Digital Hospitality
Hello!
I’ve been wanting to start a newsletter for quite some time and decided three days before my wedding was a great time to do so 😀. Oftentimes, when I have a lot going on, I decide to just add a few more things to my plate to make life extra hectic. Well, here we are!
For those of you who don’t know me and/or have no idea what I’ve been doing since Elon Musk took over Twitter, I’m a sales and marketing consultant, a writer, and a community builder. After spending over 15 years working for start-ups and larger tech companies like KAYAK and Twitter, I’ve gone out on my own and have been fortunate to work with some fascinating companies in the healthcare and media spaces, as well as on some personal projects in film and TV. Some of my non-professional identifiers include Angeleno, daughter of Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union, cinephile, and tarot enthusiast.
I’m experimenting with long-form writing as an opportunity to engage in deeper conversations, explore cultural and technological trends, and share insights gleaned from both personal and professional endeavors. The plan is to come to you monthly with reflections from my work helping individuals and organizations tell their stories, generate revenue, and build community. Moreover, since I love connecting people with one another, I’m also planning on featuring folks in my community who are doing interesting things, telling amazing stories, selling cool stuff, hiring, wanting to be hired, looking for investors, etc. Essentially making our universe simultaneously smaller and larger.
I came across the idea of “digital hospitality” in Amber Atherton’s book The Rise of Virtual Communities while doing research for Journey Clinical, a start-up that I’m working with in the mental health space that trains therapists how to facilitate Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) sessions. My objective was to develop a strategy that would help Journey Clinical scale their online community of therapists. The word “community” gets thrown around a lot—and for good reason. The loneliness epidemic has been said to be as detrimental to our physical and psychological health than smoking cigarettes. Building community and community-led events serve as antidotes to our increasingly isolated lives. Just so we’re on the same page, Oxford’s English Dictionary defines community as a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common or a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.
Community management has also gained traction as a job function at (typically) consumer-facing companies. The role is a hybrid of sales, marketing, and product best explained in this excellent Medium post on why companies should hire Chief Community Officers by Sarah Dinkwater. When we talk about a digital community, this can be any online discussion forum – from a Facebook Group to a Slack or Discord Channel to the following of a digital creator on a specific platform such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or right here on Substack.
Well-run, supportive communities are important for the health of a society and very often do not and should not intersect with the world of commerce. I’m excited to touch more on this in future writing, but, for now, since my background is in media and hospitality, I want to explore why individuals and organizations invest in community development or why they should if they don’t already?
Community is an organic lever for growth.
Growth – in business layman's terms – means $$$, but as Dinkwater mentions in her post, it’s important not to conflate growing your brand’s community with customer acquisition. When you create and foster a community – whether you’re a business, non-profit, or an entrepreneur – the people in your community often become your customers. Even if they’re not purchasing your goods/services or supporting your causes right away, they’re able to keep your brand top of mind. For instance, Journey Clinical’s community of therapists pay a monthly fee to have access to medical prescribers, continuing education, and training, ultimately coming together to learn how to bring Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy into their practice. The online community, powered by software called Circle (similar to Slack and Discord), allows the therapists to start discussions around niche topics and also has separate groups based off geo-location (i.e., therapists located in Tennessee) and affinity (i.e., therapists treating individuals with eating disorders or therapists who identify as LGBTQ+.)
So, where does the idea of digital hospitality fit into the picture? Atherton mentions that great community managers treat their online communities like they’re hosting a well thought-out party. This piqued my interest because 1) I love hosting parties, and 2) I studied hospitality at Cornell and worked in restaurants and hotels prior to switching into media. Digital hospitality felt like two of my worlds colliding. Anyway, a good community manager welcomes new members with warmth and introduces people to one another, based on their interests and similarities. They ensure that the party doesn’t get too wild, yet they create space for dynamic and at times uncomfortable conversations that, over time, make the community stronger. In Journey Clinical’s case, we created a digital environment that was safe enough for members to express their fear of administering KAP after Matthew Perry’s passing or to start a discussion about why the monthly fees they pay for Journey Clinical’s service might feel too high. In turn, this allowed Journey Clinical to openly participate in the conversation, assuaging fears and concerns, and, ultimately, preventing churn.
What would our digital spaces look like if we approached them with a sense of hospitality rather than hostility? When you hear the phrase “digital hospitality,” what comes to mind?
Next month, I’ll outline the tactics I use to grow Journey Clinical’s communities and highlight some cool and unexpected digital communities I’ve come across in my research.