“Community” keeps coming up a lot in the conversations I am having.   

From traditional member-based associations to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), to how we will collaborate in the metaverse;  bringing like minded individuals together with a shared vision will always have value.   As the way we gather and work continues to change, the power to bring people who are geographically distributed together is more important than ever.   And each day, the evidence mounts that the power of community is a trend that won’t retreat anytime soon.  

At twine, we are all about community. We participate in, organize, join, and support communities in every facet. This is why we are thrilled to announce that we have partnered with Goldcast, an organization that is well known for recognizing the growing importance of community.  Our solutions now integrate with each other to create a seamless user experience. By leveraging twine’s industry leading networking technology, Goldcast adds a fully integrated networking experience into their platform o build and nurture communities within its customer base.  But more on that later...

Power to the Marketer

Goldcast’s mission is “Giving superpowers to event marketers”.   If you ask an event marketer, they might remind you that they are already superhuman.  Designing events is sort of like rehearsing to juggle 10-12 knives of various shapes, on a continuously moving platform, during a sandstorm.  

So, what exactly does it mean to give mega superpowers to a group of people who are already considered modern day superheroes?  Event metrics, especially in-person, have traditionally been challenging to track.  Event marketers didn’t have a seat at the table as a result.  They were unable to fully contribute to the go-to-market strategy. 

Then COVID-19 came calling.  Everything went digital.  And everything became trackable.  The proliferation of online events converted a problem into a solution for savvy marketing teams.  The digital nature of virtual events allow event marketers to generate leads, share meaningful insights, and greatly impact company growth.   

It’s all about flipping the visualization switch of a company’s growth engine, of which field marketers and demand generation leaders are key.  That’s the niche Goldcast has identified, and why nearly all of their investors and advisors are CMOs and experienced growth leaders.  

Where Does Community Fit In?

I also spoke with Palash Soni, CEO and Co-Founder of Goldcast about community.  It’s his belief that community building is emerging as an important function of a business just as much as demand generation itself.  

“There are many macro factors at play here in the B2B Marketing world which have positioned the community front and center of the to Go-To-Market Strategy.  The goal is to enable event marketers to build communities through their events, and to accomplish that,  peer-to-peer networking is critical.”

Peer to peer.  Human to human.  

[twine takes position stage left] 

twine + Goldcast: Integration and Enablement

Integration and embeds can sound scary to some.  But when technology providers team up and this work is completed prior to your event, it’s not scary at all.  It actually becomes easier. With our full integration into Goldcast, once an attendee joins, the handoff from keynote to networking is so seamless you don’t even notice that it’s two separate applications. 

When you invest in a platform like Goldcast you expect the highest quality.  Your expectation of the networking features to engage your audience is on par with the platform and this seamless UI allows you .  And we all know a seamless UI allows event marketers to focus on other stuff…the important stuff.   

That’s why bundling twine as a core offering in the Goldcast platform became a priority.  

In order to realize this goal three things needed to happen:

• Build an API integration and embed that ensures the security of users data, provides a seamless experience and flexibility to customize to customer needs  
• Enable the Sales and Customer Support teams to incorporate twine from go to market (GTM) all the way to deployment  
• Extend greater flexibility to event organizers to ensure that the right individuals meet 

I’m happy to say that our teams have accomplished these goals and twine is now available to all Goldcast customers.

Serendipitous vs. Prescribed Connections

Whether twine is deployed for external or internal events,  connecting the right people at the right time is a priority.  It really doesn’t matter if Friday twines meet at the digital water cooler or if HR seeks to onboard hundreds of newbies the first Monday of every month.  Attendees appreciate the sense of community, camaraderie and collaboration.  There’s value in spinning up serendipitous connections, first impressions and strengthening weak ties across the enterprise.

There’s also value in prescribing these connections ahead of time.  The first iteration of twine Room Composition is live. What's Room Composition? It's a tool that lets the host determine who should be in each room based on certain criteria set.

This is the community philosophy at its core.  Connecting like-minded humans builds trust, perspective and drives creativity.  Palash had this to add as well:

“Enabling intelligent speed networking such as customers matched with prospects is a classic demand generation use case”.

Sponsors…remember them?  They were left at the altar during the pandemic.  The possibilities exist to once again build revenue-generating connections in new and human ways.  And it’s all trackable!  

Clarity in Community

Our world has gotten pretty noisy.  It’s easy to drop down the wormhole and explore time-consuming projects that don’t benefit you or the organization you represent.  Or, you can leverage emerging tech that facilitates these connections, providing insights and building communities which offer clarity on the project at hand.