Ten Tactics for building a fan base or group for your products…

Just something for you to think about for building fan bases and groups on and offline. How many of these ideas are you using?

1. Celebrate Accomplishment: Reward group milestones or goals reached, whether collective or that of a group individual, with shared praise and/or a small physical gift of appreciation.
2. Share stories: Use them to build bonds and strengthen ties between group members.
3. Invent rituals: Summer camps do it. So does organized religion. Great corporations have their own lingo, their own culture. How you speak and the totems and daily rituals build connection.
4. Create exclusivity: Don't invite everyone to the group. Just leaders or influential people, or those with something tangible to add.
5. Create a goal: Define something people want to rally around achieving.
6. Listen Carefully: As well as speaking have a strong ear for what the group is saying. Trust that the group knows what it needs to grow.
7. Introduce Group Members to Each Other: Listen, Learn & Introduce people to each other. Make connecting people a priority. One of the biggest fears in life is rejection. If you can help eliminate that fear you are helping somebody.
8. Be the Example: Walk the walk and talk the talk...people only follow those who take their own advice and show they mean what they say.
9. Build the Story of the Group. Set the Vision: Define the group's journey, goals, interactions, future, and how teamwork will get them where they want to go in a story that epitomizes what the group is about. Weave every person, skill, and resource into the story.
10. Invent language: Great corporations have their own lingo, so do great sports teams and niche gurus everywhere. (separate from Invent rituals).