CREATING a movement, getting people to come on the journey with you – Increasing your business potential for individual artists and arts organisations

What is the SWITCH System?

We wanted to ensure the system was as easy to remember as possible.  We wanted to make it memorable.  The SWITCH System discovers the Self that defines your way forward by getting your audience Involved.  By telling your story, you will Create a movement that makes change happen repeatedly.

S – defining your SELF, who, why and what you do

W – finding the WAY, sharing your uniqueness & your work

I – getting your crowd INVOLVED, find out who they are

T– TELL your story that engages people to what you do

C – CREATE a movement, move your crowd

H – Making change HAPPEN, and keep it happening

Where are you at the moment?

So far in this series we have looked at who you are – defining the self so that you can know your motivation but most importantly your Why.  We then turned to creating a plan, where we looked at how to get your crowd involved and what steps you  need to do to reach our goals and outcomes. Now you know why you do what you do and you have a plan to get there – so far so good but a few steps are missing to achieving your goals and outcomes, namely how do you really get your crowd involved, not talking about the plan here but who, what and why are your crowd your crowd? What do they look like and how can you get more likeminded people on the journey with you.  And lastly, we talked about stories and not just any stories but MAGIC stories – how you can really engage your crowd through storytelling and sharing.

Creating Movement 

Now, I want to look in a bit more detail at creating a movement – as in getting your crowd to come on the journey with you – but a journey that is taken together as equals. Let’s just put this into some context before we get ahead of ourselves.  If you think about your crowd, why do people want to belong, and why do they need a sense of community? Well people want to feel a part of something; they want to join in and share in a world that reflects their values and interests. Remember we talked about your crowd joining you because they align with your goals, vales and interests, well this is the community they want to join.

Definition of the word community:

“A feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.”

But the word community can also be a bit confusing, especially when we look further into what is it we are trying to build, as in what type of movement are we trying to garner? At the moment then lets substitute the word community with crowd.

So in creating a movement though we have to define what it is that we are trying to build? This will become more obvious as we go through this but let me start by saying, what are your expectations, what are your time commitments and what do you want your crowd to do – but be realistic in what you are expecting. Now you are totally confused, lets move on 🙂

If we connect people to each other, then we are connecting them to ourselves and our work / service – our unique brand. If we can’t get our crowd to connect, not only with us but with each other then I think it is fair to say we have no connection and no crowd. Helping connect people to each other is a necessary part of creating a movement

NO CONNECTION = NO MOVEMENT

Your Goals / Motivation / Values

What are you trying to achieve? Where is it that you want to get to and what sort of change are you trying to make. I know I keep going on about it, but until you have defined who you are, what you are doing, and why you are doing it, it is almost impossible to determine your true goals.  Yes you might have some goals but I would argue not your true goals.  Without any goals how are you going to move your crowd? It’s impossible.

But remember it is not just about you it is about your crowd, to form anytime of movement your goals, values, motivations, interests have to align with theirs.  You also have to  demonstrate your passion, your persistence and your determination to get people to come on the journey with you – so make sure you can articulate yours to your crowd, your goals should be important to them to.

Your Crowd & Crowd Participation 

Now comes the crucial question, Is your crowd willing and ready to hear you? Are you telling them what they want to her at a time when they are ready to hear it? Not everyone is in exactly the same situation at the same time so we need to make allowances for this.  How can you get information out to your crowd so they can take the action you require them to do when the time is right?

But a passive crowd is not a crowd that is going to advance your message, how can you make your audience participants and not passengers, how can we engage them emotionally, get them to ask questions, get them to own it, get them to take action?

What Action

And when they do take action, what is it we are asking our crowd to do? What is the Call to Action (CTA)? Make sure that you only have one call to action you want them to take at once.  Don’t confuse your crowd by asking them to choose which call to action you are asking them to do at this specific time.

My Crowd Type 

I will just throw a quote in at you before I ask you to think about the type of crowd,

“Don’t confuse Facebook for community.”

Matthew Stinchcomb – Etsy’s VP of Values and Impact

Think about this statement, think about what it is really trying to say, you can’t sole build a crowd online. But, as we will look at in a moment, the amount of interaction we can build in to our crowd depends on what type of crowd we are going to build, so with that in mind lets look more deeply at the types of crowds we can build.

So, you want to start a family?

Now, a paragraph or so ago, I asked you to consider your expectations with your crowd, and obviously they would have of you.  One of the types of crowds we can build is a family.  A family might sound just like the crowd you would like, everyone helping everyone else all of the time – but here is part of the problem, if everyone is helping everyone all of the time then do you have enough time to fulfil this expectation? If not then the family will quickly fall apart.  People will have a preconceived idea of what to expect from a family, for a start the family is the closest bond, a place where there is steadfast commitment to each other a place where people help each other without question.

