Role modeling honesty ❣️ Kibi Anderson, Red Table Talk

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EPISODE AT A GLANCE:

GUEST: Kibi Anderson

COMMUNITY: Red Table Talk

HOSTS: Bailey Richardson & Kevin Huynh

If there's drama in your life, you don't want to talk about it. It’s hush, hush. But that's not the way you heal. It's been detrimental to our communities. So when people–especially a lot of black women—saw that representation on camera it just touched them in a way that just exploded.

- Kibi Anderson

Show Notes

Many of us may know “Red Table Talk” as the TV show that Jada Smith, her daughter Willow, and mother Adrienne host.

What you may not know is that Red Table Talk sparked thriving grassroots communities of viewers. Women in cities around the world started their own “Red Table Talks”—literally dressing their own tables with red tablecloths and gathering with strangers to experience the honest conversations that the Smiths role model on the show for themselves.

Kibi Anderson is an award-winning Emmy producer and the former president of Red Table Talk. She was first a fan, drawn in by the raw conversations. We talk with her about the grassroots community that formed around the show and how she used her business savvy and inherent passion for community building to supercharge their efforts.

Keep an ear out for insights from Kibi:

1. Pinpointing your most passionate members

Red Table Talk has millions of followers, but Kibi decided to invest in a few—about 15 who she calls “RTT OGs ”–to get to know closely.

Why? Those fifteen women were actively building thriving Red Table Talk communities on their own.

If Kibi could learn from them, she’d understand the community’s motivations and absorb community-building best practices from the work of these women, that she could then model that out so other women could join their ranks as new local leaders.

The group also helped them get new products and programs right, as well as launch to the broader community with momentum. While they didn’t reach half a million people like the show, “you’re talking about growth rates over the course of a six to twelve month period that were in the 50% to 100%.” When Kibi ran the Summer Healing Sessions, a free online social, digital video content campaign over the summer in between the first and second season, she turned to the “RTT OGs.” They were her direct pulse on what was and wasn’t working in the sessions.

2. Supercharging your community with tools

Kibi learned through her conversations with community members that these people were drawn to Red Table Talk because of their own desire to develop, to heal, and figure out how to live their best life.

Kibi saw it as her team’s mandate to supercharge their efforts with tools and programs outside of the show itself.

For examples, last holiday season Red Table Talk teamed up with We’re Not Really Strangers, a card game that prompts strangers to connect and find commonality. The idea of the Red Table Talk expansion pack was to dig deeper with people close to you — “you think you know people closest to you, but how well do you really know them?” In essence, the game empowered people to have their own Red Table Talk conversations at home.

3. Acknowledging leaders

Kibi was mindful not to build Red Table Talk on the back of one person — in this case Jada Smith. She wanted the community to have more than just one leader, and for the community to gather even without a famous person to pull them in.

The community’s core group, the “RTT OGs,” were essential to realizing this vision. They were the face of their own local Red Table Talk groups and Kibi says the “dynamic magnetism” of these ladies drew people in. They helped, taught, and connected community members even when Jada, Willow, and Adrienne were not “in the room.”

Because of the value the RTT OGs brought the Red Table Talk community, Kibi made sure to acknowledge them. The first thing Kibi did when she started working with Red Table talk was send each “RTT OG” a thank you package. “Everybody has what I call their currency. Whether it’s money, whether it’s praise, whether it’s promotion, whatever the case is. But at the end of the day, everybody likes to be told thank you,” Kibi said.

She also hosted a bi-monthly check-in call with them and Jada, and made sure to shine a spotlight on them on Red Table Talk’s official social channels. Kibi and her team made it known: “We need you and we value you. As the leaders, you are just as much a part of this movement and to this company’s growth than Jada, Willow and Gammy, and even myself.”