Seth Godin Archives

Building a Personal Bond on LinkedIn with Your Audience

Okay, I get it. LinkedIn is all starched shirt stuffy, and no one has any fun. It’s not Facebook, right? This isn’t the place for frivolity, or personality, for that matter. It’s the place where people get—stuff—done. And, all of that is true, but for some types of businesses, freelancers for instance, sharing personal moments on LinkedIn can get you a lot of mileage.

What’s your lifestyle like? Mine? I work for myself. I run a small business. I do have flexible hours and a ton of fun at my chosen career. So, why not show that? It doesn’t matter what you have. Someone else wants it too! If you have a corner office and a two-hour daily commute in your paid for BMW, there’s plenty of people who want that. If you work at home in your pj’s, well there’s a ton of folks who want that too! Letting your proverbial hair down and showing people what your life is really like is a very good personal branding thing to do. Not only that, but because it is personal and because it stands out on LinkedIn, you’ll get a ton of eyeballs on your profile from a much larger group of people. And that, my friend, will translate into more prospects, presentation, and sales.

So, what should you show, and how much should you show? Here’s where we have to remember that LinkedIn’s a business networking site. It’s not edgy like Twitter. You’ll have use some restraint. Also, according to what your profession is, you’ll need to think about what you’re showing people. You wouldn’t want your attorney showing you how he was at home in his pj’s boogie boarding with his kids, would you? But you might go for a video of your attorney and her husband walking down Broadway after a show. In other words, not everything goes, and use your head!

How to Turn Your Connections into a Tribe on LinkedIn

According to Google’s online dictionary, a tribe is “a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.” Seth Godin popularized the idea of tribes in his book, aptly named Tribes. The idea being that people tend to find each other through the Internet, and also that businesses and thought leaders can take advantage of this phenomenon to sell more of their products and services. So, having said all of that, wouldn’t it be great if you…yes you…could build a tribe for yourself? Fortunately for you, LinkedIn is a great place to do this, and in the rest of this article, I’m going to show you a few things you can do to start to “tribalize” your connections. Do that, and you’ll never lack for business again!

One of the first things you have to do is to build community. You don’t want to just be connecting with people. You want to reach out to them and bring them into your world! You actually do want to build a relationship with them! One of the most important things you can do is to message your connections on a regular basis. And, when they respond, you want to deepen that relationship by actually having a conversation with them! You can easily manage this through messaging. No one’s saying you have to meet a few thousand people at Starbucks over the course of the year. You can be intelligent with this. But, if you want a tribe, you do have to go that extra mile!

The other thing you can do is to provide your tribe with pertinent information. Reports, videos, podcasts, audios of other types, all these things will serve to make people more familiar with you. You really should be considering the video component. And, those videos should show your face! Talking! Acting like a caring pro! To have a tribe means you’re the leader. So, you have to start acting like a leader. Do that and you’ll start getting paid like a leader, too!