I know of a animal shelter that cares for injured street dogs . Everyday it puts out a short one minute video story recorded on mobile phone on Instagram.

Every video shared has a few thousand likes , it has over eighty five thousand followers. It gets all its funding requirements from this band of followers.

Each of the followers is a animal lover and so the tribe for the organisation.

A tribe believes in what you do .

In the digital world you can find tribes for almost anything somewhere out there in the world.

There are people on the spiritual path who follow a particular Guru because he/ she appeals to what they believe in.

There is also a anti Guru tribe that believes in not following any one person but rather a philosophy.

There is the Apple tribe that believes in the idea behind the brand . It is the extension of who they are . They don’t buy Apple products they buy the idea of Apple and they are anti the opposite idea Microsoft .

A Tribe

1. Stands for something it believes in

2. Stands against something it does not believe in .

3. A tribe enrols other like minded members to the tribe .

A Brand needs to know it’s tribe

1. Demographics

2. Likes / dislikes

3. Pain points

4. Interests and behaviours

5. Where do they spend time

If you are targeting a professional tribe LinkedIn maybe the appropriate platform.

The Tribe already exits

The tribe of Apple existed before Apple . Steve Jobs tapped into the idea they believed in -‘Being different, think different, classy minimalist design.

In India there was a tribe that believed in the idea of natural , herbal , traditional health – Ramdev Baba tapped into the idea and even took on a leader multinational FMCG brand HUL with its desi , ayurveda , natural health products.

Use mediums that connect the tribe

Your tribe could just be local so your storytelling can be local. I had a lady who used to bake lovely cakes staying in my building. Everyday she put of a new craft cake she baked with a short story on her Facebook. Most of her audience was local and followed her.

You could use

Outdoor

Social Media

Print

Clubs

Any medium that reaches your tribe.

Not everyone will be your tribe

Always remember not everyone is your brand tribe , there is no point of targeting everyone. It is a waste of time and resources.

There are some B2B clients I work with their tribe is restricted to just 50-100 companies and 2-5 people within each organisation. So the tribe would just be 200-500 people.

The way you connect with such a small target audience would be more personal .

There was a spiritual coach I was consulting who had women above 40 as primary audience , when I dug deeper I could find that for them having a safe space where they could be themselves and not judged was what they were looking for. Also at that stage in life all responsibilities were being taken care of and there was more free time to explore inner happiness.

In the next blog we will explore the Theme of your story.