Growing A Community

Everyone will tell you that your life will change when you have a baby. But for most people, this doesn’t include gaining a Facebook community with half a million members. For Camille Jaramis and Phil Chester, that’s exactly what happened when their Baby Sleep Training Tips & Help group hit the sweet spot for parents all over the world.

As their group grew and evolved they found that they were providing a real time support for thousands of desperate parents around the world, with a team of professionals providing free advice.

Finding a way through the mass of information in the posts and comments presents a problem for navigation and filtering. A problem, that can be solved by the friendly, linear format of a podcast.

We caught up to speak about their experience in building and running the group and their next project: Yawn, the baby sleep training podcast.

Outline

We talked about:
How did the Facebook group start?
Camille’s strategy for getting more people to join the group.
How the growth of the Facebook group exploded and the need for additional moderators to manage the group.
How professionals in the group answer the ‘what’, but are not giving the ‘how’.
The geography of the group members has changed at each stage of growth.
An anonymous post that validated that we’d done the right thing first.
How they are going to kickstart the podcast and leverage the audience on Facebook.

LINKS

Yawn – The Baby Sleep Training Podcast
Baby Sleep Training, Tips & Help (Facebook)

Transcription

MF 1:03
I was trying to find sort of a clever way into it, but I couldn’t. So so the obvious thing is you have a Facebook group with 552.9 thousand people in it. I checked today

PC 1:16
We do. Yeah.

MF 1:17
And it says it was created a year ago.

CJ 1:20
That’s right.

Phil 1:21
Yeah. Have we started? We have? Yeah. Oh, my God. Okay. We’re cool. Yeah, sorry.

MF 1:31
That seems pretty phenomenal. So can you? Can you tell me like, how did it start?

CJ 1:37
So the reason why we started the Facebook group was, Phil and I both had our kids during lockdown. And in Australia, you get a mother’s group, which is a really fantastics concept, which means that you get connected with a bunch of other new parents, usually new moms. Now it’s got a parent group, I think, but largely, it’s called a mother’s group. And you get connected to a bunch of new parents who are in the trenches with you and kind of going through the same experience at the same time as you and it’s really helpful way to create a community, I found out that doesn’t exist internationally, in a lot of countries. In the UK, you often have to pay for membership to a group like that. And I don’t know about the US, but it sounded either incredibly uncommon or not existent at all. And so that was the point of creating an online community because we are so not alone in the experience of being in those trenches.

PC 2:31
Absolutely. And I think, you know, COVID kind of enhanced that for so many people as well. But that feeling of being alone and not feeling like you had that support network. So I think it was just the perfect time, the perfect storm of just what all these new parents were looking for. What would I need, what would other people need?

MF 2:51
That’s amazing. So you just kind of identified that need, really and thought, I know, let’s let’s try and make a sort of open group on on Facebook to see if other people share the same interest

CJ 3:04
100% I just gone through a certification to become an internationally certified baby sleep consultant, not because I want to change careers, but because I wanted to understand what was what I was in store for for the next couple of years with my own child. And now I have two kids. So it was definitely worth the money to become certified. But that was the catalyst essentially that’s why babies sleep and that’s why it was a tips and help Facebook group was because I just done the certification and therefore was able to add that layer. And Phil comes from a background where he works in marketing, so he understands how to bring people together in a community.

PC3:38
Yeah, it’s a really it’s an interesting topic to have a Facebook group about an hour podcast and stuff because it’s, it can get quite opinionated it can get quiet, you know, everyone has their way of doing things everyone thinks they know what’s best and every baby is different. And I think that when you look at the metrics of will matter now. You know, one of the things we get flagged the most by meta is just people offhandedly saying, oh my god, I could kill my husband because he can sleep through the night. My metaphor to us and goes this is against our terms violence and Yeah, exactly. So you have this this what’s become this hugely supportive group that can potentially get shut down if we don’t monitor it carefully. So So

MF 4:21
Camille was it was your training in the baby’s sleep just to kind of something that preceded the group would you already had that idea before you did the training?

CJ 4:31
You’re right. No, it preceded the group I I did the course. I’ve got the expertise. Now I can add value and that’s actually

MF 4:38
Alright. I’m sorry. I want to be a little bit chronological here, which is something I often criticise my podcasters for in their interview, like don’t do the kind of “how did it start?” type of thing. But I just find this so fascinating that over the course of a year, you grew that that big of a group, your Facebook notifications must have been growing out of control.

