4:4 Are year-round communities overrated?

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Lee:
Welcome to the Event Engine Podcast. This is your host, Lee, and on today's show, I am joined by the one, the only, it's Mr. Dax Callner. How are you today, mate? I'm very well, thanks. How are you finding Event Tech Live?

Dax:
It's all right. It's busy. Lots of buzz, lots of interesting suppliers. I've got a lot of companies I know and a few I don't.

Lee:
Oh, well, that's good. It's always good when you meet a few new people. Exactly. Absolutely. For the folks who don't know who you are, could you give us a little bit of a mini bio?

Dax:
Sure. Dax Callner, I have been working in event marketing for around 25 years. I've recently left my position as strategy director at Smyle on good terms. It just was time. I'm out doing my own thing. I've created my own business, and I'm a strategic consultant to clients who are looking to optimise whatever they're doing when it comes to events or campaigns or content. I help them figure shit out, basically, and then we roll from there. The idea for strategy is that if you have a solid strategy, it reduces churn, you get better results. That's why strategy is necessary, and that's what I do.

Lee:
Absolutely. Today we're going to have a conversation about community. Very often you'll hear, or we've heard for years now, about building a community around you, event 365 all year long, so that you can continue to promote the following event, etc, and from what I understand from our introduction that you are perhaps not fully sold into that idea. Could you share your thoughts on it?

Dax:
Well, first let me ask you what a community is.

Lee:
Sure. Well, I would say for me, a group of people with a shared interest or goals in the context of, say, event building, I guess that's enabling them to creating forums for them to communicate probably throughout the IE online or mini micro events as well as the big event.

Dax:
Do you think, for example, we're at this event, Event Tech Live, do you want to be in touch with everyone here all year round?

Lee:
Yeah. So I'm hoping we'll stay friends. We're on LinkedIn.

Dax:
We will stay friends. But I don't necessarily Want to talk to you.

Lee:
Matt's carer is coming and we're going to hang out. We've only ever met online. I'm looking forward to that as well. He's coming tomorrow. Right.

Dax:
I think... Oh, amazing. Thank you.

Lee:
Excuse me. Thanks, Tim. For those listening in, you can go on YouTube and just enjoy an advert for Water.

Dax:
Yes. When I think of a community, it's a group with... It actually has a number of definitions. It could be a group of people who have shared values, and there are people in those communities who have a value set. It could be political, it could be based on their ethnicity, whatever it might be. They have shared values and they congregate based around those shared values. Then you have communities of people with shared interests. It's a little bit different. Community could be people who love to go skiing. Then you have communities of people who are more regional in nature, like your neighbourhood as a community. All fine. When I think of an event, I think it is potentially like the apex of a community of people with shared interests coming together. Honestly, I think people are very busy and they have their other communities. We're all intersectional. We have the communities of shared interest and shared values. I'm not inclined to say to people, You should be part of the Event Tech Live community year round. I just don't see that as a viable platform for ongoing dialogue related to a topic of shared interest. Most people who come to this show, for example, at least from a buyer standpoint, they're in a shopping mindset.

Dax:
They come here to see products, to talk to people who are selling them products. They don't want people selling them year-round. They're not in that shopper mindset. They're in a delivery mindset unless they have a specific need. But people come here expecting to be sold to. All good. Sell to me. Don't freaking sell to me all year round. I mean, you mentioned LinkedIn. We're both on LinkedIn. If I get a sales message on LinkedIn, even if it's something that I may have been interested in, if someone hasn't done a little bit of like, Let me get to know you and talk to me and who You are.

Lee:
Done the dance a little bit.

Dax:
Do the dance. Exactly. This is a relationship. I don't want to be sold to you on LinkedIn, so I just don't respond. And I get at least two or three of those a day, I just ignore. And sometimes they're very persistent and they will say, Did you get my message? Did you get my message? Finally, I'll say, I'm sorry, I just don't respond to raw solicitations. If they had taken one minute to say, Hey, here's why I'm reaching out to you. I saw this. I'm interested in this. Tell me about this. All good. Anyway, I've gone off the rails here. No, this is fine. But I think the point is that there's lots of places for people to have communities. I think it's very challenging to ask them because they've come to an event to then give their time to that event year round. And then the second reason I'm against this, essentially, is because most event people are not digital community managers. That's not what they know. And it is a very difficult job to do to do ongoing curation of online or digital or even physical community all year round. Event people spend three to six months intensely, intensely, intensely working on an event.

