Marketing

10 online tribes I am proud to be a member of

November 22, 2014 by Thomas Z Lukoma Leave a Comment

Over the years, I have become interested in the concept of building a platform to amplify a message, service, product or movement. After sitting on the fence and soaking in content but not doing anything with it, I decided to create MoreThanAHut Solutions to force myself to DO. I needed a real life vehicle through which I could implement the ideas that I was reading about and see how they worked in the ‘real world’.

As I tried out my ideas on my early set of clients, I realized that one of the most important things to identify upfront before embarking on platform building is the tribe that you are going to engage. Find a group of people that buy into your vision and have voluntarily decided to follow you.

Without a tribe, your platform is merely a soapbox and probably will not gain much traction.

Today I thought I would pay homage to ten online platform builders that have or continue to inspire me about what is possible. There is a diversity of methods used to build and engage their tribes, but the key component that is a unifying thread across all of them is that they consistently create compelling content.

Their content has certainly compelled me.

So in no particular order, here they are:

#1 Steve Dotto of DottoTech

I never thought there were other people in the world that got as excited as I do when I discover a new to-do list app – until I discovered Steve Dotto. He has a YouTube channel that has become my go-to resource for finding out about all the wide variety of apps and techy tools that get me excited to explore.

Its not only his content that I find compelling, but the way in which he delivers it; he really loves this stuff and I find a kinship with him each time I watch one of his videos.

Yes, I know … I’m weird.

#2 Ramit Sethi

When I originally read Ramit’s blog, I was turned off by the very thing that eventually enamored me to him – his ‘in-your-face’ brashness. I mean, who calls their blog ‘I Will Teach You to Be Rich’? But thankfully, behind the initial image, there is a significant depth and resonance with his ideas about personal finance.

Perhaps the thing that I admire the most about Ramit though is his masterful use of email marketing – I have never experienced anybody else who has such a deep understanding of segmentation and building a funnel of marketing through email. What I like about him is that everything he does is based on experimentation and analysis, so its not just fluff but ideas that have empirical data behind them.

#3 Tim Ferris

My introduction to Tim’s platform was actually offline. His bestselling book The 4-Hour Workweek was an encyclopedia of ideas that challenged my status quo and what I thought was the way things had to be. I read the book at the same time as a colleague of mine who is an even bigger tribe member than me (she refers to him as ‘Timmie’) and we still reference ideas from his book today.

His online tribe is where the real magic happens though – he was engaging with his tribe through his blog even before he wrote the book.

#4 Daymon Peterson @ Daym Drops

Daymon Peterson is a regular guy who’s funny that decided to make his own ‘gourmet reviews’ of fast food. He took what started out as a way to quell his boredom by shooting ‘home reporter’ videos and grew it into a major platform that now includes hosting a show on the travel channel doing what he loves on a larger stage. It all started by his own unique way of describing a french fry in this review he did of Five Guys Burgers.

“You bite the fry and the fry bites back! That’s when you know you have an OFFICIAL french fry.

#5 Fake Grimlock

At the time of publishing, I think it is still true that only a handful of people know Fake Grimlock’s real identity. He has successfully built a following on Twitter with an alter ego because he has a unique delivery of content that actually has a lot of weight and wisdom with it. He is also an illustrator, so providing visual complements to his ideas helps. I was so fascinated by his work that I signed up for his Kickstarter campaign – and he did not disappoint.

Here is one of the goodies he sent to me during the campaign that I still have up on my wall:

#6 Joe Penna a.k.a Mystery Guitar Man

I don’t need to say much about this guy – just watch this:

#7 Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt literally wrote the book on Platform Building. His book, along with Seth Godin’s Linchpin, were the starting framework for my ideas around platforms and impact.

#8 Rhett & Link

If these guys don’t make you laugh, I don’t think much can. I was introduced to their platform by an appearance they had on the George Lopez night-time talk show where he showed the video below that was made by them. At the time, their claim to fame was that they made high quality local video ads for small businesses.

