Difference in Memberships and Platforms
This topic contains 11 replies, has 9 voices, and was last updated by 
Bruce Hoag 7 years ago.
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Topic
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What is the significant difference in a Membership and a Platform?
Scott Hogue CChhH
Scott Hogue CChH
Follow me in the "Use What You Learn Challenge" as I create a website using what I learn from Sean that is a Platform for my niche:
http://www.threestepstowealth.comThe thread on this group that explains it:
http://preneurpal.com/forums/topic/own-the-game-and-win-it/#post-1747
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Replies
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If you’re talking about branding, your platform is your niche … what you’re known for.
If you’re talking about membership methods, the platform is the tool you use to host the membership.
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Scott, are you asking about the different membership platforms?
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Well, not every platform involves a membership. I’m just getting my website (the base of my online platform) going which will include a membership, but I don’t anticipate ever utilizing that membership until later when I have grown a list (a key component of my platform).
♥ Coach Claire
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I think of a membership site as being a product.
Different peoeple use the platform in different ways.
Some use it to refer to the people who follow you via email and social media. They are primarily interested in gaining an audience who want to buy their book or whatever it is.
In UK politics a platform is the candidates’s message or the group of policies that they intend to promote if elected.
From what I understand Sean is using it to mean the site (i.e. online space) that you use to express yourself so that those who are interested in what you have to offer gather around you.
I am reminded of a story told by Winston Churchill when the relationship between the US and UK delegations at a conference broke down. They had similar aims and no one could quite understand what had happened. Then a junior member of one team discovered that the same set of words meant totally opposite things to each delegation. Change the idiom “to table a motion” to something else that explained the proposed action more clearly and they were friends again.
There are times when it is as important to understand the definition of a word as it is the word itself.
Susan
God's Lily is "a voice for those frustrated by the slow progress towards a fair society where the needs of the weakest are met in a way that it strengthens them rather than weakens them further" . If that includes you then hop on over and have a look around. If you like what you see it would be a good idea to sign up to receive our blog broadcasts. Oh and you will get a couple of pdf files that explain the what and why behind the site when
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To be more clear, or at least attempt.
Sean recently offered a Platform program. I am trying to get my head around it. I can see it looks a lot like a membership, but maybe it acts more like a youtube or a facebook.So when does a membership become a platform and when does a platform become different than a membership?
Maybe a platform is like a membership that is the go to place for the topic. When it rises above the rest it becomes a platform for the topic.
It may be just me, but I went into an endless loop thinking on it.
Scott Hogue CChH
Scott Hogue CChH
Follow me in the "Use What You Learn Challenge" as I create a website using what I learn from Sean that is a Platform for my niche:
http://www.threestepstowealth.comThe thread on this group that explains it:
http://preneurpal.com/forums/topic/own-the-game-and-win-it/#post-1747 -
I’m thinking that a platform is how others know and recognize you. So if your website, membership, emails, videos, social media messages all “give off” the same “message,” then it becomes a platform. For example, when traditional book publishers consider taking on a new author, they look at the author’s “platform” or presence online and/or offline – to see if there is one before committing to a contract.
When platform is used in “which membership platform do you use,” it is a technical term – and totally different.
I think 🙂
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You can have membership to a platform (staging area) or you can offer a free platform … but membership always cost something, even if only your email for registration.
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Scott,
In my mind a platform can be the home to numerous activities simultaneously.
A membership site could be on exactly the same platform as an open forum, an inner circle, or a training area.
A platform could, also, easily be a type of funnel divided into levels of membership based on levels of expertise or the amount of the monthly subscription.
Of course this community is as one and should never be divided up into cells.
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To me, a platform is a place where content lives.
So that could be your website, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, someone else’s site, etc.
A membership is a place where a select group of people have access to each other, specific content, the host, or all three.
So a membership could sit on a platform, but a platform isn’t a membership.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy -
When they don’t come with trains, I think of platforms as distribution systems — how you get something from A to B, at least in the internet space. Social media platforms move information from A to B. Other platforms host membership sites and facilitate the movement of info from A to B. Other platforms move products from seller to buyer.
But, Susan, you are also right. In politics platforms are positions on issues. So platform is one of those terms that must be defined in context.
In my former life, I had a similar problem with the term “performance guarantee.” It could mean either “performance by a product” that was being purchased, or it could mean “performance of the contract terms in their entirety.” When businesses didn’t ask which definition applied, they often got in trouble. If you are concerned about being misinterpreted, simply define your use of the term.
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This may seem like the blindingly obvious, Scott, but why not send Sean an email and ask him what he means?
We all know that he reads and replies when we write to him.
Bruce Hoag PhD
The Internet Marketing Psychologist
The Mindful Writer - for deep and persuasive copy
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