Joe Abraham

You’ve probably heard the whole concept of building tribes by Seth Godin.

It is a concept that is sweeping across business (with real results) very fast. It is here to stay.

But how do you go about implementing this strategy in your small business?

Here are some simple steps.

1) Join some tribes first: It is disingenuous to say the least if you want people to follow you when you are not following someone else. So find 4 or 5 thought leaders and follow them yourself.

Yes, you the CEO, must be a follower too!

Here are a handful of people I follow…
– Social Media: Shama Kabani (@shama)
– Sales Strategy – Tom Hopkins (@TomHopkinsSales)
– Legal – Dana Shultz (@danashultz)
– Conservative Politics – Glen Beck (@GlenBeck)

So pick the categories that are most important to you and find someone to follow.

Note: I am not following 15 social media gurus. That is a waste of time and the recipe for tons of confusion. I am trusting Shama as an expert to stay on top of her game and keep me updated on everything going on in her space. I’d recommend you do the same with each of your experts.

2) Get your team involved: The key to small business success is personal growth across the entire employee base. It is no longer good enough for just managers and executives to grow. To be competitive in this insane market, your entire team must be dedicated to learning and improvement.

So institute a policy of “going tribal” across the organization….and make it fun!

Let employees pick areas they are most excited about. I don’t care if it is underwater basket-weaving. Everyone needs to find 4-5 things they are passionate about. They need to find thought leaders in that space and follow them.

Part of making things fun could include allowing people to present their latest learnings in a rotation at team or staff meetings. It lets your staff build their presentation/speaking muscle. It helps their peers learn something new and it builds team dynamics.

3) Study the patterns of the thought leaders you and your company are following: Hey why reinvent the wheel? Keep things simple. Duplicate success.

Ask yourself what the thought leaders are talking about. How often are they doing it? Are they pitching their service or feeding you content? Who else is following them? Is there a pattern you can learn from the best?

As you start to pick up the trends of the thought leaders you follow, sit down with your team and do this next step.

4) Build your tribe platform: Here’s the question you and the team need to answer…

If you were going to build a tribe, what area would it be in?

Another way to ask the question is this. What is your (or your company’s) area of expertise and is there something about it that people want to engage on?

If you are a restaurant owner, what do your customers want to know about food? Ask them, they’ll tell you. Maybe they’ll want quick fix recipes and maybe they’ll want interesting new ingredient combinations to try at home. I don’t know. But if you ask em, they’ll tell you.

Here’s what they DON’T want. They DON’T want you twittering out special offers and discount coupons 5 times a day. That is not thought leadership, that is selling.

If you are a financial planner, what area of the huge “finance” world can you build a content niche around? I know your hands may be tied with regulations from your broker/dealer, but ask your clients what area of finance they most want to learn about. Then feed them that information.

If you are a real estate agent, stop posting your latest listings and sales on facebook and twitter. Start giving your followers real-life information, trends and latest developments in the market WITHOUT the sales pitch.

Listen, if you become a thought leader, people will contact you when they are ready for your product or service. You don’t have to keep reminding them every 60 minutes that this is a “buyers market” and that you are “ready to work for them” them with “great service”. STOP THAT!

NOTE: If you need to, do some google keyword searches to find out what people are searching about in your market. That will help confirm or modify the direction you have chosen.

5) Deploy: Set up your basic social media infrastructure (Blog-facebook page-twitter account-youtube channel) and start posting the content you know people want. Be patient. It will take a while for people to start to find and follow you. However, if you stay consistent, you will build a following.

Those followers will tell others and continue to build a bigger following. You can throw some gasoline on the fire by promoting your platform locally through advertising, on other blogs, or by engaging in the conversation taking place in various online groups and communities.

Phew! that’s a lot of stuff for a blog post so I’ll stop now. There’s plenty more where this came from so if you want me to dig deeper, just let me know where. Use the comment box below to do that.

But get out there and do something!

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