It’s very easy to focus on the immediate. Many people, myself included, have a tendency to put their interests above others. Naturally, in a dog eat dog world, where the pace of business is cranked up to high speed, we seek out transactional relationships and are constantly asking the question “How can I get X” or “How can I get someone to give me Y.”
From this frame of mind, print and TV banner advertisements make complete sense, especially if you are creating a mediocre product that delivers mediocre results. All you need is a few unlucky saps to buy into your commercials and order X number of widgets in order for you to become a millionaire.
Unfortunately, although this mentality may have worked for the pre-internet and pre-social media era, its effectiveness in business is rapidly deteriorating. You can no longer blast messages through media outlets, spam forums or social groups, send uninvited emails, or create third rate products and expect to see success.
In the TED Talk video below, bestselling author and internet marketing expert Seth Godin describes a new kind of business world that we are moving into, where financial results are a byproduct of transparency, helpfulness, and remarkable work.
I recommend checking out the video below. It underscores how Kickstarter is not about money, it is about community. I’ve included some thoughts afterwards as to how viewing crowdfunding as a community building process can lead to better fundraising and business results than viewing it as a financial transaction. The good part starts at 3:55.
Video Digest/Transcript – The Progression of Economics & Where We Are Headed
1. Factory Stage: Efficient factories (cheap labor, fast Machines) create new products that can change the world, like the car.
2. Television, Advertising, and Mass Marketing Stage: Take a mediocre idea for the masses and push it on the world. “I have a better mousetrap and if I can get enough money to tell enough people, I’ll sell enough.”
This model requires you to act like the king. You are the person in the front of the room throwing things to the peons in the back. You are in charge and you are going to tell people what to buy. Mass marketing requires average ideas, because you are going to the masses, and plenty of ads.
As spammers, we try to hypnotize everyone into buying our product, supporting our cause, voting for our candidate, or pledging for our crowdfunding campaign. This doesn’t work so well anymore.
3. The Idea Behind Tribes – Tribes are about leading and connecting people and ideas. Thanks to the internet and social media, tribes are everywhere. The internet encourages niche interests. People on the fringes can find each other, connect, and go somewhere.
It turns out that it’s tribes, not money or factories, that can change our world, that can change politics, and that can align large numbers of people – Not because you force them to behave a certain way, but because they wanted to connect.
What entrepreneurs do for a living now is find something worth changing. They then assemble tribes that assemble tribes that spread the idea and soon it becomes a movement. BuzzFeed, the multimillion dollar news org is build on this principle. They detect, assemble, and encourage the spread of viral content.
The great thing about assembling a tribe around your product or mission is that you don’t need everyone. Kevin Kelly, in his famous blog post, 1000 true fans describes how you just need 1,000 true fans that love your vision/product and are a part of your tribe.
“A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.
A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.” – Kevin Kelly.
“The Beetles did not invent teenagers, they merely decided to lead them.” – Seth Godin. Most of leadership is finding a group that is disconnected, but already has a yearning. Tell a story. Connect a tribe. Lead a movement. Make a change.
The most important thing to take away is that the movement or product you create is NOT for everyone. It’s for the true believers. A great example of this is Apple! Apple computers or devices are not for everyone, but the company has an incredibly loyal following that evangelizes its product and will wait for hours outside its stores for new products.
Why should you build a community around your Kickstarter or Indiegogo Campaign?
In my opinion, Kickstarter and Indiegogo are not about money. They are about community. They are about building your tribe that will follow you through this creative process and support you from beginning to end for a product they think is awesome or a cause they care about. Don’t employ the “Television, Advertising, and Mass Marketing Stage” mindset. It doesn’t work. Set out to discover and connect a community that share a problem your product solves. Set out to lead people who are passionate about the same thing you are – whether that is art, music, or gaming.
It’s extremely important that you involve your backers in the creative process through compelling rewards and transparency. In addition, I think it’s important to reach out to other campaign creators.
For example, yes, blogs are powerful because they have access to a hyper focused community of readers and are viewed as a trusted source. However, the blogosphere has even more impact on influencing consumer behavior because bloggers have relationships with each other, causing stories to spread. Yes, we can be competitive, but we also understand the importance of cooperation.
This past week, there was some awesome interaction on the Kickstarter Forum, where campaign creators were helping each other out and doing cross promotion. This is a great example of how campaign creators can benefit from reaching out to each other.
How to build a community around your Kickstarter campaign
1. Communication = Community
Be sure you are updating your backers at least once per week, both via video and text. Encourage people to comment on your campaign page and then respond to those comments. Engage your backers on social media. Create a specific hashtag for your campaign so that backers have a conversation thread to follow (Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Instagram hashtag). These are broad solutions and might not fit every campaign, but basically pretend you are throwing a party. How can you foster conversation between the guests?
2. Make it easy to share and attract new members
Remember, one to many relationships do not encompass the power of tribes. The end goal should not be to communicate with many individuals. The ultimate goal is to get members of your tribe to communicate with eachother. Encourage them to spread their passion about the cause with landing pages and calls to action.
3. Don’t rule, lead.
Great tribe leaders don’t set down rules and force their followers to comply by these rules. They don’t control behavior. They encourage their followers to shape the movement and involve them in their vision.
4. Encourage them to show off.
For those of you who don’t know, youtube is becoming an increasingly powerful platform to attract your own tribe. Phillip Defranco, a youtube star, has over 2.7 million subscribers and regularly holds contests for the “Defranco Nation” to take pictures of themselves with his products (shirts/posters etc).
Be sure to encourage your backers to take pictures of the product and post it on your company’s social media outlets.
5. Don’t be selfish
What is best for your tribe comes before your wants and desires. First seek to give value before you ask for it in return.
Are you ready to be a leader?
The first time I listened to Seth Godin, I thought – well that’s all cool, but I’m not trying to lead a political change. It was only after I began to examine companies like Apple, Zappos, and even the tribes that have formed around authors like Robert Kiyosaki or startups like Pinterest that I came to understand the business potential. The internet is all about niche audiences. I urge you to watch the video above if you haven’t already. Be a leader. Have a vision. Attract a tribe. Good luck! For more information, check out Seth Godin’s book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
