Friendship funnel machine
The potential podcasters have to spark friendships amongst their fans.
Community-building defined
I just threw up a bit in my mouth. Really, Patty, you’re going to write an article on “community-building?!” Words typically uttered by brand managers hoping to gain some misplaced loyalty from their customers by simply tweeting this overused buzz term.
I think my aversion to the phrase stems from its loose definition and ambiguous goals. So, how can “community-building” be quantified?
I like how David Perrel put it. A community should be judged by the number of friendships it creates….OK fine, that’s not exactly what he said, but that’s the metric he and his Course Director Will Mannon use to measure the success of their community-building efforts at Write of Passage.
I agree. If friendship creation is your North Star, even if your efforts fall one step short of that lofty goal, you will have still built a thriving community. The pursuit of friendship creation as a primary goal will force community-builders to implement systems that breathe life into dormant audiences.
Media isolation and the loneliness epidemic
There is no better time for podcasters (or any niche digital media show) to become friendship-generating machines. And not out of some moral obligation to society, although that would be nice, but because there is so much pent-up demand for human connection.
Loneliness is on the rise across every demographic in the United States.
Unsurprisingly the pandemic has only made things worse. A reported 36% of all Americans (including 61% of young adults) feel “serious loneliness”. COVID-related isolation isn’t the underlying problem, this was a preexisting issue. A pre-pandemic study published in 2018 reported that 22% of adults “often or always feel lonely.”
So then, what is the underlying cause that has so many Americans feeling lonely? I believe it has something to do with the death of mass media. In the ’60s there were 3 TV channels, and 70% of America all tuned in to watch I Love Lucy.
Now, thanks to the internet, consumers have endless choices which have splinted our society into a thousand different niches.
We are in the midst of a media isolation epidemic - a lack of overlapping media consumption amongst friends and family.
Niche podcasts are automated interest sorters
Paraphrasing Li Jin’s tweet, people (or fans) crave relationships and connection.
Podcasts are uniquely positioned to deliver on these seemingly imposing consumer desires. I don’t think people fully appreciate the potential podcasts hold due to their niche nature.
Compared to talk radio, its mass media predecessor, podcasts can easily cater to a niche audience and still amass a sizable following. Thanks to the internet, a podcast show can assemble the 500K listeners (just .01% of the world’s internet population) that are into, say, volleyball, spirituality, and prefer a sarcastic east coast sense of humor, for example.
This revolution in successfully executed niche media is grouping together like-minded strangers simply as a bi-product of their programming.
Friendship Funnel Machine
What are the fundamental underpinnings that might bias two strangers towards becoming friends? The bedrock of any solid relationship usually satisfy these two criteria:
01. Common interests
02. Shared experiences
Podcasts check both of these boxes almost automatically. Two random fans listening to the same niche podcast probably have three or more interests in common. They also have at least one shared experience in that they’re both listening to the same podcast every week.
So what’s missing? Why aren’t podcast community builders leveraging these pre-qualified pairings and turning them into real-life relationships? What can podcasters do to facilitate social interaction amongst their audience members? What the hell is Shared Purpose Interaction Oppruntinties?
Step 03 defined: Shared Purpose Interaction Opportunities
Common interests and shared experiences (steps 01 and 02 of the funnel) are a great filter to distill potentially deeply meaningful relationships. However, by ignoring step 03, podcast community builders fail to ignite meaningful connections amongst geographically isolated fans. Save for the few extra-extraverted freaks out there, most people aren’t comfortable posting to their favorite podcast’s Facebook group and introducing themselves in hopes of making a real connection with another fan. People that do that are freaks, by the way, I’m not sure if I mentioned that.
Shared Purpose - The context in which fans meet one another needs to have some higher purpose that supersedes the awkward goal of “I’m trying to meet new friends”. If that is the sole motive of the interaction, then the exercise will quickly start to feel like a job interview or a shitty icebreaker game from your first day at summer camp (stolen analogy).
Increased Interaction Opportunities - create a butt funnel, so to speak, in order to increase the likelihood that fans will bump into each one another within the context of the shared purpose activity.
Theories on how to spark new relationships
Butt funnel theory (increasing interaction opportunities)
I’ll start with the butt funnel because I just name-dropped it like it was a well-established concept. Well, it is to me!
Ok ok, settle down - coined by Jon Taffer, the butt funnel is a high-traffic area at a nightclub purposefully made into a small opening thus forcing patrons to bump into each other as they walkthrough.
“As [patrons] walk through it, they rub butts or rub up against each other. And in a nightclub environment, the closer you make people the more they interact, the more fun they have and the better experience they have,” says Taffer, adding, “I’m guessing there’s a few marriages out there that started at a butt funnel.”
Monster truck theory (creating a shared purpose)
Coined by Aziz Ansari, instead of sitting down to a boring-ass dinner first date, take them to a Monster Truck Rally:
This visceral monster truck show shifts the shared purpose of the activity away from “are we compatible” to “let’s experience and react to this monster truck rally together.”
If the sole purpose of any social interaction is “let’s get to know one another”, it quickly turns into a boring resume exchange.
There needs to be a higher-level shared purpose that supersedes the goal to meet a new friend so connections can develop naturally. For example, watching a Moster Truck Rally together, we have no choice but to show our natural reactions rather than whatever facade we all put on for interviews.
We don’t really get to know one another in an interview. We get to know people while playing, working, or experiencing something together - a shared purpose. Of course, in the midst of that common purpose, we each silently judge and evaluate the other person (right? is it just me?!) to see if there is compatibility. I love how the Monster Truck Rally theory sums up that truth.
In conclusion
Podcasters and community builders should strive to create a shared purpose activity that their audience can participate in and experience together. Then, they should ensure there is a high likelihood that they will “bump into one another” (et al, create a butt funnel) within that shared activities construct.
So, have you made any friends that were once stranger but you now know solely because you listen to the same niche podcast? No, me neither.
That’s because most podcasts, bless their hearts, stop at step 02 of the Friendship Funnel Machine. Increased interaction opportunities within the context of a larger shared purpose is the final step required to spark these prequalified friendships.
Just like the nightclub provides the thinly veiled shared purpose that we are all here to dance and listen to music but really we’re all just there to get denied by beautiful women. No no, I’m kidding.
The point is there is a reason people prefer trying to meet a romantic partner at a dance club instead of at a speed dating event.
Creating interaction opportunities is how you turn your podcast into a friendship-generating machine. The first two steps of the friendship funnel come pre-baked into every niche podcast, it’s the last step that’s harder to execute but will do the most to strengthen your audience’s community.
Coming Soon…
Examples of shared purpose interaction opportunities - how to implement the friendship funnel.
Defining “Niche Podcast” - who will have the easiest time implementing the Friendship Funnel Machine?
The Fanducer Flywheel - an outline of the positive feedback loops that occur when podcasters turn their fans into producers.