We recently connected with Rachael Spiewak and have shared our conversation below.
Rachael, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a customer success story with us?
I have two customer success stories that are extra special to me, where one client started from scratch and another started with a large Facebook Group.
I met CiCi Reagan through my Facebook Group late 2020. She had just launched a free Facebook Group after launching her Membership Site to support survivors of trauma, abuse, and addiction through the power of creative writing.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to run a free group, but she liked what I was doing and thought she’d give it a try.
Growth and engagement proved challenging, so she booked a private strategy session with me.
That’s when we discovered that her branding needed a tweak. That led to CiCi revamping her entire visual identity, which according to her, “made showing up online a lot easier cause I was just me.”
Rebranding her group led to consistent engagement and passive growth, plus she grew her Membership Site from 3 to 20 members, and 10X’ed her member count in her free group.
CiCi’s become a go-to community strategist for other business leaders in her niche, so I’ve recently named her my first official trainer. We’re now working together to provide programming to guide other healers and wellness coaches to build thriving Facebook Groups.
I met Alvionna Brewster through Club House, and she had a large Facebook Group with 20K members: Black Nurse Entrepreneurs. Her niche and brand were already well defined.
We worked together over the summer of 2021 to turn up the engagement and create monetization strategies.
According to Alvionna, I helped her “to institute some very crucial offerings and strategies in my business that provide additional resources to my target audience while, also, allowing me to be appropriately compensated for my time and expertise. I am so blessed to have connected with Rachael. By using her strategies, in record time I have shattered multiple goals that I didn’t even know were possible.”
Taking these two stories together, we can see that the core elements of a thriving Facebook Group that advances a business, no matter the size, are defining the niche, branding the group so it speaks directly to that niche, and creating aligned offers.
Rachael, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m Rachael and I advance businesses through community by providing growth, engagement, and monetization strategies.
I’m a Meta Certified Community Manager and a Facebook Power Admin, and I have a Master’s Degree in Social Work with a focus on Community Partnershps.
I’m also a married mom of 2 (a 15 year old stepdaughter and a 5 year old son). My work schedule revolves around the kids and my obsession with OrangeTheory Fitness.
In 2004 I helped cofound, and later became the Executive Director of, a nonprofit pay-what-you-want bicycle repair shop in Atlanta, GA.
That’s where I honed my skills as a community organizer and coalition builder.
Meanwhile, I started DJing on the side. I became a full time DJ after I moved to New York City in 2009. I used my community building skills to turn my side hustle into a career.
My husband is also a DJ and we got together after being booked for the same party.
We moved our family to my hometown in South Florida in 2016. We had our son in 2017, and then it was time for me to get back to hustling.
Without knowing exactly what I was going to do, I launched a Facebook Group, which eventually evolved into what it is today: Rock Your Tribe®: Community Building for Business Leaders.
Through my Facebook Group, I’ve launched a consulting and coaching business where I work with businesses and business owners to develop their community strategies.
What sets me apart from others is my 20 years’ experience and extensive education in real life community building.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
When I was 11 years old, I got sick while at sleep-away summer camp. I caught a brutal staph infection, which was lodged in my right hip.
I survived the ordeal, but my hip joint was severely damaged.
I suffered with chronic pain and mobility issues for years, without acknowledging that perhaps I was disabled.
When I was in college, I was given a bicycle while I was studying an early bike sharing community program for my Cultural Anthropology thesis.
The bike gave me back the mobility I had lost, which is part of why I was so passionate about the bike shop I cofounded and directed.
Some people who knew me though my 20s find the staph infection story strange because they saw me being physically active.
They didn’t know that’s why I was almost always on a bike. They never saw what I was hiding, and did a lot of self medicating.
In 2015 I finally had hip replacement surgery at the “too young” age of 34. I had a baby the following year at the “too old” age of 35, but that’s another story.
These days I participate in HIIT workouts at OrangeTheory Fitness, performing movements I never thought possible.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I built my audience on social media through my Facebook Group, and developed my own strategy for it based on my community building experience and education.
It’s not just an audience, though. It’s a community.
With an audience, communication flows from the brand to the audience members.
In a community, communications not only flows between the brand and members, but between members, too.
For those just starting out with a Facebook Group, define who your community is for and why they should join.
Communities are driven by shared interest and identity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rockyourtribe.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/rachaelspiewak
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therachaelspiewak
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rspiewak/
- Other: Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/triberockers
Image Credits
Lin Grosman