For Tristan, community isn’t a tactic you bolt onto your marketing strategy.
Everything starts with community.
When you spend more than a decade immersed in building communities, can you blame him?
He’s definitely had a lot of time to break down what works.
Going from Lab Coat Agents to…
Masterminding community strategy for Follow Up Boss (pre-acquisition)
Consulting with bigger brands on community strategy
Running his own community, A Brilliant Tribe
Communities can be inspirational…aspirational…plus you have the lure of getting a free boost from social platforms. Years ago, friends in 2 different niches were each getting 1,000s of new members a month to their Facebook Groups.
And yet…community is far easier said than done (more on that below).
Here are the Non-Obvious Insights from my conversation with Tristan:
Every Marketing Channel is a Separate Community.
“People have to count on you showing up the same way routinely so you can build that community. That’s how you build the following. When you start being scattered and you’re like, ‘Well, I can do this… I can do that….’ That’s not the way people start understanding who you are and how you show up.”
Communities respond to those who show up consistently…in a way that’s tailored for their preferred channel or platform.
There are two components to putting this insight into action.
1) Choose a niche and stay ruthlessly focused.
Without niching down, you’ll be too scattered in your messaging to build community around your content. Tristan mentioned the early days of Lab Coat Agents, where the group took off specifically because it was niched down to “converting online leads.” Only later did the group evolve to cover more topics.
2) Choose your channels with care and intention.
The more channels you’re on, the more likely you are to lump them together and bandaid over the problem with content repurposing. On most of those channels, your content feels out of place. So you’ve sabotaged your chance to build real community right out of the gate.
Don’t waste money boosting content that isn’t proven organically.
“Organic content in different platforms is how you build communities and how you build brands. That’s organic because you put no money behind it. Now, the only time you put money behind it is if it blew up and now you’re like, ‘That’s a good one. Let’s put some money behind it!’ “
The larger the organization you lead, the bigger the temptation to roll out marketing campaigns from the top down. Communities reward the opposite. They want to see brands and leaders support the content that gets real engagement. Often that content starts from the bottom and bubbles up. Either from community members, emerging leaders or influencers.
That’s a big shift for many of us.
Coaches want to coach.
Experts want to share expertise.
Thought leaders want to teach, train and lead.
And then we have brands, who want to talk features and benefits.
(head smack)
For many, building content around community stretches our brain.
Community means:
Facilitating conversations…less teaching or sharing expertise
Giving people freedom…even when say things you don’t agree with
Allowing the messy and imperfect
That helps explain how many communities grow around leaders who don’t have it all figured out yet.
They’re moving fast, breaking things, and people come along for the ride.
Some leaders even take it a higher level.
They give a neglected group of people permission to be who they are, without judgment.
They create people an identity they can take pride in…even when everyone else around them disagrees or looks down on them.
I’ve seen permission-based content create powerful attraction to the group…and passionate loyalty to the leaders.
Communities demand personal growth from the leader.
“I’ve realized that the better I get internally as a human and as a leader, the better I can show up for those people that I’m trying to lead. And I didn’t know that. As I’ve gotten better and I work on myself, people actually gravitate more to me.”
In other words, all business development IS personal development. That’s one reason I love the entrepreneur space. Our businesses are a direct reflection of us as leaders.
We’ve been ingrained so much in “personal brand” marketing, that community often breaks our brains because it’s fundamentally not about us.
Building a community, especially to get the growth we envision, we have to set aside our ego and create a space for others to bond with each other.
Steal This:
Before you dive into community-building, ask yourself a few questions.
Is there a neglected group of people I’m uniquely equipped to speak to, support and serve?
What specific factors make them feel neglected, undervalued and underserved?
Are they seeking out community based on those factors?
We don’t get to decide what factors drive people to form communities.
Even Apple can only encourage community, they can’t directly cause it to form.
So start by asking questions and listening deeply.
Connect with Tristan:
Big thanks to Tristan, and there’s more in the audio than I could cover here. So go listen to his conversation, it was raw, laid-back and packed with insights.
You’ll see some of those insights pop up in future newsletters, too.
Talk soon!
-Matt
CEO - MicroFamous
Author - MicroFamous
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