Is Your Business Building a Tribe or a Crowd on Digital?

In social media, you’ve probably heard over and over that engagement is key to building a following. But did you know there are two types of followers you could be building? Ask yourself, is your business building a crowd or a loyal tribe? And what does it mean to be social on digital? To help you start looking at social media marketing differently, our team likes to refer to it as “Relationship Marketing.” Social engagement is an essential part of relationship marketing, which means your social strategy should include a “Audience Connect” strategy. This article will discuss the difference between building a crowd vs. a tribe, what being social means on digital, relationship marketing, and why you should be thinking about creating an audience connect strategy.

Building a Crowd vs. Loyal Tribe

For years businesses and nonprofits have chased the idea that getting more followers on social media platforms, like Facebook, would equate to a better social media presence. More followers equals more reach, right? Not necessarily. They’ve spent countless hours, dollars, and resources chasing the “crowd” instead of building an engaged community, or tribe, that would get more targeted results.

What is a crowd?

A crowd is a social media following that doesn’t engage with your content. For example, running a giveaway may help you grow your followers quickly, but the new followers may be only interested in winning and not so much in your business or services. Come up with a giveaway idea that aligns with who you are and what your business is about. If you’d like to learn more about running a contest on Facebook, you can check out our article on Tips for Running a Facebook Contest.

What is a tribe?

The meaning of tribe (in this context) is a social media following who actively engages with your content and starts or participates in conversations around topics relevant to what your business is about. Another unique thing about a tribe is that a tribe has a “chief.” Your business’s social media manager should be that chief. They’re the one who creates conversations, shares content, and helps build up your company’s social presence with its followers.

Building a tribe doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to develop relationships with people on social media, which means you have to invest in building these relationships by serving them well and rewarding engagement.

What Does Being Social Mean on Digital?

Being social means being present and engaging. Engagement goes both ways. If you want your followers to engage more, you have to engage with them. If you want them to write more than just a single world response, then you need to figure out a way to take that conversation deeper. This same mindset applies to comments on your website blogs. You can’t expect people to comment on a blog post if you never respond to their comments. You could even highlight those comments on your social media posts to draw attention to the conversation.

Don’t forget that being social is about building relationships with people. Add value, be present, and be engaging. Model the outcome you’d like to see. Serve the people, and they’ll become your organization’s top promoters.

If you’re looking for more ways to build a loyal tribe, contact us at Killer Bee Marketing. We’re here to help you approach digital with purpose, and confidence while creating more connections to transform more lives.