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Why I Moved My Private Mastermind Off of Facebook Groups

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Why I Moved My Private Mastermind Off of Facebook Groups

I moved my private mastermind off of Facebook groups. It had nothing to do with the Cambridge Analytica scandal or the fact that Facebook has been mining and storing our data for years. 

Let me back up … for a long while, I’ve been contemplating how to streamline my offers in such a way that I could serve more authors and online business owners while also creating more room for me to take off on an adventure when time and space permitted.

I was mulling this over when I was introduced to Tara Gentile by way of an article she published on Medium. Impressed with her writing and ideas, I continued following and reading her work. I noticed in Tara’s bio that she was the Founder of CoCommercial, “the fluff-free social network for small business owners on a mission.” That was intriguing.

One day I clicked over to CoCommercial and decided to join so I could see what it was all about. I instinctively knew that this community was a model for what I was trying to articulate in my mullings about the change I wanted to make.

Not long after I joined, Tara announced she was doing a two-day workshop at Creative Live in San Francisco. It was about building community and integrating it into your business growth strategy. I booked my hotel and ticket immediately. 

Fast forward… four weeks after attending Tara Gentile’s community building workshop, I launched my own community… Marketing Trailblazers.

Marketing Trailblazers Community hosted by Denise Wakeman

Why the change?

Visibility Mastery LabTo be honest, I’d wanted to get the Visibility Mastery Lab off of Facebook for a while, but wasn’t sure where to put it – what platform to use. 
 
Facebook is a huge distraction. People might log in to participate in the Lab, but as soon as they’re there, they get sucked away by ads, by political arguments, by Aunt Betty, by other groups…
 
Given that one of the goals of the Lab is to help you get past the distractions so so you can learn and focus on mastering your online marketing, being on FB can be counter-productive.
 
Time seems to disappear when people are on Facebook, and Comparison Fatigue makes people zone out.

I want members to feel buoyed up by visiting the Lab, not bogged down by Comparison Fatigue and zoned out! 

Facebook groups are terrible for archiving and searching for information.You may have used the “search” function, but you may have also noticed that it doesn’t actually work very well!

I want members to get answers to questions you can’t Google, not frustration that you can’t find what you’re looking for! 

There are minimal if any privacy and control issues for members of a Facebook group. Facebook can do whatever Facebook wants with the images and text that members upload. Not to mention that you don’t have much control over what it shows in your stream and who will or won’t get notifications about the posts.

We needed a space of our own where we could actually maintain the privacy and confidentiality we value. 

In general, Facebook promotes shallow, often meaningless exchanges over deep, meaningful discussions. This isn’t the kind of culture I want to promote.

community work toward the same goalsI want our Visibility Mastery Lab to be a space for meaningful conversations, and sharing of our vulnerable selves and the challenges we face to get our messages out to the world. 
Facebook is peppered with ads, which are all over Facebook groups. Even in secret groups, members are bombarded by ads.Click to Tweet
You deserve to have your conversations in a noise-free, ad-free zone, that is not owned by a big corporation that sees us data points in their algorithm! 
 
In short, I’m tired of Facebook and it doesn’t serve my purposes. I want a space that our community can call our own, so we moved.
 
And, the platform I chose, Mighty Networks, makes it possible for me to create private groups within the larger community so the private Visibility Mastery Lab group not only can participate in the community but also has their private space where only mastermind members can see and participate in their own conversations.
 
By creating my own community space, I can now open it up to the friends, followers, and connections I have on various social networks. 
 
So, what are the objections to moving off of Facebook?

But I like Facebook! And I’m already ON Facebook!

Topics index on Marketing Trailblazers

A peek at the Topics Index in the Marketing Trailblazers community.


Change is challenging. And, as we all know, it’s inevitable.
 
In addition to everything listed above, here are some of the fabulous things about the new space:
  • Events are shown in YOUR time zone! No more having to scramble your brain to figure out what time the event is! And, if you have a global community, this is important.
  • You can find other members based on their “specialty” (i.e., their primary business niche)
  • You can find people based on their physical proximity to you, wherever you happen to be in the world (so if you’re traveling, and another member is nearby, the mobile app will tell you! As we grow, this will be super-cool!)
  • You can write “Articles” with as many embedded images and videos as you want! (“Posts” are shorter messages; “Articles” are longer ones)
  • You can include images and/or videos in your comments on other people’s (or your own) Posts and Articles, too!
  • You can send private messages to other members, just like on Facebook
  • There’s a fabulous mobile app, that makes it really easy to use on-the-go!
  • The content is easy to organize and find via the search function with various filters. You can hone in on exactly what you’re looking for
  • It’s a distraction-free zone, solely focused on supporting the members on their marketing journey

What is Marketing Trailblazers all about?

Marketing Trailblazers is a support and social community for adventurous business owners seeking to master online marketing.

Marketing Trailblazers is a community of marketers, coaches, consultants, authors, artists and other creative business owners on the journey to grow our businesses with smart marketing.

The community is designed as a safe and supportive space to ask questions, get real-world, real experience answers, meet your peers, share stories and most importantly grow your business.

My vision is to build a global community of independent online business owners coming together to help one another succeed, grow, and make an impact in the world with their important work.
 

Marketing Trailblazers Compass

There you have it. That’s why I moved my private mastermind group off of Facebook and on to our own platform. The experiment is young. I launched on March 22 to a small segment of my email list and several people jumped into the community right away. I’m rolling out the invitations to my email list and on social media slowly to ensure I have the time and energy to greet each new member and get them comfortable with a different model for getting the knowledge, support and encouragement they want in order to build and grow their business.
 
Ready to jump into the community? Click here to check it out. I’d love to welcome you to our community!
 

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Comments

  1. Nice writin’ Denise! I really appreciate your thoughts on what you want for your community. I will check out both of the platforms that you’ve mentioned. They seem really interesting.

  2. Denise, I have to say that you have hit this solidly on the head, This is the same reasons I had set up my own blog/membership/Forum sites Social media is ok for the purpose it serves but for creatives and artists a whole different world. You have explained this so much better than I could and was probably why people were not “hearing” me

  3. Thank you for this insightful post, Denise. I’m so glad you took this step. I had used Ning years back for my membership group, but I caved when the members said they preferred to stay on Facebook.

    My motto for social media has always been “Get in, get out, and get back to work!” and I spend a maximum of fifteen minutes a day on all social media platforms combined. With your new virtual location I am more focused and feel no need to put time restrictions on what I am doing there. Perhaps you have begun a trend, but you have always been a trendsetter.

    • Hey Connie, thank’s for popping by. I’m looking forward to seeing how things unfold with the community model. I appreciate you being part of the group.

  6. This is a very strong statement for the change you made. Clear and compelling reasons and a real motivator for a business idea I have been working on. Mighty Networks looks fantastic and I am exploring it. Thank you for so often leading the way!

    • Thanks for stopping by, Tassey. I’m just starting out and love the possibilities so far. If you have questions about my experience with Mighty Networks, feel free to reach out.