They have since grown their tribe to millions of viewers on their YouTube channel, which includes a daily show called ‘Good Mythical Morning‘. If you haven’t seen some of their epic rap battles like here and here – then you are in for a treat.

#9 Sacha Chua @ Living An Awesome Life

I love Sacha’s blog. It is an eclectic mix of creativity, art, geeky topics and most important of all – sincerity. I was honored to have a Google Hangout with Sacha almost two years ago and can say with complete confidence that she is the same person in person as she is in the blog – she truly values learning and sharing above all else. We spoke about platforms (this was around the time I was really trying to figure out what platforms meant to me) and I pointed her towards Mike Hyatt’s book. Since then, I have seen her expand into doing more with Google Hangounts and continue to engage her tribe in interesting and novel ways.

#10 John Stepper

Final contribution to #wolweek from @JonHSAUK it is from @johnstepper excellent book pic.twitter.com/xnfm21IV1B

— Helen Sanderson (@HelenHSAUK) November 21, 2014

For the past three years, I have recieved an email in my inbox every Saturday morning from John’s blog that I look forward to reading. His consistency of publishing a post once a week to that blog is what has cemented his presence in the mind of his platform. I just recently helped him launch a separate website to build out a movement that came as an offshoot of his blog and with the momentum he has behind his book, I am excited to see his tribe explode in growth and impact.

#11 to …

Though I listed ten platforms here, there are numerous others that come to mind, so this is not a definitive list, but just the ten that have had the most significant impact on me in the recent past. My goal is to dig a little deeper into them and study the ways in which each of these platform builders charted their course – with the hope of distilling more ‘nuggets’ for you on how best to build your own platform and thrive.

The most important asset for your online presence does not cost a fortune

November 12, 2014 by Thomas Z Lukoma Leave a Comment

The first impression you make with your online presence is not the design of your website, how elegant your logo looks or how much content you have on your website.

The first interaction anybody will have of your online brand is your domain name – the online address that you give your website.

Your Domain Name is The Most Important Asset for Your Online Branding

The name you give yourself or your business online is therefore critical to how successfully you help people to identify with your service, product or cause.

If you get it right, you gain an immediate advantage in differentiating yourself from your competition.

If you get it wrong, its an uphill battle to drive traffic to your site and continuously grow your tribe.

3 Tests for a Great Domain Name

A great domain name may take you a while to come up with, or it may come to you in an instant. I have three tests that I put to any domain name I come up with to determine whether I should run with it.

Unique

The best way to determine this is to check what happens when you go to any of the domain name registrars (e.g. GoDaddy) and enter the domain name you are looking for.

If its already registered, its not unique.
If there are other names similar to the name you are considering that are already registered, its not unique.

Memorable

My test for whether or not a domain is memorable is to try and imagine sharing your domain name with somebody verbally.

Would you have to spell it out for them?
Are there words in the domain name that sound like other words and could easily be confused.
Does the name have any hyphens in it (avoid at all cost)?
Is it easy to make a typo – and does that typo lead them to another page that has nothing to do with you?

All these questions are things you should consider when thinking about the “memorableness” of your domain name.

Meaningful

Finally, your domain name should have meaning – even if that meaning is not immediately obvious. Most of the time, the immediately obvious domain name for your service or product is unavailable, so being creative on this point could go a long way.

For example, one of my websites is a place for me to document my journey of learning about WordPress. I originally wanted to get a domain name like ‘WordPressMastery’, or ‘LearningWordpress’ but names like that are all taken at this point (and they were not as fun for me to use). So I remembered a term I had read about in the ‘computer geek’ world that was the concept of understanding something so thoroughly that it became a part of you – grok.

That word expressed how well I eventually want to understand WordPress, so I named the site www.igrokwordpress.com (which was available and didn’t overlap with any other names).

And just in case you are thinking that grok is an uncommon word and would violate my second test, consider that my target market for that blog is not just anybody – its “techno-nerdy” people like myself and so the likelihood of them knowing that word is quite high.