CJ 5:00
Facebook is no longer for social. Just this post needs approval, this member was trying to join the group

Martin Franklin 5:08
Did you have like a strategy for how you how you’re going to reach all those people?

CJ 5:12
Originally, what I wanted was to create a place which added a lot of value, which would drive people to be able to come to the group or to want to come to the group, which I think has added to the growth rate that we’ve experienced. And so I would start by posting things that I knew people wanted, like routines and different methods. And if this is happening, then that’s happening, which got people coming to the group in the first place, which started to, I suppose growth begets growth, I don’t know if it fits as part of an algorithm or if it is just the appetite of people who are looking for something.

MF 5:48
Yeah, that’s one of the things I was interested in. Did you did you have a kind of watershed moment where suddenly, things really exploded?

PC 5:58
Yeah, it kind of I think the growth of the group went from sort of 100,000 members, which sort of blew everyone’s minds, but the the, the change from 100,000, to where we are now with 550,000, that was almost really quick. So the first 100,000 took months, and we’re, you know, it was really slow. But since then, it’s kind of I mean, I think it’s just word of mouth, it’s now obviously Facebook, sharing it, because we have run it in a way that keeps it a really supportive community. So Facebook is really pushing it to new parents as well as part of their algorithm. So yeah, it’s just that that first 100,000 was sort of the hardest slog, and then when you get to that 500,000, period, it’s kind of, I mean, that happened in this matter of almost a month or two,

CJ 6:44
I’d also add to say, the first 5000, were really hard to get, like we worked hard to post and to give those gifts of information to really make it an attractive place to go. But as soon as it started to hit 5000, next minute, it was 23,000. And we had people knocking on the door, to engage with us to try and try and be the face of the Facebook group. And then from 23,000, which sticks out for me up to 100, it got easier and easier. And then it felt like it was overnight.

MF 7:12
That’s really interesting, because I do a little bit of work on on YouTube, and I’ve got some of my podcast is here on YouTube. And we’ve had a little bit of a taste of that sort of effect of when you get when you get the algorithm working on your behalf and it starts to recommend you, that’s when you really sort of feel the growth start to accelerate.

Phil 7:34
Yeah, and that’s where I suppose the the link is, I mean, Camille’s husband, Ray and I are best mates. So you know, when Camille started this, I was really just there as a sounding board, like I’m, you know, can be able to I’m doing this, we’re great, you know, try this, try that. And then it really snowballed to Camille’s credit with the amount of work she was doing. And that’s when it sort of became apparent that we need to work with mentors, algorithms now. And we need to work with their backends to ensure that the, you know, the group is safe from you know, just being shut down for I want to kill my husband.

Camille 8:12
Just a sentiment that a lot of people can resonate with. But I also think it’s the name. So it’s called baby sleep training tips and help. And I don’t think that you can get a more perfect name for what people are actually looking for who are searching for it. So that was a very thoughtful and deliberate decision to grab that I couldn’t believe it was still available. I feel like we’re in a golden age where that might be also, you know, a URL that you could grab, you know, all of these things still exist. And I feel like the time is running out. So I grabbed that one the minute that we saw it.

MF 8:42
Yeah, I was interested in that because, and sort of how it relates to podcast titles and episode titles and that very sort of comprehensive way of titling things, because there are other baby sleep advice groups. But what differentiates your group is that you have the tips and help absolutely appended to it. So it’s kind of like extra value being suggested just by the title.

Phil 9:14
I think the important thing to note as well is that it’s now obviously, it’s gotten to a point that it is, you know, so much bigger than I think anyone expected,

Camille 9:24
I would have been happy with 5000.

Phil 9:27
But I think that, you know, we also have essentially a team of volunteer moderators that mostly our sleep consultants and stuff from around the world that have reached out and said, Can we help with this group? And so we have, I think we’re at about 12 moderators now that sit there in their own time and and and they approve posts and they comment on posts and they help people through and they’ve been a huge part of growing the group and really making it not just a discussion board. It’s now it truly is it’s tips and help they it’s not just a forum where you go in and you go I, this is what’s happening and something that happened to me, you can actually get feedback and responses for your questions.

Camille 10:05
That was also a condition that I put for this, like consultants in the group was before, before they can offer their services, which were comfortable them doing because you have to make a living before they can offer their services, they have to answer the question first, which means that they’re giving value, which drives the value of the group for both the member but it also is a good place to get business for people who do need additional one to one help. And so I think it’s a win win environment for consultants to play and also members to benefit.

