Everyone Wants To Belong To Something Special
The word “community” is no longer sufficient to describe what we bloggers must build around ourselves and our blogs in order for us to thrive. Communities are for generic social sites. Successful bloggers build something more akin to a tribe. A brother and sisterhood of people who feel part of something special.
I’ve seen the tribe effect happen first hand. When we started Content Desk years ago, we didn’t just open up a membership site. We grew our own tribe of followers who felt like they were part of something special. A movement toward building real assets for their businesses rather than throw-away Adsense sites which everyone seemed to be building at the time.
We built a place that certain people wanted to belong to…
…not just a service to help small businesses grow or a generic place where specific training was provided in a cold, non-personal fashion. It made a huge difference in our marketing when members went all over the web bragging about their membership. They were doing it in a way that was passionate beyond how people would rave about good customer service, or the features and benefits of membership.
Friday Traffic Report Has A Tribe of Readers and Contributors…
…and so do all the successful blogs online. There’s your overall visitor count per month. And then there’s your regular, repeat visitors who do the most commenting and take the most action on what they learn from you.
Your core readership develops around your blog because they identify with what you provide them on a regular basis more so than with most other blogs in your niche. These people are your tribe. They are behind you 100%. They support you and help you in many ways that average visitors never will.
They are the largest consumer of your products and services. They are your true fans. And they all feel like your blog is the place to hang out and learn and network more than any, or most others.
How Do You Build A Blog Tribe?
In many ways it just happens. Over time you will pick up regular readers because of your delivery, philosophy, the accuracy and depth of your content, and because they agree with you most of the time. Adding to your tribe is really just a matter of continuing whatever it is that’s been attracting your repeat visitors and the content that’s been getting the most comments and links from other bloggers.
7 Steps to Building A Solid Tribe
- Make your fans feel welcome and like your blog is a place they belong. Reply to their comments quickly and with heart felt thanks for their participation.
- Reward subscribers with something nice from time to time. Give them a free report or extra content of some kind that you only share with RSS subscribers or email subscribers and no one else. Don’t even advertise this bonus to the “outside world” on your blog. Surprise your real followers with gifts and extra little things here and there.
- Find ways to help your tribe members for the good deeds they do on your blog. Go to one of your regular commentator’s sites and buzz one of their posts or pages. Link to them on your blog. Review their blog in a post. There are many creative things you can do to show you appreciate your tribe. Put this one your calendar and regularly find someone who you can do something for in appreciation of their participation. You won’t believe the returns you get from this over time as tribe members start talking more about you and your blog.
- Give your tribe something to brag about. Use features like “Recent Comments” in your sidebar to highlight and link to your contributors. This is just like the long-time members of forums. People are proud of the length of time they have been involved in a tribe and how much more “street cred” they have over newer tribe members.
- Do a “Site of the Day” …or week…or month and highlight one of your more dedicated followers with a review of their work and, of course, a link. You can even point to the review, email them, and give them a custom “badge” to put on their site for being featured on your blog. Most will be happy to put it up and link right back to you for the honor.
- Write pieces for your blog that convey a sense of purpose and belonging among your tribe. Talk about your long-time and most dedicated readers as if there is a special membership, club, or elite level of people in-the-know grouped around your blog. More people will want to “belong” as well, sensing that they are somehow missing out on something cool or important.
- Put your favorite readers’ sites in your blog roll and find other ways to highlight the people who go above and beyond average participation in your blog’s community.
What have you done to reinforce and grow your blog’s tribe? Please share!