Think of your business card as a doorway instead of a signpost

April 2, 2013 by Thomas Z Lukoma 3 Comments

Your online reputation is becoming increasingly more important than your business card and ignoring this trend will not make it go away.

But it may impact you in ways you don’t intend.

Business cards are clutter

Traditionally, business cards have served two main functions:

provide a snapshot of how to reach you
enhance the credibility of your role, function or business

I used to have a large collection of business cards because every time I met a new person, that was the best way to retain a quick snapshot of who they were and how to get in touch with them.

I also printed up business cards whenever I started up a new venture to give myself ‘credibility’ and make sure people could reach me. At one point, I carried around three business cards because I was working on three unrelated ventures at the same time.

Between carrying my own cards to give out and holding onto business cards from others, I often had a George Costanza wallet.

Today, this kind of wallet clutter is unnecessary. Instead, when I meet someone new, I ask them for an email address and/or cell phone number and enter them straight into my smartphone where the information automatically syncs up to all my communication devices. If somebody asks how to reach me, I give them my email address which is a more reliable way to reach me than my phone number.

With the ubiquity of digital ways to exchange contact information, the first function of the business card is becoming obsolete.

Your online presence is a competitive advantage

The second function of a business card, credibility, is easily trumped by your online presence.

Consider the following scenario:

You are trying to settle on a contractor to finish your basement. Your budget is $20,000 and the two remaining candidates both have great ideas – their quotes are a only few hundred dollars apart.

Because this is a significant investment, you meet with each of the contractors separately and tell them you need a few days to make your decision.

On departure, the first contractor hands you a business card and tells you to call him or email anytime if you have questions. He has an attractive, glossy business card with his cell phone number and an AOL email address. There is no url for a website but he gives you a few names of references to call.

The second contractor also hands you a business card and tells you to call or email. The business card is less attractive but still professional. It has his cell phone number, a website url and an email address that matches the website. He doesn’t volunteer any references but tells you to ‘check out his website’.

When you visit the second contractor’s website, you find a gallery page with ‘before and after’ pictures of several other basements he has completed. You also find a page of testimonials from satisfied customers.

But the place you spend the most time is the YouTube channel you get to from a link on his website; it contains short videos of him demonstrating several home improvement tips and tricks. One of the videos helps you fix a small problem in your house that has been bugging you for a few weeks.

You call him up and ask if its okay for you to speak to some of the past customers that left testimonials on the website. He gives you some names which you call and they all talk about what a great job he did and how much they learned from him and his videos.

Because you don’t have a url for the first contractor, you google his name and his company name to see what comes up. You find a few yellow pages entries that contain the same contact information on the business card.

You call the references he gave you and they all say he did a great job.

At this point, are you still conflicted about which contractor to choose?

Despite the similarity of their ideas and quotes, the second contractor would have significantly more credibility with me than the first even if the first one had the better business card and just as many references.

The first contractor’s approach to credibility is through the attractiveness of his business card and the list of references he provides. The business card is a signpost of his services.

But the second contractor uses his business card as a doorway to enchanting you even before you pay him a single dollar. His approach to credibility is through the engagement and generosity that is enabled by his online presence – he not only tells you about his services, he ‘gives away’ his expertise to you for free.

I believe the second approach will win in the majority of situations because it goes beyond a transaction and focuses on building a relationship. The second contractor is leveraging the power of a platform to differentiate himself and build a tribe of followers that will act as an extension of his marketing.

Market by connecting and engaging

I’ve used the example of a business card but this concept applies to any of the traditional pieces of collateral that we use for credibility and marketing.

It applies to brochures, postcards, billboards, posters, giveaways.

It applies to your resume.

All this collateral is not an end in itself – it should be used as a doorway to invite your prospects into a connection and relationship with you.

It is this connection that will yield the most fulfilling and impactful results in your career and business.

This post was originally posted in my personal blog @ komasworld.com.