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Are you in The Tribe or any tribe for that matter? The tribe might be a channel on Jaiku, a group on Twitter, a group on LinkedIn, your local chamber of commerce, of even a fan page on Facebook.

What encourages us to become a member of a group or even a paid for member of a membership community?

Here are three things that I have noticed takes place when building a community:

1. Leadership Brand – Very often we join a community due to the person who is leading the group has a personal brand and reputation for something we are passionate in and want to know more about. They are likely to share with their community a compelling vision of what future success will be and have values that we can connect with at a personal level.

2. Connecting With Like-minded People – Sometimes it’s others in our network that we respect. People who are connectors and share with us information and ideas that they know will resonate with our personal or business interests.

3. An Irresistible Offer – And if the community is one that creates buzz whether it’s a free or a paid for community there is often a limited time in which to make a decision to join – you have to be decisive to take action – but those that create the most buzz have an irresistible offer and reward the early adopters and people that take action.

An example of those three points in action is the launch of a new community by Seth Godin which he announced yesterday to accompany the launch of his new book ‘Tribes, We Need You To Lead Us‘:

• Leadership Brand – Seth has a remarkable reputation and following with people interested in marketing strategies. He announced his invitation to join him in a membership community to people who respect and follow him – he only made the announcement on his blog
• Connecting With Like-minded People – Tina Cook who is in my network in a special group on Facebook shared the details with her friends as she knew it would be of interest. I had missed the article in my RSS feeds as I was in meetings all day, but I quickly saw and took notice of Tina’s message
• An Irresistible Offer – Seth encouraged people to take action with invoking a date when the doors to his new membership site would close. He also has a small barrier to entry to ensure only those people who really do want to be part of the community will take action – pre-ordering his new book ‘Tribes, We Need You To Lead Us‘.

Here is what Seth shares on his blog about the creation of the Tribe online community:

I’d like to invite you to join a members-only tribe. A tribe for marketers, for leaders, for those focused on building communities or creating products or spreading ideas.

This online community will live on a site we’ve created that will feature blogs, forums, social networking, comments, photos, videos and a job board. And it’s by invitation only until October. Spots are limited and early members get privileges and bragging rights.

Members get a password and the privilege of meeting each other, posting thoughts, connecting to big ideas or projects and more. The site will include excerpts from the book as well as a chance to contribute to a new jointly-authored ebook, with full credit and links to the contributors. The contents of the tribe forum won’t be posted to the public until October, so it’s really the only way to participate until then.

I’m launching my new book in mid-October, and as usual, doing something different to take my own advice.

One of the ideas I talk about briefly in the book is that powerful tribes aren’t open to everyone. The exclusivity makes it work. In this case, the exclusivity comes from two things:

1. I’m only announcing the Tribe here on my blog.

2. You have to be committed enough to pre-order my book, sight unseen (in some places for less than $14), months in advance. It’s not about selling more books, of course, it’s about creating a small hurdle to get the right people in the door.

If you are looking at establishing a new membership community or social network, study, learn and apply Seth’s approach – what can you learn and apply to support your success?

And if you want to become a member of Seth’s Tribe, all you need do is order a copy of ‘Tribes, We Need You To Lead Us‘ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, CEO Read, Borders or any bookstore that will give you an electronic receipt.

Yes it’s even listed in Amazon.co.uk for those of us in Europe HERE.

You need to take action TODAY BEFORE 4pm ET/9pm 11am ET/4pm if you are in Ireland or the UK and then forward the receipt no later than August 10 to jointhetribe@gmail.com including your postal address in the email as Seth is hoping to send you something in the mail in October. If you miss that deadline he’ll put requests to join his Tribe on a waiting list.

And don’t worry about the fact that the ‘Tribes, We Need You To Lead Us‘ is a pre-order and the price decreases before launch. If you purchase on Amazon they have a pre-order Price Guarantee: order now and if the Amazon.co.uk price decreases between the time you place your order and the release date, you’ll be charged the lowest price.

And if you join Seth’s Tribe, I look forward to seeing you there – creating the structure of a community, membership programme or social network is only the beginning – I am looking forward to what we can learn from Seth and each other in relation to engagement, creating brand ambassadors and sharing knowledge across the community.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

You can follow Tina Cook for other great tips on Twitter HERE.

In three recent Podcast Sisters podcasts, we covered the subjects of building community around your brand:

• In Show 41 we covered the reasons to consider building a community around your brand – access the show here
• In Show 42 we covered actions we can take to create a thriving community of brand ambassadors – access the show here
• In Show 48 we discussed how to start podcasting in your community – access the show here.