Are you engaging your tribe? Do you even have a tribe? What the heck is this tribe thing all about?!
Call it what you will – your community, your fan base, your target audience, your ‘right people’, your tribe. Whatever the buzzword of the day, business and brands are all looking to connect with and engage their tribes and target customers – online and in the real world.
Why Tribes?
As inherently social creatures, people have craved a sense of belonging for thousands of years – a craving which led us to instinctively seek out tribes and communities and likeminded groups since we first started sharing stories, etched onto cave walls.
The concept of ‘tribes’ in marketing was popularised by thought-leader and author Seth Godin in his groundbreaking 2008 book, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us. Add it to your reading list if you’re so inclined, but in the meantime check out Godin’s TED Talk presentation on The Tribes We Lead – where he explains that the real focus in business now is on leadership, finding something worth changing, challenging the status quo, and discovering your true fans. Your tribe. Because these are the people who are going to carry your message to the world until it becomes a movement.
Godin explains –
“It turns out that it’s tribes – not money, not factories – that can change our world… that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will, but because they wanted to connect.”
His key point is that your idea or product or service isn’t for everyone – and it doesn’t need to be. In fact, you might only need 1000 True Fans to make your business sustainable. He asserts the real power nowadays comes from telling a story, connecting a tribe, leading a movement, and making change.
So… How do YOU Find Your Tribe?
Delve into the marketing blogosphere and you’ll find countless articles about creating your tribe. The thing is – and here’s where it gets tricky – the kinds of tribes that people want to be part of aren’t really created.
In her post, How to Make People *Not* Want to Join Your Freaking Tribe, author (and former wife of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk) Justine Musk offers an important reminder in the discussion on tribal marketing that people don’t want to be sold to – and that the purpose of community is to enable self-expression and connect with like-minded individuals. By doing this, sales become a happy by-product.
She writes –
“I absolutely believe in the power of the tribe. As an artist, writer or creative entrepreneur of any kind, creating your much-discussed platform is creating community.
Except you don’t really ‘create’ community.
You create the conditions for it.
You offer up a cool idea – not a what so much as a why.
You express it in a way that attracts and resonates with the people whom you are meant to serve.
You embody, in some way, whatever it is that you’re talking about; if you just piggyback on a rising trend, people will reject you for someone who lives it. Authenticity has a smell. People are keen to sniff it out.
You create the bonfire that other people gather round. You give them something to talk about, believe in, and bond over.”
Smart brands don’t attempt to create tribes. They focus on finding and engaging the right people. Tribal marketing isn’t about how many followers or likes you can accumulate – it’s about building relationships and cultivating conversations.
Asking questions. Listening. Offering suggestions. Engaging.
You’ll find your tribe on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or LinkedIn, or maybe a combination of those platforms. All you need to do is make yourself known, offer real, authentic value, and open the lines of communication.