Dax:
When that event is done, they're exhausted. They're exhausted. Let them be. Let them move on. What happens to that community? Is it the event team that continues to nurture and manage it? Does it get transitioned to someone else? These are all big, challenging questions. In my view, let the event be an event. Let people come together, give them lots of opportunities to have conversation.

Lee:
I guess a good example then is I run the Trailblazer community. I've got a Trailblazer podcast which is all focused on WordPress agencies. It's outside of the events industry. I started that podcast about eight years ago, and I pretty much show up every week interviewing someone from the industry who brings value, maybe shares a lesson, something they did wrong, whatever that was. From that, I've then been able to build an event, which is a different name. It's an event in its own right that happens once every couple of years. People from around the world come to it. They enjoy it, but they just know that that's a once-in-a-couple-of-year thing. They go to it. I don't do anything else with that event itself, so I'm not pitching people at event necessarily. What I am doing is I'm still continuing to build my separate community, as it were, over here, which is the Trailblazer Podcast community.

Dax:
I think that's totally fair. If you are passionate about a community and you've built a community and are continuing to nurture and build that community, and at some point you're like, We should have an event.

Lee:
Let's have a hangout every two years. Love it.

Dax:
The event coming out of community makes sense. The community coming out of the event, I'm not so sure. It's a big ask of people.

Lee:
Well, when we were chatting before this... I've got a question, folks on YouTube, you can see the bottom one's crossed out. We were having a chat before this and I said, Playing Devil's advocate. What would you say to those events that have built a great community off the back of it? You said, Well, give me an example.

Dax:
Name one.

Lee:
I actually can't find one.

Dax:
I can't either.

Lee:
I can only think of examples where, for example, I have built community or friends have built community and then an event has Come from them.

Dax:
I mean, I will say I worked on a project with IMAX, and IMAX is an industry association many people know. During the pandemic, when they had to, out of necessity, cancel the IMAX shows, we did do an online community campaign for them that had a series of digital events, but had an ongoing thing throughout the year, essentially, of lockdown of pandemic. It was effective, but it was out of necessity. And also IMAX, I love them. They have built a community feeling with that event. It feels very family when you go to IMAX. And so it was a natural extension of that family to say, We can't meet in person. Let's do something that feels right for this group. And it was effective. I wouldn't say it was as successful as their shows. Their shows are massive, but it was effective at keeping a conversation going with that community.

Lee:
And is that something they've carried on or is that something that is.

Dax:
It isn't actually. I talked to Carina, who's the CEO, and I said maybe we should think about something that is year round. But to be honest, again, their teams are so focused on making that a really high impact event for their sponsors and their delegates that I think it's to add on a community year round to that is too much.

Lee:
Well, for me, for my continued community building and what we're doing here as well in Event Engine is we're providing content. We're doing weekly podcasts, which is an awful lot of work. We're writing blogs, we're producing content like that, etc. We're trying to find other guests. There's tonnes and tonnes of work, and it's very exhausting. We also have a business to run, etc. I can understand that that for a typical event organiser is really overwhelming. How do I continue to build a community where I can offer value rather than, like you said earlier, sell to them all year round because nobody wants to be sold to all year round. I'm coming here because I know I'm going to get sold to. But for the rest of the year, maybe provide me something that's of value to my business, like some advice or something that I can do. Doing that is a lot of work. What strategies would you recommend event organisers do employ to at least keep past attendees warm throughout the year, if you even recommend that?

