before you create any more content for them. The first thing you can do is ask. Asking is seriously the best skill I've ever learned how to do and I'm still learning more about it. It's scary to ask people, but as Michael Scott once quoted, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take. It's so cliche, but the more that I ask creators or shoot my shot with them in this space, it becomes less scary.
The worst thing they're going to say is no. Once you realize you can get up and live your life and you're fine because someone said no to you, then you can ask anybody anything. Now, I'm not asking you to ask your community to spill all of their state secrets, but you can do market research with them. This means if you're wanting to come out with a new offering or service for travel creators, or if you're just trying to create better content, I would be totally honest and transparent with people in your community. Ask them questions about what they like to see.
I've done it before and I've slid into people's DMs of creators I admire and say, I have nothing to sell you. I am just trying to learn more about your pain points and what would be helpful to you so I can create services for them. And that's what I did. You can ask, “What kind of content do you like to see? What kind of content do you hate to see?”
Another thing you can do to learn more about the community you are building or trying to build more of is to find creators in your travel niche who are similar to you.
And by travel niche, I mean they're not out here just trying to inspire people to travel, because that's essentially what almost every creator is trying to do. But they are also a luxury traveler. They are also a budget traveler sharing tips on how to budget travel. Whoever those people are, whatever your niche is, go find them and see what they're doing.
Learning from Other Creators’ Content
Also, we do not steal content. I'm saying, you should go and look at what they're doing to figure out what can I do better than them? Also, what are they doing that is bad? What are they doing that I can see from a critical perspective or someone who just consumes content on the internet that this is not a great post, so how can I make it better?
That is the type of a mindset you should go with when you're looking at people in your niche that you admire. I talked about this in one of my early episodes and it was referencing a book by Austin Keelan called Steal Like an Artist. The message is that a lot of good content ideas have already been shared and there's no reason to reinvent the wheel.
You don't have to do it. And by looking at people in your niche who are doing awesome stuff, you can figure out from there. How can I do it better or what perspective can I give to this? That is just as good if not a little bit better, but in my own expertise. While you're out in the world doing market research, keep in mind you're not the only one trying to grow a community and that is pretty awesome.
Engage with Other Creators
Once you start engaging with people in your niche, the reality is they're going to look at your profile. If it's optimized correctly, they'll say oh here's so and so and they also talk about budget trouble. I'm going to go to their account and comment on their stuff. And that will get the ball rolling of people just coming to you to comment and engage.
You can also see what people are asking, what questions people are asking about my content niche, either in the comments of creators I admire or just in Google search. You can use those answers to create more pieces of content. Maybe someone in your travel niche has already answered the question, but yet again, you feel like you might have a better answer, or you have a different perspective on it.
Google is a great place to go. Stalking creators is a great place to go to figure out how you can answer these questions in an even better way. It also helps you get a frame of reference of what do people want to learn? What do people have questions about in my space? Now, let's talk about one of the best ways to build a community, and that is to make yourself a magnet.
Find Out What Your “Thing” Is
For example, everybody has their thing, and you probably know what your thing is not. For example, my thing is creating resources and providing services for travel creators who are so overwhelmed and need to grow other parts of their business that content can't be the number one thing they are focusing on anymore.
My thing also has nothing to do with spreadsheets or numbers. So your task is to figure out what your thing is. And you probably already have a good understanding of what that might be, but don't think too hard about it, because that can be really overwhelming. You might get into imposter syndrome and think “what am I even good at anymore?”
Once you hit that point, you've gone too far. Back up a couple layers and just think more broadly, what do I like doing and what feels easy to me that is challenging to other people? Once you find that answer, that can help inform the type of content you are creating and can help inform the type of audience you're going to draw in.
You can also think about the creators in this space. Who do you follow? Why do you follow them? Think critically about this. Why do I follow them? Is it because I think that they have beautiful content, or is it because they're providing me a piece of their expertise that I don't have? You can also think about what does it feel like to be part of somebody else's community online?
When you go and open your Instagram app, Instagram is showing you the people who you most often engage with at the top, specifically in stories. So what does it feel like to be a part of their community? What kind of feelings do you have? And how can those feelings that you're getting from other people, how can you emulate those or kind of shift those for your own community?
How Your Content Should Make People Feel
How do you want to make people feel when they see your content and comment on your stuff? One thing about community online that I think is so often overlooked is that we often think about building an online community is you to your followers. But to build a really strong community, it's you and your followers. That is exactly what I do in my Wildfire Travel Creator coworking space.
Right now, we're doing once a week per month, where you come to this virtual space to get stuff done, meet other travel creators, ask questions, and network with them. We are creating a community where you can ask questions, lean on people, and get answers without judgment.
It is a space for creators to talk to each other. I'm creating this space where I genuinely want to connect with these people who are on the other side of my screen. The people who are showing up to our co-working genuinely want to connect with the other people who are there. We are creating a strong culture and community of people in a specific niche, which is travel content creators.
Start a Newsletter and Build Community
Okay, so if you don't want to host webinars, like I'm doing, not really webinars, you don't want to host meetings, how can you still create a community? My biggest and best recommendation for travel creators is to create a newsletter, because people can respond there, and you can also highlight or feature a fellow creator in the newsletter. Then, your newsletter subscribers can see their account and go and follow them. And that is also exactly what happens in my newsletter, The Content Compass, which comes out every Tuesday.
I highlight a travel creator who is crushing their content and show you how and why they're doing it so that you can apply what they've done to your own. When I feature creators, I can see in the click through rate that some of my subscribers are going to the accounts of the creators I feature and they are probably interacting there.
It is kind of a no brainer to get your community talking to each other now. Let's pivot to how you can create a community on Instagram through the content that you share. This does not necessarily only apply to Instagram. It's just the platform I'm most knowledgeable about.
Use Instagram comments. That seems pretty self explanatory, right? You can go find creators in your niche and comment on their stuff. You can also create pieces of content that explicitly say, my goal is to create a community. You can also tag your favorite creator in your niche. Just remember that your community is already there for a reason, so lean in and learn from each other.
You can also ask, “Hey, travel creator, how did you grow your content? What worked for you?” And that's kind of what I embody on my page. I want people to feel free to share their strategies, because we value that. Collaboration over competition. I think a lot of travel creators think that when they're going out into the world to try and grow, they are so content focused.
People think about creating so much content first. When really, I think you should be community growing first. You need to start growing your community no matter what part of your content creator journey you're on. It's not something you start doing once you make it to 10,000 or so subscribers, followers, dollars, doesn't matter.
The only reason you're going to get there is because of your community, and it's something you need to focus on from day one. In the spirit of community, I challenge you to go to a travel creators page this week. Do it today, it'll take 30 seconds, and comment something genuine on their page. Even make it a question and they'll probably respond.
Then take it from there. Maybe it's 10 minutes every day engaging with people in your audience. See how that grows. Also, I challenge you to drop a question for me on one of my latest Instagram posts at Travel Content Writing. I hope that you get out there, engage with your community, stop creating, and start engaging.