“An individual artist needs only a thousand true fans in her tribe. It’s enough.” — Seth Godin
Tribe . . . fans . . . . followers . . . Whatever you call your “peeps,” a crucial component of your marketing success is developing a community—people who turn to you because they value your expertise and knowledge.
One way to gather your tribe is to provide them with information that makes their (personal and/or professional) lives easier. Once they arrive at your website, in addition to blog posts, you want to deliver something of value—something irresistible that encourages them to give you their name and email address.
Keep in mind that while you may have a large social media following, those names do not belong to you. Should any of the networks go away (remember MySpace?), those names go with them.
In her weekly e-newsletter called “The Social Scoop,” Mari Smith referred to social networks as “rented land.” She wrote, “Your blog should form the core of your overall content strategy in your business. This is your own ‘land.’ Whereas, your social channels are all ‘rented’ land.
“Yes, it’s important to build a loyal audience on your preferred social sites (Facebook and Twitter recommended, at minimum), but also provide regular invitations to come read your blog, join your email list and, of course, ultimately do business with you!”
Laura Rubinstein, author of Social Media Myths Busted and co-founder of Social Buzz Club, put it this way, “…suppose you’ve accumulated 50,000 connections between your top three networks, and one day your best, most engaged network changes its rules or determines you’ve violated their terms . . . They could remove your connections because of some algorithm change or, worse yet, they could close your account and never let you have access again with no good reason.”
Ms. Rubinstein goes on to explain a situation where she was shut down on LinkedIn, so she speaks from personal experience. She said, “Here’s the good news, if you’ve already started growing your connections on the social networks: This audience is now primed for you to bring them ‘home’ to your website, add them to your email and blog lists, and introduce to them other opportunities and offerings on your site and in-person.”
Internet Marketer and author of Trust Funnel Brian G.Johnson found success in connecting with people on social networks and sharing marketing content with them from his blog on those networks. “It really pulled it together for me. It allowed me to get traffic by standing out and being unique, being authentic and having a brand. That is what resonated with people—not all the people, but that’s okay. . . You can’t really satisfy everybody.”
So what are you doing to build a community? Please share you comments below because I’d love to hear from you. Thanks and here’s to your sweet success!
P.S. This is an excerpt from my upcoming book Millionaire Marketing on a Shoestring Budget(TM) due out in January 2015. Pre-order your copy here.