Another thing with families is that they tend to be smaller units, it is very difficult, as I am sure those with large families will agree to fulfill all the expectations of all of the family members in a large family. So families would be smaller, have major demands on time, have large expectations, and fall apart quickly if those demands and expectations were not met.  Starting a family is for life, not for the short term so think about it, can you deliver – really deliver on the family.

Does your family ONLY communicate online? I would doubt it, even if you are separated by geographic locations at some stage there has to be some physical connection.

Become Part of Your Community

Now, if starting a family seems daunting, then maybe you want to become part of a community? In communities, there are commitments to each other to keep the community together and strong relationships for ourselves and for others. But for all of you who have been involved with your community there are huge differences between your family and your community.  These differences are the points that you are looking to highlight to people when you say you are trying to build a community with your crowd. Make sure the expectations are agreed so that there can be no miss-communication.

Families and communities have boundaries and protocols for acting with each other, so use them. Again does a community only communicate or focus its attention online? – see if we keep referring back to the quote by Matthew Stinchcomb – Etsy’s VP of Values and Impact, never mistake online for community.

Network Connections

If you are going to have major time constraints that mean you will not be able to offer high expectations – and again I can’t stress enough that you have to be able to deliver on your expectations – it is better to over deliver than under deliver, then maybe creating a network from your crowd is the best way to go.  Networks are where there are bonds between people, but not necessarily commitments, so they are easier to manage but the expectations are also lower so it might take you longer and require more effort from you on a personal level rather than effort from your crowd to reach your goals / outcomes.

However, one thing to consider is that networks don’t have boundaries, as such they can become important in connecting with networks of other people. What this means in practice is that it is very difficult for families or communities to cross over into other families and communities but with networks these boundaries do not occur.  In fact networks are designed to have fluid boundaries, they are designed to merge into other networks – whilst at the same time maintaining their autonomy. Think about it this way – in a network if you know someone who can help you in another network then they can join your network – the same does not happen in communities or families – certainly easily.  The expectations and the bonds that hold families and communities together are so strong that it takes time, trust and commitment to integrate a new member from another group. So just be careful here.

You Always Wanted Members

Yes, you always wanted to run a membership crowd, didn’t you? Probably not.  Members are the least committed, require the least expectations, and do the least for you.  Now there is nothing wrong with them, only the expectations are so low that they are more passive.  If you are thinking about a membership scheme, think again.  How can you change them from being passive members to pro-active networkers?

So Consider This 

You need to answer to these questions, as they are critical for building audiences and long-term relationships with your crowd.   

BUT to start any movement you need to decide if you are:

•    Starting a family

•    Become part of the community

•    Network Connection

You know how you would treat a:

•    Family Member

•    Community Member

•    Network Member 

So treat your crowd the same!

Therefore the things you need to consider when you are looking at which type you would like your crowd to be: 

•    What does it look like if we market our art or our organisations with a core focus on family ?

•    What does it look like if we market our art or our organisations with a core focus on community?

•    What does it look like if we market our art or our organisations with a core focus on a network ?

•    What are my crowds expectations?

•    What are my expectations?

•    What time can I devote every day / every week / every month / every year to maintaining and creating my crowd

•    How do we measure our achievement?

•    If we say “join our community on social media” are we truly achieving our goal?

So to quickly recap, if we market our art or our organisation with a core focus on community what does this really look like, to create a successful movement we must: 

We must engage people

We ask people

We must listen to people

We treat them like people

We treat people as though they are part of our chosen group

Think about what success looks like, what is it you are trying to achieve? – then measure it!

People Are Real

One thing that is easy to overlook in all this though is that your crowd will always and only ever consist of real people. So, no matter what you decide, never lose sight of this fact.  One quote that I came across that resonated with me from Amanda Palmer’s book, The Art of Asking – and if you haven’t read it yet then you should, was

“PLEASE BELIEVE ME. I’M REAL. NO REALLY, IT HAPPENED. IT HURT.”

Amanda Palmer – Art of Asking

So be very careful in how you address your crowd, what you allow to be said, never loose sight of the fact that you are always talking to a real human being, who, even though their interests, values and goals align might well have a different thought process to you, different humour, fears, tolerances to you.

So to Wrap up
 

Again, I know that there has been a lot to take in on creating a movement, but if you split it down into different sections, you can’t go far wrong.

As each crowd is unique to each person I can’t tell you what to do as only you know your crowd. But remember what group you want your crowd to be – family, community, network – and talk to them, treat them like you want to be treated in that group, so unless you can show and be: 

•    Be motivated

•    Share your goals / values / aim

•    Ask for help

•    Listen to your crowd

•    Take on board their suggestions

Without taking these steps you will NEVER CREATE A MOVEMENT OF LIKE MINDED PEOPLE WHO SHARE YOUR VALUES, GOALS, PASSION and COMMITMENT.

Help with business development in the arts sector.

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