A relationship-builder by nature, when I first joined the Publisher Recruitment Team here at Lijit Networks, the first thing I wanted to do was connect Lijit with an online community that was close to my own heart -20 Something Bloggers.
Founded by Lisa Farlow in 2007, 20SB is a Ning network and online community of exactly what it sounds like – personal bloggers between the ages of 20-29. I found the community in May, 2008 and have been an active member ever since, connecting with other 20-somethings who were exploring personal blogging on so many levels. In the last couple of years, I’ve traveled across the country and back to meet different bloggers in person and strengthen the friendships and relationships that are grown out of this common ground – blogging about our lives in our 20s.
The network has grown exponentially in the last three years and is now at over 12,000 active members. The leadership and admin team are all members of the community, led by founder Lisa Farlow and chief admin Derek Shanahan. Lisa is a 22-year old recent graduate of an engineering program in Waterloo, Ontario, and plans to continue life as a student for years to come. Derek is a recent Chicago expat / Vancouver resident and is a co-founder for a startup called Foodtree. Both are crazy ambitious leaders who have grown this from a small group of blogging friends to a robust community that includes events, meetups, and a variety of ways for members of the community to learn from and interact with each other.
I’ve found some of my closest friends through this community, and when Lijit brought me on to help grow their list of publishers, 20SB was the first group I wanted to work with. Below, Derek answers some questions about the inception of the network, how he and Lisa keep it running, and why it’s such a cool place for bloggers in their twenties.
How long as 20 Something Bloggers been around?
June 2007
How many members do you have and at what rate is the network growing?
12,000 members and adding about 1000 every five weeks.
20SB is run by its own members; how does this work and what kinds of responsibilities do your admins have?
We set up a pretty flat team of volunteers. We accepted members to the team as Managers, and some of our longest involved management team members act as Admins. We group our Managers into teams: Community, Events, Blog Editors, Charity, Features. Each team has an Admin or two, and we try to keep things functioning like that. In general, Lisa acts as Chief Admin for the Community functions and I focus on our Events and behind the scenes biz dev. Our main goal with this group approach was to give anyone who had time and interest in focusing their efforts to support, promote, or improve a piece of our community the ability to do that, while giving our vast membership a healthy list of resources they can reach out to for various needs.
What is the most gratifying part of being on this network?
There’s no question that the most joy I see result directly from people’s involvement in 20SB is the community they find here. The people and the conversations happening within our walls spill out on to blogs, into other communities like Facebook, BrazenCareerist, and Twitter, and into the real world as people meetup to spend real-life time together.
What is something interesting you’ve discovered through running 20SB.net?
I’ve grown up with this role; initially I didn’t know how to manage a vast worldwide team of people I can’t compensate tangibly. I still have difficulties with this, but I’ve come a long way in the two years I’ve been devoting significant time to the community. I think I have a very interesting perspective as a result of our growth, which I don’t attribute to me or Lisa or our team specifically. I attribute the community’s success to its members, and I feel very lucky to be able to say without hesitation that I’ve got a bird’s eye view of what the real potential of a community based around common interests has for people.
What are the different ways your members get and stay active and involved in the community (forums, events, guest posts, blog swaps, etc.)?
I think our biggest draw is our forums, with our events driving a lot of the off-network connections that make 20SB so special. Day to day, you’ll find hundreds (sometimes thousands) of bloggers talking in our forums. When we throw events and invite our members to act in unison of some kind (post on the same topic, swap blogs, video post) there is a renewed sense of community that takes place on our members blogs. Since we’re all personal bloggers, there is this enhanced level of sharing and connection that no other digital community has; who you are on 20SB has as much to do with your blogging as is does with your activity on the site.
To more specifically answer this though, there are SO many ways to jump in and get active in 20SB, and that’s something we’re really proud of.
Who can join 20 Something Bloggers and how would they go about doing that?
Our only requirements are that you’re the right age and you’re blogging about your life. If you’re doing that, you can head to our homepage at www.20sb.net and click on Join!
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Derek
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lijit