Oh, hello!

Loyal is a community development studio. We work with brands and startups to design and leverage community for business growth. Process-driven and people-centric, we develop bespoke solutions for each of our clients. Learn more at Loyal.is. Here, we’re Tumblr-ing about community management, engagement, culture, startups, agency life, business value, content, our team, our work, and a bunch of super fun, not so serious stuff...e.g. Miley Cyrus and unicorns. Get more of the serious stuff (like tips and tactics) at Loyal.is/blog. For our best content, subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Community.is, designed for anyone who puts people at the center of their work.

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Together, but alone. Internet culture commentary from Banksy.

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Bc, FRIDAY.

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This week we sat down with Sarah Judd Welch, founder of Loyal, a community development studio that helps brands build communities.

1. What is your community manager “superpower”?

Aligning community and business goals. I have a pretty diverse background from politics and operations to business development and branding on top of my time in community. Being able to draw upon those experiences and understand business levers from all sides has been invaluable in aligning interests and finding good outcomes for communities and clients alike.

2. What are sites that you read on daily basis?

Man, I don’t think I read anything on a daily basis, except PSFK’s “stories you need to know today.” I follow a wide variety of folks and publications on twitter in tech, community and design/creative, and I let the best content find me. I constantly have tabs open for articles on Contently, Brainpicker, and FastCoDesign, and I’ve recently been finding great cultural content in The Atlantic and NYTimes.

3. What’s a specific campaign that you are proud of?

There are quite a few that I’m proud of! Just recently, Loyal helped to launch an iOS app, #climate, that gives nonprofits the tech and social media tools to get their climate change actions (petitions, etc.) in front of a mass audience beyond their base of existing reporters. We partnered with influencers such as the NBA, Obama, Al Gore, Mark Ruffalo and Guns N Roses, and saw numbers that blew us all away. For that project, Loyal led all of the NPO onboarding for the platform, in-app content, and content for influencers. We were all super happy with the results, and it felt good to do some good.

4. Which campaign you wish you did?

HelloFlo’s video ads by Naama Bloom. That woman is such a badass! I hope that she’ll keep producing such top-notch creative content.

5. What’s your best time saving shortcut?

We’re very process-driven at Loyal, which streamlines our decision-making process and prevents fatigue. We figure out guidelines for decision making up-front so that we can quickly run with projects.

6. If you could only use one social channel, which would it be and why?

Twitter! I have so many IRL friends who I originally met on twitter.

7. What was one surprising thing that you learned from your audience?

For Loyal, our audience refers to our blog and our weekly newsletter Community.is. We’ve learned from our audience that they want to help us in defining best practices and community as a discipline and in educating the rest of the market — we’ve gotten quite a few requests for guest posts. Please do get in touch if you’d also like to contribute!

8. When I have a creative block I ______________________ for ideas.

Take a walk! Loyal is based in Little Italy, and my offices were located near by prior to that too, so I’ve been on the same exact creative walking route for more than three years: east on Grand to Bowery, one block north on Bowery up to Broome, west on Broome to West Broadway, south West Broadway to Grand and then east again on Grand. You’ll often find me walking on auto-pilot while blasting radio and doing some thinking.

9. If you’re were not doing this job, what would you be doing?

If I wasn’t running Loyal, I’d likely be building community products of my own. Perhaps that’s not too far off ;)

10. In the next 6 months what are we all going to be talking about?

I’m pretty relieved to see marketers’ move away from impressions of content to time engaged with content. I hope that 6 months from now, we’ll all be talking more about time engaged with each other. 

Interview by Taisa Veras, community manager at Speakeasy CM. 

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Thanks, Percolate, for the interview and all that you do for the community community (meta)!

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New business cards.

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Wanna hear something nuts? Today, Loyal is TWO!! It's hard to believe, but you best expect an oyster shucking party very soon.

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(h/t Amrit Richmond, via Pinterest)

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We’ve been over commencement addresses and advice for new graduates for a good minute. Yet Zadie Smith’s keynote commencement address (sadly, privacy settings restrict embedding *tear*) at The New School this year had us glued to our screens mid-work day at Loyal HQ. Speaking on our need for human connection and community, Zadie used her keynote to argue for collectivism, community and the joy in having membership in the human race.

We urge you to dedicate the full 20 odd minutes of viewing time yourself. Here are our few choice quotes to listen for:

Generations are defined by the projects they chose to take on together.

I speak in favor of recognizing our place within the many, not only as a slogan - much less as a personal sacrifice - but rather as a potential source of joy in your life.

I see you gazing into your phones are you walk down Broadway… for aren’t you always connecting to each other, forever communicating? Rarely scared of strangers, widely open, ready to tell anyone everything? Doesn’t online anonymity tear at the very idea of a prestige individual? …Hold onto that desire for human connection. Don’t let anyone scare you out of it. Walk down these crowded streets with a smile on your face. Be thankful you get to walk so close to other humans, it’s a privilege! Don’t let your fellow humans be alien to you. And as you get older, and perhaps a little less open than you are now, don’t assume that “exclusive” always and everywhere means better. It may only mean lonelier. There will always be folks hard selling you on the life of the few: private schools, private planes, private islands, private life. They’re trying to convince you that hell is other people. Don’t believe it. We are far more frequently each others’ shelter and correction, the anecdote to solipsism and so many windows on this world.

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This gem of a tweet from friend Ana Hevesi showed up in Sarah's timehop last week. Not only would we still RT this today, but the memory couldn't be better timed as she joined us for a client workshop last week.

Defined community interactions for a new community site, check! 

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We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

In memory of Maya Angelou

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Oh, man. Our hearts sure skipped a beat when Newscred's newsletter on Beyonce (ok, and maybe also content marketing) landed in our inbox earlier today. Queen B's video has us sold on her tour, content marketing for the win.

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Who knew that the Chicago bean isn't actually a bean? Of course, we made a point to stop by the iconic spot last week while visiting the Windy City for a client kickoff with appendTo, but were surprised to learn that the famed bean is actually a sculpture called "Cloud Gate" meant to reflect the city's beautiful skyline. *shrug*

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For the second week in a row (!!) and the third time in the past month, Client #climate is featured as one of the best new apps in the App Store. We couldn't be more excited for the #climate team and all of the nonprofits on board as their great work in the climate change movement is receiving even more notice and reach. 

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FRIDAY!

(h/t @hungrycarly)

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Last Friday, we headed over to the Museum of Moving Image’s GIF exhibit. While it only held our attention for 20 minutes, everything about this video had us giggling for hours. 

Flipbooks are the analog versions of gifs, right?

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“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.”

— John Buchan. (via starbucksyouandinow)

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From St. Petersburg, to Brooklyn, to SF and back to NYC, Shannon's come along way (both literally and figuratively) at Loyal. In honor of her next stop, FRANCE (!!), we couldn't resist sending her off with a public peek at her adorable passport photo circa 1999. Au revoir, Shannon! We're wishing you all the warm and fuzzies. 

Of course, we're celebrating today in true Loyal style at the Museum of Moving Image's GIF exhibit. More on that later!

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"Word on the street" by fellow community builder and friend, Karen Schoellkopf.