MF 10:35
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I had two questions that that quickly connect with that both those points there. So I’m guessing at some point, you really found a need for additional moderators to just manage that number of people,

Camille 10:50
They reached out, they DM us to offer which is really surprising. I think we’ve only asked for more people to volunteer once or twice, but largely people will say Do you need more help, or they spend a lot of time in the group and they want the ability to block people who are who had been nasty, that’s how we keep it a supportive place, we are pretty, pretty heavy on the ruthless logging.

Martin Franklin 11:13
I think this is like really well known as soon as you you know, you hit a certain threshold, you’ll find people’s opinions aren’t necessarily kind of harmonious and someone needs to play that the parent role and moderate the nice, nice behaviour for the grave.

Phil 11:31
Absolutely. And every single post that goes into the group has to be approved by either Camille and myself or one of the moderators. So by doing that we keep out a lot of the spam, we keep out a lot of the, you know, the bot sites that just come on to try and promote because it’s really hard to pick them up when they’re joining the group. But then when they post, you can just filter through and you can see, okay, this isn’t adding value to anyone, this is just offering a discount somewhere. So we’ve been able to keep the group really genuine, and it’s genuine parents all trying to help each other. And we’re starting to see now success stories coming from the group. And I think that’s been the most amazing thing.

Martin Franklin 12:09
So that point you made about people offering services to the group, what how did you sort of evolve your policy around, you know, whether that’s permitted or or not?

Camille 12:21
From the beginning, we’ve allowed sleep consultants to offer their service because they answer the questions first. So it’s not that they get business for nothing, they have to work for it.

Martin Franklin 12:31
And you just sort of rolled with that and thought, okay, they’re contributing to the community being helpful. Let’s let

Camille 12:37
We want them to. Absolutely. The group, you know, operating. And I think that that’s what’s contributed to the growth has been that, as I said, it’s not just a forum of parents all talking their opinions, there are actually hundreds, I mean, that we’ve got, as I said, we’ve got the 12 to 15 moderators, but there are hundreds of trained sleep consultants that are in there, offering their services and offering their thoughts and helpful people so you can get, you know, help that would normally cost people, hundreds, maybe sometimes 1000s of dollars, just to ask a simple question. And you can get that essentially through our group.

The trick is they’re answering the ‘what’ they’re not giving the ‘how’. So what’s happening is this, they’re not saying this is how you can fix it. That’s where you would engage with their services, which is why they are incentivized to engage with the group, instead of giving all the information and then getting nothing for it. They’re just answering the ‘what’

Martin Franklin 13:29
it sounds like, you know, you’ve really just kind of hit a bit of a magic formula with how you you know, how you started the grip, and the naming and the and the and the need. So what what kind of time impact does it have on on you guys?

Unknown Speaker 13:45
Like it does, it does take a lot of time. I think, again, the moderator, the moderators do a lot of the work, which is fantastic. But now that it has gotten to that point where it is one of the largest groups on Facebook, the back end of it, and you know, the admin support that we have to offer. It does take a lot of time, as I said, there’s close to 1000 posts a day, I think going up and each one of those needs to be improved. On top of that, we’ve got the podcast, we’ve got constant advertisers and stuff that want to work with us. But again, it’s all about that original founding that Camille started. It’s supposed to be a community, it’s supposed to be somewhere where you can feel safely, you know, uncharged and go and get advice. So the last thing you want to do is jump on that. And the first thing you see is 50,000 advertisers throwing, you know, throwing their products at us. So it does take a lot of work to filter them out.

Martin Franklin 14:40
You’ve got the advertisers happening, as well because of that organic growth that has just explained. So just skipping back to that time impact question. I mean, how much time does it take?

Camille 14:53
I spend less time in there than because we work because we have the moderators and they’re incentivized to be A moderator, not just because they volunteered, but we also allow them to post a feat featured post each every week, they mostly don’t, which is fine. So our Featured Posts aren’t spammed. But they’re, they’re able to do that. And so they’re incentivized to do a lot of the work and because we have them around the globe, but it’s not like you wake up in the morning, and you’ve got 1000 posts to approve, they’re just coming in constantly and being approved constantly.

