In the first post of this series, we defined our concept of TRIBE and talked about why it is important. If you missed it, you can catch up -> CLICK HERE
Now let’s look at how to gather YOUR tribe.
To locate your tribe, you want to make it easy for them to find you, but you want to get out there and find them too.
Most of us are used to making it easy for our tribe to find us. We do SEO, give out business cards, and go to business networking functions (Chamber of Commerce etc). We might take out ads online and locally. Everybody in business does those things. They’ve been standard operating procedures for years.
However, even this many years into Facebook’s wild success, half the businesses I know do not even have a Facebook presence. Of the other half, maybe 10% are working their pages. They are missing half of the equation by not using the site to locate and engage with their target audience.
Over 1.8 Billion users hang out there. Facebook gives us free tools for marketing our businesses. There are so many sound reasons for making your business presence known on the site! To read our top three reasons, CLICK HERE.
Facebook not only gives us the ability to easily attract the right people, but it gives us all we need to find them and nurture them as well. Naturally. Socially. Developing relationships based on trust. That will always translate into more profitable businesses. So, let’s talk about how to attract your tribe on Facebook.
Define Your Tribe
Create a persona for your target customer. Where do they live? How old are they? What interests do they have? Are they male or female?
This is the hypothetical person you want to follow you, fall in love, and stay with you, living happily ever after as a satisfied customer. The more you know them, the easier it is to give them what they need.
Once you’ve done that, the next thing you need to do is go to your Insights for your Facebook page. Check and see how well your actual fans are lining up with the persona.
For example, imagine you are targeting executive women over 40 who might be interested in your amazing anti-aging product. If you are posting on your page during the weekdays, chances are your target audience will miss most of it.
Why? If you go look at your Insights, you find they are most active on Facebook on weekends, in the evenings, and to some extent in the early mornings. They are not going to be hanging out on Facebook during working hours.
So, to connect with them, you want to concentrate on posting on weekends and evenings, with perhaps a morning greeting post each day. These are the times when they are most likely to see your posts.
Post according to their needs, not your own. If they are on Facebook when you typically are not, use the free Facebook scheduling tool, or another social media scheduling tool to manage posting
It is also important to get out there and mingle. On social media, there is more to getting exposure than paying for Facebook ads. It takes actually being social.
Mingling, Facebook-Style
How do you mingle and make connections on Facebook? Pretty much the same way you do in person. You go to where people hang out and you hang out there too. When a conversation naturally flows, you let it. You leave your scent in a wake behind you and those who are attracted will follow. That’s about it in a nutshell.
To find where your potential tribe is hanging out on Facebook, go to search and type in key words related to that persona you created. When I typed in our example, executive women, Facebook then gave me nicely organized lists of which groups they are a part of, what places they visit, what pages they like, and so on.
Then you go to where they are, lurk, and learn. Become a keen observer. Find out what matters to them. What questions do they ask? What needs do they have? Do you see common themes and interests?
As you are learning about them, when it is genuine and appropriate, jump into some conversations. This is the place to let your sincere concern for others shine. May it never be that every response you give somehow points to you as the answer. People will see right through that and tune you out.
Instead, try being helpful without pointing to anything or anyone as a solution. Better yet, share solutions from others that truly meet their need. And don’t have every referral be an affiliate link.
As you are naturally mingling with potential tribe members, you will start to see some names coming up over and over again. Those are your influencers. You want to follow them and interact with them. You can learn much about how to best serve your tribe by watching how they serve theirs. Pay attention, and apply what works, your way.
As you leave quality comments, show your genuine concern, and people see your name and face more often, they will go to check you out. Relationships will develop naturally, based on common vibes.
Now that you are developing relationships with targeted fans…
Take the Relationship to the Next Level
You have found potential tribe members. Now you will draw them to you, engage them, and help them to see you as their loving leader. Then your job is to care about, and help meet, their needs. Only now you are doing it on your turf, not theirs.
You were genuinely social and they checked you out. Take some time to think about what they found. Be sure your pages point them in the right directions and are consistent with the vibe you are putting out. If it isn’t, they likely will not give you another thought.
We will assume however, that your personal page and business pages reflect you accurately and point towards what your business does for others. If the connection was made through your personal profile, the mission is to get them to your business page and website. Make sure your profile does both.
You should also be interacting on Facebook AS your business page. If you don’t have your page set up yet, here are 6 simple steps to taking care of that right now -> CLICK HERE
Be sure and have an appropriate call to action on your page. That CTA might vary from industry to industry, but one thing every business should have is an email list.
If you are not already doing so, start building a list of fans who would like to receive newsletters (at the very least). Then communicate regularly with them, showing the love, genuinely, as you did when you were mingling to find them on Facebook. Again, be consistent.
Email marketing is just one way to gather your tribe together. Another, very natural way, is through groups and communities. Create groups around the common interests of those in your tribe, to niche them down into smaller segments. That makes it easier to meet their needs, and gives you an opportunity to be more personable and intimate in your relationships with them.
Now You are Building a Tribe!
By adding to it regularly, simply by sharing yourself and building real relationships. You tribe knows they can trust you. They look to you for guidance. Now, it is up to you to deliver what they need.
They will trust you when it is your product or service that meets their need…because they know you sincerely wish to help. You keep it all about them and realize that you are there to serve them, not the other way around. Take good care of them, and they will remain your most loyal fans.
In the next post in this series, we are going to talk about HOW to best nurture the tribe you are gathering. In the meantime, we would love to hear all about how you are building relationships through social media. Please, feel free to share your success stories and tips.
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