Dax:
I do think yes. If you're doing an annual event, then keeping people warm totally makes sense because you need to continue to attract them year-over-year to your event. I think it sounds slightly counterint, based on the question, but make sure the event is freaking amazing. Start there. Is the event delivering incredible value to all attendees? By the way, these days, as we think about diversity, equity, and inclusion, that all attendees is really important. Are we providing equitable value to everyone? Everyone who is on the neurodiversity spectrum, introverts, extroverts, physically disabled. I really think it's incumbent on us to think about that. Again, slight tangent. But what is the value equation? And are we delivering equitable value to all attendees? If we're delivering an incredible event, they're going to come back next year. Absolutely. Yes, you can keep them warm. I think maybe a monthly communication or you could, especially leading up to the event, we know that from an attendance marketing standpoint, the key is to deliver new news, a lifecycle or cadence of communications where you're announcing things as you're getting closer to the event. And most event registration is like someone told me this once, a hockey stick.

Dax:
So a hockey stick is like slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, and then the event comes as you get closer to the event, that's when people are like, I better register. I think it's fine to keep people warm, but I don't think you're going to change those inherent registration patterns because people tend to wait until a month before, six weeks before, before making that decision commitment to come to the event. I think that's fine. It's just planning your comms strategy around that and looking at your timings and saying, All right, when does the hockey stick begin to curve up? And that's when we need to hit them with the stuff that really is compelling reasons to attend. Otherwise, I think invite them to follow your social media profiles and do social content on an ongoing basis. And your real fans will follow you on socials, LinkedIn, even Instagram if you want, even TikTok if you want to go there. And use those, not X, and use those to maintain some degree of ongoing updates or communication to the audience.

Lee:
And then do you have any in-event advice as well? So if I'm putting on a stellar event, it's incredible. Any in-event advice to encourage attendees to be promoting what's happening as it's going on?

Dax:
I don't think they need to. If you take, for example, it is tricky because I think if you're saying promoting as in sharing on social media.

Lee:
Well, sharing what they're up to behind the scenes, say, selfies at such and such Event or holy moly.

Dax:
I think it's relevant to a niche percentage of the audience that curates their story of their life on social media. I think, for example, I maintain a LinkedIn presence for B2B, and I publish content on LinkedIn regularly. I'm unlikely to publish something out of this event because I don't know that I've seen or done anything that's worth my storyline, my feed. I am very thoughtful about what I put on my feed. Other people are like, They overshare. They put anything.

Lee:
I know many people in my family that are like that.

Dax:
Well, exactly. And that's fine. And then there are other people who don't do anything. And I don't know that we're going to persuade the people like me or the don't-do's to start sharing on social media. I think the people that overshare or share a lot will do it regardless. So what are we trying to do? What actually are we trying to change how they operate in social media?

Lee:
No.

Dax:
I don't.Think it's going to work. I think for that small, let's say 15 % or 20 % of your attendees, yes, give them interesting things to take photos of, videos of, pictures of people. I think, by the way, pictures of people is the number one thing out of events that I think is effective from a social sharing standpoint. If you say to me at the end of this, and maybe you should, Let's snap a selfie. We'll both put it on our LinkedIn.

Lee:
I think maybe I should.

Dax:
I would do it. If you said to me, Let's both share it on our LinkedIn, you've now given me a clear reason. You've asked me to do it. So I'm like, All right, I'll just do it.

Lee:
As we're being recorded, make Sure you share the selfie.

Dax:
Now I'm stuck because now people are going to check my LinkedIn profile and see, Did he actually share? But seriously, you have a nice backdrop here. Let's take a selfie. But if you hadn't said that to me, I wouldn't even have told people I've done this until you publish it. And then maybe I'll share it because it's like, Oh, I did this podcast at Event Tech Live, and here it is. Which I will share because I'm a self-promoter like anybody else. But aside from that, I'm unlikely to snap photos around the show.

Lee:
Oh, sorry, Carry on.

Dax:
Good. I was just going to just put a point on it. I think asking people to share on social is not the way. No. It's not the way. There are certain people that will, there are certain people that won't. Give people that will stuff to share and don't worry about the rest.