Unknown Speaker 15:24
I’m probably spending a bit more time on the back end. So I’d say roughly about an hour a day. But yeah, I think it’s also you have to remember, we are a year into it when it was 5000 members. And just Camille, I mean, it was probably 15 hours a day almost like you know, in terms of approving everything yourself, coming up with the content, trying to span through it has in the nature of the beast in that it has gotten bigger, and we do have that support, it then inherently means we are able to automate a lot more things and meta and Facebook, messenger and Facebook, same thing. They are really good at offering admin assistance, and a lot of this stuff is automated.

Martin Franklin 16:00
Now, I was just interested in the geography of your members, did you find that the geography shifted at all, you know, at each different kind of stages of growth? Or where are people?

Unknown Speaker 16:12
The biggest area for the group is the States. We’re at about 185,000 members. Oh, wow, is that today? Well, there you go. So we’re at 193,000 members in the US. And that’s followed closely by the UK. And I think that’s just the nature of the per capita. But also, you know, the fact as Camille said that they don’t have that mother screws to support like, we are so lucky that now we discover we’re so lucky to now have in Australia.

Camille 16:39
Plus, I think sleep training is more of a western culture thing. I do see a lot in Africa that that is increasing the number of members in Africa who are joining. And I don’t know what the cause of that is. But that has been an increasing trend over the last couple of months. Still as a percentage tiny, but in terms of in terms of engaging in joining with the group, it’s increasing. So I’m not sure what’s happening there. But they’re obviously looking for a bit more hands on helping the way that we provide it and need it, you know, cultures here as well.

Phil 17:09
We’ve also had to keep that in mind for the Moderator. So we have moderators based in the US based in the UK based in Belgium, Canada, because people are posting at specific time zones. So you know, and when it’s almost like we actually ended up offering a lot of help to the US. And so because they’re posting it to in the morning when their baby screaming. So that’s when we’re online and we’re awake, and then vice versa. So yeah, we’ve you know, we’ve planned that out with the moderators, we have on board.

Martin Franklin 17:36
If people are in that in a bit of a crisis in the middle of the night that there can be somebody there. It’s like amazing 24 hour helpline, do

Phil 17:45
you have social media?

Camille 17:46
The group has actually saved a life. You know that? I did not know that. Yeah, I got I ended up private messaging with the person. But they posted up and they were, it was a, it was an anonymous post. And so most people can’t see who it was. But as the admin we can because we approve the posts and the person. I approved it anyway, even though the content was a little bit distressing, because it sounded like the person really needed other people to be there with them. In that moment. They just lost a baby to SIDS. And they were in the hospital. And I got shivers Yeah, they were the post was really, really distressing. They’re obviously incredibly sad, the babies just died. And the first thing that they did was come on to the Facebook group, which tells me that they don’t have anywhere near the community that we have, or even I mean, that person may not have had the friend group to be able to connect with or they may have just needed a place to go that was anonymous and private. And so I ended up speaking with the person and they Yeah, they were having horrible suicidal thoughts, because it was such a such a distressing time for them. But also, it really validated that we’d done the right thing, firstly, by making it and focusing on having it as just a community, not trying to monetize it in any way, in those early in those early stages in the first couple 100,000 You know, like just making sure that it was the right place.

Martin Franklin 19:03
So you mentioned the podcast, just a little while, while back. So we should get on to that, which seems like a really exciting next step or additional step for you to take. Have you got any thoughts about how you’ll connect the podcast with the group?

Phil 19:21
So I mean, this is this is where I come into it. This is what I do for a living is sort of digital marketing and cross platform transformation. And so it came up in a conversation with Camille and I, when we were talking about the group and where it goes to next. And as I said, one of the things that we noticed was people are posting, you know, we get posts all the time. It’s like, hey, moms, I’m sitting here, it’s two in the morning. I don’t know what to do. And one of the things we thought is well, potentially what we can do is we can take this discussion and take these, you know, the learnings that we have from the group and all the input and put it in an order To format so that parents can, when they are sitting there at two in the morning, potentially rocking their baby to sleep, throw some headphones in and really engage with the audience on a different level. It’s also we had the opportunity to post anonymously. But we both get a lot of private messages from people really intimidated about doing that, really worried about their friends or family that are in the group judging them for something. So I suppose the podcast also adds that other bit of anonymity where they can reach out and we can discuss it and talk to other guests and other C consultants about their issue, and they can listen to it without having to put their name and their baby and whatever else out there.

