What Your Tribe Is and Why You Want One

Last week, I mentioned that the focus of Facebook Fridays and what I am doing on the CUDigitals blog coaching you on tribe building. Today we will learn WHAT that means and WHY it's important.

First, let's look at a few hard truths.

If you are ONLY in this business to vacuum out whatever profits you can without caring about your customers and fans, I think you are missing the boat. If you believe that you only need to create dazzling products, load them in a big store and collect your pay every two weeks then you are probably in a for a disappointment.

These things MAY have been true in the past but they are not now. And I would argue that these ideas would never have been a great way to build a business even if they did work.

When you care about your customers and fans, YOU get additional satisfaction beyond monetary rewards. YOU contribute to the digital scrapbooking community in tangible ways. YOU bless individuals by showing an interest in their lives and their stories. 

THAT is worth spending a little time on each day.
And. It can translate into profits.

LOYALTY matters.
Being REAL matters.
RELATIONSHIPS matter.
YOU matter.
and so does your tribe.

Your tribe is not only your paying customers but everyone who takes the time to get involved with your design business by following your blog, commenting on it, reading your status updates and newsletter, looking at your gallery pages, etc.

This includes people who do nothing but download your freebies.

Not everyone in your tribe buys your products - but they still matter. They matter not only because everyone matters, period, but they matter for your business, too. When they comment and participate and click and share, they help your page engagement and SEO for your blog. (How well you rank on search engines). Many who never buy will still share and influence others to come to your blog, store, page, etc.

I have seen many good designers get very disheartened when they feel like they don't get enough thank you's or comments on freebies. In reality, every one of those visits equals TRAFFIC and that matters for your business even when it does not translate into a sale at that moment.

Besides have really good products, getting noticed and getting traffic are extremely important in this business. 

And you simply need MORE than product previews and sale prices on your blog and social media in order to achieve that. You need something MORE than an announcement about how excited YOU are to have a new kit out. You need something MORE than another sale on the products that didn't sell that well last time around.

I know I'm laying out some hard stuff here, but you need to know this! If you make a small commitment to care about your tribe and contribute to their lives, you have not only become a greater human being (which is certainly a good reason in itself!) but you receive the benefit of knowing you are doing lovely things ... and the sales typically follow, too!

There are many CUDigitals customers who keep coming back and keep opening our newsletters because I have taken the time to do MORE than peddle products. This was also true for me at DigiScrapAddicts and for my personal design business. I built a following NOT just on my products.

You need to do the same. IT WORKS.

It's not a quick fix. Certainly, you can increase your FB page engagement pretty dramatically just by posting more often and posting something USEFUL besides ads. But building a following & taking care of your tribe may take a little more time.

The GREAT NEWS is that it does not take that much more time out of your busy day to implement and is probably much more effective than posting to a bunch of FB ad groups, yahoo groups or other ad outlets.

And don't forget - CUDigitals is here to HELP YOU!!

• On Fridays on this blog, I will post tips and strategies for improving your Facebook presence. Next week, I will show you some great tricks for scheduled posts inside Facebook
• EVERY DAY on the CUDigitals Facebook page, I will provide you with inspiration or content that you can share directly to your page and/or an idea that you can use to create content for your page. 

This content is specially created JUST for digiscrappers. Simply follow our page and watch for ideas to use. It honestly could not be any easier for you.

This week, I encourage you to make a commitment to share on your Fan Page as prompted. 

Let’s have fun building your tribe together!
top image credit: freedigitalphotos.net