This Is Marketing: You Cant Be Seen Until You Learn to See

Shared interests, shared goals, shared language
A tribe doesn’t have to have a leader, but it often is populated with people
who share interests, goals, and language.
Your opportunity as a marketer is the chance to connect the members of
the tribe. They’re lonely and disconnected, they fear being unseen, and you,
as the agent of change, can make connection happen.
You can intentionally create cultural artifacts, to use status roles to
elevate a costume, a series of code words, or even the secret handshake.
You can be Betsy Ross and sew the flag (Betsy Ross herself, the very
concept of Betsy Ross, is a symbol).
Don’t say it all, and don’t make it obvious. It’s fine that there are secret
handshakes, Easter eggs, and unknown features. It’s fine that commitment
and longevity earn an extra edge.
You can challenge the tribe to go further, encourage them to adopt goals,
and push them forward. When Nike committed millions of dollars to
Breaking2, a moonshot to break the two-hour mark on the marathon, they
were engaging and challenging the tribe. Even if they don’t succeed, they
(and the tribe members who organize around them) will come out ahead.
Most of all, the tribe is waiting for you to commit.
They know that most marketers are fly-by-night operators, knocking on
doors and moving on. But some, some hunker down and commit. And in
return, the tribe commits to them.
Because once you’re part of a tribe, your success is their success.
It will fade if you let it
There’s the hope that you can spin up a movement and then get out of the
way as it takes on a life of its own.
A vision that once you cross the local chasm, you’ll become a permanent
part of the culture and can move on to the next challenge.

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In fact, that rarely happens.
There are always new ideas beckoning the early adopters. They’re on the
prowl, and they’ll be the first to leave.
But those who admire the status quo might leave as well, once the
tension is gone. They might have embraced your restaurant, your software,
or your spiritual movement for a while, but the original status quo, the one
they walked away from, persists as well, and without persistent and
consistent inputs and new tension, they’ll show up a bit less for you.
There’s a half-life at work. For any tribal behavior that’s not
energetically maintained, half of the activity will disappear. Every day,
every month, every year—it’s not clear what the half-life for a given
movement is, but you can expect that it will fade.
The alternative is to reinvest. To have the guts to sit with those you have
instead of always being distracted to chase the next thing.
The best marketers are farmers, not hunters. Plant, tend, plow, fertilize,
weed, repeat. Let someone else race around after shiny objects.