Are You Engaging Enough to Join A Tribe?

African tribe dressed in colorful - mostly red- robes and one man jumping.

People follow me on social media like Pinterest, LinkedIn or Twitter and expect me to follow back or promote their content right away with no engagement whatsoever or worse by spamming me.

Most just lurk while others try to send me their articles or images without ever engaging before.

It seems they want to get free publicity from me and my community and tribe out of the blue.

Usually I don’t use buzzwords but when it comes to joining a tribe you have to engage first!

In case you want to join an active tribe you at least have to know what social media is and how it works.

What is a tribe? On the Web a tribe is hard core group of people who are usually very actively participating in a community.

Usually there is a 90-9-1 divide on social media. 90% are passively consuming, 9% are actively contributing by liking, commenting etc. and 1% is hyperactive by providing the majority of contributions and content.

The 90-9-1 rule visualization courtesy of Latana
The 90-9-1 rule visualization courtesy of Latana

When you talk directly to that group and connect with them regularly you ideally form a tribe of people who are mutually supportive without viewing it as a way of barter or trade. Such engagers and supporters care about you and the others and thus form a tribe-like group.

Early on I created a tribe for this blog and its community. To some extent is works even though it was many years ago. Do you want to be part of my tribe in particular or any tribe in general? Read on.

The SEO 2.0 philosophy is about true empowerment on social media and using it for the benefit of the services, readers and marketers alike. To keep the explanations simple:

You can’t use a place for your own reputation and advancement when you mess it up.

More than that in case you do some wack hat SEO that potentially will hurt the image of all people from the tribe I’ll be the first to report you, dislike you or call you out.

In case you want to be part of a tribe which by now has people in it who have been engaging for years consider the basics of human to human interaction.

  1. Use an actual real name and a down to earth user name instead of calling yourself seoexpertwhatever.
  2. Add a short snippet about what you do instead of just writing “SEO services” or other keywords as your description.
  3. Do not share only your site/s as your updates. Show that you’re not an ego-king and you’re able to find content that might be of actual use and interest for others.
  4. Do focus on quality not quantity when sharing on social media especially when you automate sharing using Buffer etc. Do not treat the tribe as a link dump.
  5. Stay away from the “get more followers” crowd. It’s not about how many people follow you but how actively they engage. Others might tolerate it but I see that all of your low quality posts get zero shares. Socialize with real users you share interests with instead of befriending every noob as some kind of exchange.
  6. Share some stories first before trying to become part of the tribe. When you push crap the same rule applies as in #3: You’re not an engager and nobody likes self-promoters.
  7. Add a meaningful avatar so that we know that you are serious about creating some value instead of just dropping in without even investing 3 minutes into your profile.
  8. Give first before receiving. Empty profiles are usually a sure sign of a bot account. Below 50 shares you’re not even really on a social site yet.
  9. Use the same name you use elsewhere on social media so that I know who you are and what kind of involvement in social media I can expect from you.
  10. Understand that SEO 2.0 is about sharing, value, reputation and authority not quick gain. In case you just look for a shortcut to quick traffic you’re wrong here.


#1 – #3 are really knock out criteria. Nobody will pollute their tribe or group with people who do not care for anything else besides their own website and business.

When you have nothing to give do not expect people to embrace you.

When you aren’t Web and social media savvy enough to fulfill these very basic requirements you are probably wrong at SEO 2.0! You should try learning SEO basics instead for a few months. SEO 2.0 is about advanced social SEO.

It’s about combining blogging, social media and search to help people and to make the Web a better place. Are you with us? Then prove it!