Interview
What Cults Can Teach You About Building Community – The Douglas Atkin Interview
on Dec 11, 2008 - 3:00 PM PSTThe full program
This is an audio program. Listen and/or download it here:
A few lessons from this program
I interviewed Douglas Atkin about what cults and cult-like brands can teach us about creating a passionate community. Douglas, author of The Culting of Brands, studied organizations that have cult-like followers to learn what it takes to build rabid customer loyalty. And today he’s the Chief Community Officer at Meetup.
Here are some ideas that will help you build a cult-like brand, and examples of companies who apply them online.
People–not ideas–will create converts
Douglas’s example: Douglas learned something startling about the Moonie recruitment process. New converts are drawn to people in the religion before they accept its ideology. People convert because of the community, not the beliefs. They accept the beliefs later.
Online example: The first time they used Twitter, most people found the experience a bit odd. It didn’t allow more than 140 characters per message and had limited features. But if their friends were on it, they tried out the site and often joined. Eventually, Twitter’s quirky, minimalist format grew on them.
Constant contact between members is critical
Douglas’s example: In her study of the the Mormon religion, A. Marie Cornwall found that members who had strong ties to other Mormons, tended to have stronger ties to the religion itself. The church even “established a rigorously applied program of contact, forcing ‘high content’ engagement among members,” says Douglas
Online example: Keith and Chemda, who started the online radio show Keith and the Girl, said in my interview that adding a simple online message board to their site so their fans could talk to each other, led to such rabid listener loyalty that people tattooed Keith and Chemda’s faces on their bodies.
Members need to help each other
Douglas’s example: Douglas told me that one of the reasons the early Christian church took off is that they took care of their sick, while pagans routinely abandoned their sick. The feeling of being taken care of strengthened members’ bond to each other and the faith.
Online example: When I owned a Treo smart phone, members of the TreoCentral message boards helped me through tech issues I had with the phone. When better phones were introduced, I refused to switch away from my Treo because the community meant so much to me.
The community needs to stand for something
Douglas’s example: A cult must have a meaning system. Douglas quotes a member of The Forum, explaining why he joined this self-improvement group, “I believe that life without some other meaning than the day to day routine isn’t worth it.”
Online example: When I interviewed Karel Baloun, one of the first hire’s at Facebook, he told me that from the early days, Facebook stood for communication ‘s mission was. That was its mission. Facebook refused to allow users to docrate their profiles the way MySpace did, because all that self-expression interfered with their mission: to help people talk.
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December 12th, 2008 at 2:34 am
People first buy into people, then the vision.
Classic Dale Carnegie!
December 12th, 2008 at 2:44 am
The 2005 National Study of Youth and Religion published by UNC-Chapel Hill found that Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) youth (ages 13 to 17) were more likely to exhibit these Christian characteristics than Evangelicals (the next most observant group):
1. Attend Religious Services weekly
2. Importance of Religious Faith in shaping daily life – extremely important
3. Believes in life after death
4. Does NOT believe in psychics or fortune-tellers
5. Has taught religious education classes
6. Has fasted or denied something as spiritual discipline
7. Sabbath Observance
8. Shared religious faith with someone not of their faith
9. Family talks about God, scriptures, prayer daily
10. Supportiveness of church for parent in trying to raise teen (very supportive)
11. Church congregation has done an excellent job in helping teens better understand their own sexuality and sexual morality
. LDS . Evangelical
1. 71% . . 55%
2. 52 . . . 28
3. 76 . . . 62
4. 100 . . 95
5. 42 . . . 28
6. 68 . . . 22
7. 67 . . . 40
8. 72 . . . 56
9. 50 . . . 19
10 65 . . . 26
11 84 . . . 35
So what do you think the motivation is to denigrate the Mormon Church? You would think preachers would be emulating Mormon practices (a creed to believe, a place to belong, a calling to live out, and a hope to hold onto) which were noted by Methodist Rev. Kenda Creasy Dean of the Princeton Theological Seminary, as causing Mormon teenagers to “top the charts” in Christian characteristics. It seems obvious pastors shouldn’t be denigrating a church with high efficacy.
December 12th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I slept on it, and in retrospect, it might sound like I’m hard on Mormons or other faiths. It wasn’t my intention. I just want to plug useful ideas from wherever I can find them.
December 14th, 2008 at 2:08 am
On the subject of mission statements, Guy Kawasaki covers mantra’s pretty well in The Art Of The Start. He gives a set of good examples and bad ones so it’s easy to see the difference.
Side note: Funny thing is I never finished that book. I just got started with what I needed to do.
December 15th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Andrew,
great interview. I believe communities extend the “customer experience” beyond purchasing the product. It’s interesting to know that communities are a basic human need, but many companies pay little attention to figure out how to build a community around their businesses.
from this interview I noticed that I should be participating in more meetups related to my business, I used participate at the local renewable energy meet up, but have not been attending as regularly as I should be. I suppose a meetup can help build an offline community which I can bring online to our website. Possibly by taking pictures and videos of the meet ups and posting them to our community so people will log on after the event to check out the content?
I suppose the most difficult part of building a successful community is to give a reason for members to participate.
June 8th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
It looks good,I have learn a recruit!
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