How To Lead Your Social Media Marketing Tribe

If you're using social media such as facebook, myspace and YouTube to build your business and wondering how to grow your downline then maybe you should take a closer look in the playground next time you walk past the local kindergarten...

Danny McDermott was a small boy with a square head, buck teeth and ears that turned red in Winter. He was one of those kids who found school tough going. Even so, Danny was the first leader I had ever known.

He was the youngest of three brothers from Belfast who came to our school just before Christmas and took the place by storm. I was six at the time but I can remember it like it was yesterday...

You see Danny had a unique gift which he used to amuse, entertain and intrigue his followers with in the school yard. He could hold a ball on his foot for hours, catch it on the back of his neck and balance it on the end of his nose like a seal to the amusement of all who followed him. Danny was one of the greatest soccer players I have ever seen.

But Danny wasn't naturally gifted, in fact I'd say he was clumsy at most things, but what made him special was his dedication to learning new skills and practising them until they seemed second nature.

Only nobody ever realised this.

He would practise each and every day for hours, improving his knowledge of how the ball should be worked, how to recognise his strengths and focus on them and how to teach others to master the same tricks that had made him popular, so that they could feel good about themselves and not foolish.

Then one day, for no reason, Danny picked up the ball and placed it beneath his arm. Then he began to run. And a strange thing happened...

His followers ran too...

One by one at first, then quickly in small groups racing behind one another like middle distance runners. Within minutes Danny had the whole playground, seventy or eighty kids in total, running behind him while he charged ahead smiling like he'd never smiled before.

Danny's tribe of followers smiled too and you know even today I can remember their faces. They believed in him and he could have ran out the school yard and away through the fields and they would have ran too, each and every one of them without question, following Danny wherever he went.

Stop trying to work out which marketing system will work for you and start to understand how the tribe works and maybe one day you can run like Danny McDermott.

Neil Ashworth
The NotForProfit Networker