Camille 20:40
Yeah, there’s a lot of information to take in when it comes to baby’s sleep as well. And I think, personally, that I mean, that’s why I did the course in the first place was to arm myself with information. And if there’s an opportunity to share that other people and arm them with information so that when they’re dealing with something, they’ve got this whole, you know, toolbox of different things that they could try or do differently or stop doing to help their baby. I think that’s a really powerful thing. So that’s a big motivator for me and doing the podcast is giving that giving that information and finding another platform to share it beyond just more posts or answering questions that kind of a kind of thing to Phil’s point, and audio versions.

Phil 21:18
Plus we have great voices. People need to hear these voices and faces for radio. So

Martin Franklin 21:24
coming from a digital marketing background. Phil, have you got any thoughts on how you’re sort of kickstart the podcast and leverage that that audience that you got?

Phil 21:33
Well, look, I think the the biggest thing for us in the way we’re structuring it is people aren’t going to potentially listen to this in an episode by episode format, like you normally would another podcast, it’s potentially not your drive to work podcast this is you have a specific problem with your baby or a specific want and need to know. So each episode will be formatted around different techniques, different questions, different subjects to do with sleep training. So hopefully, it becomes almost like an audio format encyclopaedia for sleep training, and you can come online, my specific issue is co sleeping so I can find the co sleeping episode. And you can then jump on and listen to him. I also

Camille 22:14
think it would be like those goosebump books where you go to a chapter and then it takes you to a different chapter, you know, my problem to your point is co sleeping and then it takes you to a thing about, you know, dark rooms, and then it takes you to a thing about a week windows, you know, you follow the rabbit down the hole for your particular issue. I think that will be how people would digest the podcast. Yeah,

Martin Franklin 22:33
I wonder if there’s a way we could set up some kind of signposting for particular topics. So if you’ve got, say, three episodes that cover, you know, one thing you can you could do something where maybe there’s a kind of edited highlights or

Phil 22:49
what Absolutely. And as Camille said, I mean, when you get into, as she mentioned, the rabbit hole that is sleep training, you can go okay, one solution might create five or six other tunnels. So that can often be one of the issues that we find in the group is that, you know, people will ask a question, and because of the sheer size, but within minutes, it has 50 comments on it. And they’re all different. Exactly. So to digest that, and to you know, when you are exhausted, and you are tired, and you know, scared, and all these things that you go through as a new parent, to sit there and read all of these comments. And you know, it’s all people just trying to help you. But it does sometimes as well. It can be mind boggling. So hopefully the the podcast is a way to digest it a little bit easier for those who are just in sheer exhaustion.

Camille 23:37
And understand why people said that, why people have commented that oh, that’s why they’ve said that. Because this, like drawing a link, it’ll be

Martin Franklin 23:45
perhaps a little bit more of a linear explanation. So easier to follow the that sort of thread. Yeah, that’d be really interesting to look at the stats, once they started merging of, do people cherry pick the episodes? Or are they in for the whole, the whole journey.

Camille 24:03
And there’s definitely going to be people in both camps. But I know already, whichever. So I’ve already got a list of the ones that are going to be massive, because they are the most frequent topics that come up, or the ones that are the most controversial or challenging as a parent. And I know that they’re going to be huge. And so I know that we’re going to have to be really thoughtful about if we engage with another sleep consultant to bring another set of information or perspectives into the room. We want to make sure it’s the right person for that topic, because it’s going to go it’s going to like the four month sleep regression is absolutely going to be the most listened

Phil 24:35
series on that alone.

Camille 24:36
It really you really could. But it is the most common question that comes up because everything falls apart and people don’t understand why. And it’s like topics like that. How do we make them digestible? And how do we make people comfortable as they work their way through all those different Warren’s in that rabbit hole that they’ll never tably find themselves facing?

Martin Franklin 24:55
That’s amazing. Phil and Camille, thank you so much for talking to About this and you’re on the podcast coming to your ear pods saying, hey, yeah,

Phil 25:06
well, thanks for having us. So we’re, I mean, it’s been great. And look, you know, we’re really excited. We hope that, you know, this podcast can be as, you know, helpful as the group has been, and it just becomes an extension of that community.

Martin Franklin 25:20
Yeah, yeah. Amazing. All right. Thanks, guys. That’s I’ll yeah, I’ll make something out of this conversation.

Phil 25:26
Thanks so much.