Community strategy

They live behind usernames.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha don't build community on feeds. They build it in servers and group chats — invisible from the outside, and closed to anyone who doesn't belong. I design the systems that grow you inside them.

Where the name comes from

In 1975 my parents got in a boat.

Strangers took them in. That's what MetaHug means — a hug given to a stranger, expecting nothing.

It's also how community actually works. Nobody buys their way into a room where people already trust each other. Someone inside has to bring you in.

You get let in, or you don't get in.

How I got here

I started as a parent, not a strategist.

Two kids, both gamers, and no idea what they were actually doing in there. That question turned into four years of research into game development and online communities — and into MetaHug: a Discord that brought together over 5,000 teens worldwide, and a Roblox group approaching 40,000.

What I found was a generation living behind usernames, avatars and profile pictures. Understood by almost nobody, and overlooked by almost every brand trying to reach them.

I wrote two books about it — Through My Avatar's Eyes: Speaking Teens, written with teens for their parents, and How to Have Invisible Influence: Branding Strategies for Gen Alpha. Neither was written for marketers, which is probably why marketers read them.

What changed

Invisible generation. Invisible platforms.

The rooms have moved. Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp — closed, unsearchable, no algorithm to buy and no discovery to optimise. Nothing gets into a group chat unless a member carries it in.

That's not a channel to add to a plan. It changes what a community strategy has to be.

The work

I design the reason to get mentioned.

Not a community you build and staff from zero — that's a ghost town by week three. A mechanic that runs inside the rooms your audience is already in, through the people who run them, with the incentives built so it keeps going without being pushed.

STRATEGY

where they are, what the system has to do

THE MECHANIC

the loop, the shareable unit, the incentive design

HANDOFF

built, launched, and run by your team

Where it runs

Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp.

Different tooling, same design. Bots where they're permitted, humans where they're not.

WhatsApp allows no third-party bots in groups. Knowing where the walls are is half the work.

Proof

I built one. Not just designed one.

MetaHug reached over 5,000 teens on Discord and close to 40,000 in Roblox. Every mechanic I recommend has been run on real people first — drops, leaderboards, referral loops, group buying.

Recent work: social commerce on Telegram, and community acquisition design for a pre-launch marketplace.

Who it's for

Early-stage. Under thirty.

Pre-launch and early-stage companies whose audience is under 30, and whose growth depends on being talked about rather than advertised at.

What I don't do — social media management, content calendars, ongoing moderation.

How it runs

Three months.

Strategy, then the tools to recruit community operators, then live campaigns and handoff. It ends with your team running it without me.