Your Space, Your Tribe – Control and Quality

You hear a lot of talk these days about Tribes (Thank you Seth Goden) – and a lot of what you hear (at least the first tier higher thought information) is very valid.  People congregate. There is no facet of our world that doesn’t illustrate the fact that we organize our lives through our affiliations.

In every “tribe,” there is at least one chief, and usually this leads to a group of chiefs all following the top dog on the face of things and jockeying for position to topple him on the back end.  You can’t start anything really powerful without followers who believe in it (and likely in you as well).

I see some problems with the way this phenomenon is currently exploited.  The first is that the big, flashy “tribes” you can join – MySpace, FaceBook, etc. have very vague ideals behind them, and are motivated more by how revenue can be generated than they are by figuring out how members can benefit and reach their own goals.  They claim to offer you individual “space,” but are in fact cultivating you as a part of their own.

There is no clear cut leadership, so the leadership fractures off into individuals who are extremely popular within the bigger tribe…all hampered by the rules governing whatever larger playpen is employed.

There are millions of people on the Internet – probably hundreds of millions.  To plop your butt down in a walled off corner where only those willing to sign up for the same service and be burdened with a “space” of their own that they might not even want, is foolish.  MySpace and Facebook might be good social media tools…but they are LOUSY places to call your “home page”.

That is the second problem with the current implementations of the tribe mentality.  They are exclusive rather than inclusive in their approach.  If you are shopping in the brick and mortar world, you can enter any shop you like, browse the shelves, and choose what you want…read the product details, etc.  If you applied the FaceBook method to the real world, you’d have to have your BJ’s Wholesale card ready in hand to get into the store, and another one for each new place you went…unless of course the Mall had a group discount card.  Of course, that card would only be good for THAT mall.

You get the picture, I hope.

Start with space on the Internet that is a: totally in your control and b: free and open to be viewed by the entire Internet community.

Populate it with your passion.

Spread the word through TOOLS like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, etc…draw your audience back to YOUR space.  Connect with them and show an interest in THEIR space if possible. Interact and build community…give people a reason to come back, and keep your content dynamic enough to make those return visits worthwhile.

But don’t park yourself in a walled off room.

A last note.  If you are a writer, don’t reach out just to writers. The audience you WANT is readers.  If you are a blogger, don’t just try to get other bloggers to comment on your blog – find a way to get people just on the Internet to be entertained or edified to read.  An audience of your peers is skewed, because the odds are fewer of them are out to buy, or buy into what you offer than are actually trying to build their own following and not all that interested in your work.

Welcome to MY space.