When setting up in business, particularly an online one, you need to build yourself a ‘tribe’. Your tribe will be those that ‘get’ your brand, they understand your vision and they want to be part of it. They will support you, promote you and buy into what you are putting out there.
Before finding your tribe, you need to think about a few things:
1: What is your brands mission? If you are your brand, then what do you represent? What do you stand for? What do you want to achieve? Show your people were you are going to lead them?
2: Who do you want to work/socialise with? Who do you want to be in your gang? What characteristics do your people have? What types of people do you want to be around? Write yourself a list, imagine who they are and create a mental picture of them (*I’ll post my mission and list below)
3: Remember as much as its great to have hundreds of thousands of followers, it isn’t JUST about quantity. You want to be able to engage with your fans/tribe/people, you want to interact and be personable with them. This will keep their interest and help them feel special. Thats buying followers, is a pointless exercise. you could have half a million Twitter followers but if they aren’t buying into you, then you may as well be talking to yourself and it certainly won’t make you any money.
4: Add value and collaborate with your community. Ask them questions, give them things they want. Offer something for free (ebooks, course, training etc) Share others work and congratulate success’. If you make it about helping other people, your tribe will want to help you. Let everyone in your community be heard (#beseen) Connect some of your tribe to each other, perhaps they can work together too.
5: Be consistent in what you put out. People like to know they can rely on you being there. A regular blog/podcast or YouTube is much better than one and then nothing for a month. Find a time to put out content, that works for you. As you can tell by my work Im a night owl (UK time)
Finding a tribe is much more about you adding value than you getting it off others and I believe its super important to find people you want to be around. Its very draining to be around those that don’t understand your path and have similar life values, seek those people out that do, rather than trying to drag people along with you.
My mission:
I believe my mission is to help others understand their value and show them they don’t have to live the way they think they have to. To show others they can create the life they want, where they follow their own rules and only work when they want and with people they wan to work with. I want to show people how to bounce back after life’s inevitable challenges and enjoy the journey too. I want to show people they don’t have to conform and that being different is fabulous.
My tribes attributes:
- Creatives
- ‘odd bods’
- Geeks
- Those that have strong opinions and do or want to learn how to voice them
- Those that want to learn and seek out knowledge
- People who choose to be happy, even when thats hard and continue to grow and learn the best way to do that.
- People that don’t take themselves too seriously, and realise life is all a bit of a game.
- Those with a sense of fairness and equality
- People that aren’t afraid to go against the grain, be a lone voice and stand up for what they believe in.
- Passionate
Are you part of my tribe, do you follow the same life beliefs or at least ant to learn to? Lets connect, chat, share work and help our community thrive. The world is small place when you have the internet and I look forward to collaborating with fabulous people from the world over.