Lee:
Well, I think your key point here as well is put on an incredible event for the attendee. What is it that they need out of this event? Give them an incredible experience. And those people in the middle that you've shared there, the people that are thoughtful or the people that share everything anyway, they're going to share because of Those experiences.

Dax:
The value equation. If we go back to that conversation about equitable value, equitable value or equity does not mean everyone has the same experience or that everyone perceives value in the same way. If I walk around and I see something and I'm like, Oh, that's a good idea. I file it away. I've received value. I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to share it on social, but it's coming back later. So I receive value from it. Or if I meet someone and we have an incredible conversation and I'm like, Okay, this person could be a friend, I've received value. Or if I see something entertaining that just gives me a good time, that could be value. The point being, the problem for event marketers is that people's perception of value is different and it's based on the individual. We have to provide all of that stuff and let people take value out of it and then evaluate whether or not we deliver that value. For some people, it is, I'm curating my social story, my feed. That is value for me. It's not value for everybody.

Lee:
Yeah, exactly. So full circling back onto community then. Here we are at Event Tech Live, and I do feel very connected in a, I guess, a community sense, i.e, a shared interest sense, etc, with an awful lot of people that come regularly to this event year on year and are on the event industry news and are on the publications and we see each other at all sorts of different events. I guess community is good, but not in regards to the 365 community. This is more a community of other industry suppliers who are making friends, supporting each other, because you are a part of that community, but that's not a community where you're being sold to by the team all year round and they're not necessarily curating that. It's a community that's formed naturally because we all have a good time and we all keep in touch. For example, I'm in touch with Mads as a result of these sorts of meet-ups, these sorts of conversations, et cetera. We've now all naturally formed friendships that isn't... What's the word? Fostered or controlled by Event Tech Live, but is as a result of it itself.

Dax:
I think it goes back to, again, that definition of community. I think there's a human need to feel connected to others. No question about it. Totally. Though the connexion, however, when we say community can be the implication, I think, is that it's a large group of people. However, I know you had an interview with Felicia from Cvent prior to this. We now know each other, having spoken on stage together, seen each other at events, chatted on the phone. And it was great to see her. I ran into her. I felt like, Oh, I know somebody here, and I'm a natural introvert, so I'm not going to walk around and introduce myself to everyone at this show. It's not happening. So I don't need a large group of people to feel connected. I need to feel connected. A few key conversations, a few people I know that shake my hand and say, Hello, I'm Golden Man. I don't need a large community. I do need to connect in a human way. Human connexions should be year-round, 100 %. Whether that is a big community of people with shared interest, that's where I have a challenge.

Lee:
I guess my only... Sorry, my only community that I'm a part of where we have a shared interest is my church, which we go to every week.

Dax:
That's about it. That's a perfect example of a community. There's the religious part of going to church. But I think for many people, it is the feeling of connection, seeing people that you see on an ongoing basis. You're part of a group, you feel connected to others. Amazing, right? I think that is a big reason people do go to church or temple or mosque. I think the religious is part of it. I'm not religious at all, but I am tempted to go to my local church. I live next door to a vicar to go to church.

Lee:
You're totally going to get invited out for a food.

Dax:
Well, exactly. And why not? Why Why not? That's why I'm there.

Lee:
That's wonderful. Well, Dax, thank you so much for your time. This has been really eye-opening. My biggest takeaway is completely to just make an incredible memorable event, create a great experience to people. They're going to come again next year.

Dax:
And-they'll come back. Of course they will come back.

Lee:
They're not going to forget it, just like we're having a great time here. Thank you so much. What's the best way for people to connect.

Dax:
With you? You can just say goodbye? Linkedin is a good way, Dax Callner. Yeah, I think because I'm in flux and a little bit with my career, that's the best way to reach me.

Lee:
All right, and then I'm just going to dip into my pocket. And whilst we're on the podcast, let's do that selfie, mate.

Dax:
You caught me.

Lee:
Say cheers. Awesome. All right. I'll share that on LinkedIn.

Dax:
All right.

Lee:
See you. Take care. Have a good one.

Dax:
Cheers.