Building an engaged summit community used to be as simple as asking a daily question and watching the conversations flow. But if you've tried that approach lately, you've probably noticed it's not working like it used to. The online community landscape has completely shifted, and without an intentional strategy to engage attendees, you could easily end up with a summit community that feels like a ghost town.
That's exactly why I'm thrilled to have Sandra De Freitas on the podcast today. She created one of the most vibrant, engaging summit communities I've ever experienced – and as someone who's been in this space for years, that's saying something! When I participated in her summit as both a speaker and sponsor, I was absolutely floored by the energy and engagement in her community.
Sandra helps entrepreneurs transform their expertise into thriving membership businesses, and her ability to create engaging membership communities has perfectly transferred to summit communities. She went from being completely anti-summit to hosting events that generate incredible engagement and results, and I'm excited for you to hear more about her story, and her incredible strategies for creating active and engaged summit communities.
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Episode at a Glance:
[01:41] Sandra shares her background in digital marketing and membership building, explaining how she's been helping entrepreneurs with memberships, launches, and communities for over two decades. She runs a membership called Engaging Profitable Memberships, where she teaches retention, engagement, and gamification strategies.
"When I started my marketing agency over two decades ago, everyone wanted a membership. Everyone wanted recurring revenue, and so I started building membership on a very archaic membership platform software back in the day. And ever since then, I've been helping people with their memberships, their launches and their communities."
[03:51] While she's a big fan of summits now, she had a lot of resistance to them after her initial summit experiences. She worked behind-the-scenes for a few client summits that ended up being pretty chaotic. One summit grew from 15 to 35 speakers, many added in at the last minute, and the back end of managing it all was overwhelming. There was also no strategy for monetization. Between the workload and lack of clear results, it made her swear off summits completely.
"Because I saw all the work, and because there was no strategy to then take those people into the next level, we were just so over our heads. We didn't think about the strategies you teach to sell an all-access pass, or to launch a membership or course at the end. It was so much work to just get the summit going, that we weren't even thinking about it and just wanted to get through it."
[05:24] Sandra finally opened up to the idea of summits again at an in-person mastermind where multiple people kept suggesting she host a summit. After hearing actual numbers and results from other hosts, she finally agreed to try it. And in the end, it totally paid off and she's so glad she did it.
"Someone said, the work that I did to put my summit together, I got paid back easily by my all access pass sales and the list that I grew. Another person said, my list now has 40,000 people on it, and a lot of that came from hosting summits twice a year. Okay, fine, you've got my attention."
[08:23] Not only did her summit end up being worth it, but her summit community was the most engaged we've seen in the B2B space in a very long time. Because of the decrease in engagement over the years, many hosts have opted to leave out the community entirely, but Sandra explained why that's a mistake.
"Without a community, you're relying solely on email and social platforms, and you're missing so many opportunities for excitement, speaker engagement, sponsor value, and that "party" atmosphere that makes summits so much fun. To me, the community got people excited, got the speakers excited, got the sponsors excited, started connecting beforehand and then during the event, it was like a big entrepreneurial party in there."
[10:26] Sandra likes to think about her communities like "dinner parties" whether it's for a summit, a free Facebook group, a course community, or anything else. As the host, you can't rely on others to create engagement – you must start conversations, celebrate people, and give them topics to discuss, just like hosting a successful dinner party.
"If you are the host of your own dinner party, and you start by intentionally interacting with people and introducing them to each other, you will get people to connect and start engaging on their own. But if your energy is low, people are going to walk away from your dinner party wondering, why did we go to this again? If you don't have a summit popup group that you engage with, you're missing out on the fun, but you're also missing out on opportunities to sell. You are missing out on really highlighting your speakers and giving your sponsors the best experience they can get. You have to think it like a dinner party, give people a topic of discussion, celebrate people, and have fun."
[16:08] An engaged community won't happen on its own. As the host, it's your responsibility to create the engagement and lead the community in interacting with each other. But what does that look like practically? Sandra's go-to strategies are to ask easy questions and play games that make people look smart. For example, Sandra shares her alphabet game strategy, where participants go through the alphabet naming membership-related terms, creating a minimum of 26 comments per post.
"It's a really easy game to play, and if someone doesn't t have an answer for the next letter, they are waiting to get to that letter so that they can answer the one that they have in mind. We're not even giving away prizes. We're just, let's get some engagement going And the fun thing about that is, you will have minimum 26 comments, usually more. Does Facebook like that? Oh yes, it does. And when you open up your Facebook group and you immediately have interaction like that, Facebook's gonna start promoting it more on people's feeds, in their notifications."
[19:02] Engagement is a big part of your summit community, but it's not the only reason for having one. Communication and Conversions are the other 2 pieces of Sandra's community framework. Communication includes things like making sure attendees know where to get support, what to do if they have questions, where to find the summit schedule, etc. And of course, you also want to be promoting your all-access pass and other offers you're launching through your summit, which is a lot more effective when you have an engaged and active community.
"I use my community to communicate, I use it to engage, and I use it to convert... All posts in your summit community should go into to one of those three buckets: communication, engagement or conversion."
[26:10] We've talked a lot about using these engagement strategies in Facebook groups, but they can work on any community platform, or even Slack channels organized with different areas for starting information, announcements, and general engagement lounges.
[27:25] If you're looking for resources to get your next summit community engaged, Sandra has you covered with her Summit Engagement Starter Kit (free) and Summit Engage + Experience Kit (paid), which include timeline generators, game ideas, automation for adding registered participants, templates for "Two Truths and a Lie," and the "Top Engagers" game designed to motivate ongoing participation.
"The Summit Engagement Starter Kit is our free kit. It gives you kind of a little sneak peek into a few things like the timeline generator to tell you what to do and how to plan ahead of time for your community."
About Sandra De Freitas
Sandra helps entrepreneurs transform their expertise into thriving membership businesses that generate predictable monthly revenue. With over two decades of experience in digital marketing and online business strategy, she guides her clients through the entire process - from crafting their membership model to launching and scaling their communities. Her practical, results-focused approach combines proven launch strategies, technology solutions, and group dynamics expertise to help you build a sustainable membership that serves your audience while creating the freedom you desire in your business.
Get Sandra's FREE Summit Engagement Starter Kit
Check out the Summit Engage + Experience Kit | Sandra's Website
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