The Community Platform Choice for Geek Estate Mastermind: Mighty Networks

The Geek Estate Mastermind was originally a combination of an email list, and a private Facebook group. A few weeks ago, I finally made the decision to migrate from a Facebook group to the community platform Mighty Networks.

Why?

A few key reasons.

First, Mighty Networks’ product offering is simply BETTER than Facebook groups for a Mastermind community like Geek Estate. A few reasons:

• Advanced notification preferences & capabilities.
• Ability to follow individual members (which plays a part in the notifications system).
• Elegant reading and commenting experience.
• Ability to organize conversations by topics (Agents & Brokers, Founders, Built World, etc).
• Members profiles unique to the network.
• Private messaging away from FB messenger. FB messenger is a blackhole for work conversations (at least for me).
• Find members nearby.
• Events & RSVPs.

Second, a big part of the Geek Estate Mastermind pitch is “all signal, no noise“. Being one “group” within the noise that is Facebook makes it all but impossible to deliver signal to members — since they are always one click away from all the noise you could possibly ever want, and then some.

Third, many don’t use Facebook at all. Or, if they do use it, only use it for personal reasons. Requiring use of Facebook instantly limits the ability to serve members, since the networking and conversations taking place organically outside of the weekly newsletter is an integral part of the overall value proposition. Further, founders and business owners who are our target audience skew toward an aversion for FB more than average, as they lead particularly busy lives that include constant requests for their time.

Fourth, since all the Facebook privacy issues in the media recently, I saw a noticeable drop-off in engagement in the Facebook group. Many people are making it a personal goal to limit their Facebook time spent in 2018, and beyond. With good reason.

Fifth, I’ve known the community will not be in a Facebook group forever, and thought now was as good a time as any to make the switch. The longer we avoid it, the harder migration will be down the line.

Sixth, the fact that Mighty Networks is aligned with the needs of the community is a huge plus. I pay Mighty Networks a monthly fee to use their product, and they continue to improve their product. As one example, already since I’ve started paying, they’ve added the ability to schedule posts in the future to their offering.

That said, I do realize Facebook is a staple in many people’s lives, and asking members to use yet another app is a big ask. Going into the migration, I knew maintaining engagement would be hard. I’m asking members to trust me that Mighty Networks is a better platform for bringing members together over the long haul, more efficiently and with less distractions.

Will the short term pain outweigh the long term gain? I’m betting my chips on the answer to that question being yes.

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