Tribal marketing is a smart approach for online businesses, but when building a tribe it’s important to know what the difference is between a brand tribe and a brand community.
The process of building a brand tribe rather than a brand community really comes down to… well… let’s dig into those more to give you a better picture of how to craft your marketing.
What is the Difference Between a Brand Tribe and a Brand Community?
The difference between a brand tribe and a brand community really comes down to the degree of affinity, loyalty, and cohesiveness of customers. While a brand community may consist of a group of people who like your brand and use it to solve their particular problem, a brand tribe is much more enthusiastic about your brand, is more cohesive, has more ingroup bias in favor of other members, tend to think and act more cohesively than mere brand loyalists.
Take, for example, the difference between Costco members, and fans of the Edmonton Eskimos football team. Costco members constitute a brand community because they are a group of frequent patrons to Costco stores who generally like the store, its concept, discounts, etc. They buy the Kirkland (Costco) branded products, make regular trips to the store, maybe mention it in passing to friends, etc.
Edmonton Eskimo fans also buy the team’s (brand’s) products and show up to games, but they also show up shirtless with the team’s colors painted on their stomach, wearing funny branded hats, screaming for the Eskimos to crush the other team. You won’t see topless Costco patrons with the company’s logo painted on their bellies, screaming into the intercom for Cosco to crush Walmart (arrests would ensue).
Eskimos fans know everything that’s happening with their team, the players, coaches, and general managers, listen to all the radio shows about them, collect football cards, and fly to different cities to watch games. Eskimos fans get together at pubs, or events to be with other fans, talk about the football team, meet players, and have a very cohesive set of ideas, beliefs, opinions, etc about the club. Status is gained by how much you know, can predict the outcomes of future games, and how much insight or access someone has to the players.
You’ll never see a middle aged dad fly to a different city to see what sorts of deals Costco has there. While Costco has a membership, you won’t see Costco shoppers get together to talk about the store. Customers probably don’t know (and don’t care) who manages their local store, and nobody cares if someone else knows the manager or the checkout clerk.
The difference between a brand tribe and a brand community is pretty obvious when you compare Costco shoppers to Edmonton Eskimo fans, but the distinction is probably less than obvious for your company. Typically, tribes form around personalities, whoever the founder or figurehead is, but even then probably not to the same extent you’d see in pro sports. I doubt anyone has your face tattooed on their arm, for example.
But you will tend to see elements of the above in online communities that constitute tribes. People will get together, have thoughts that seem fairly uniform, will love your site and brand, like you, and want to get to know you, etc. The line between what constitutes a brand community and brand tribe is necessarily arbitrary – the two exist more on a spectrum.
Keep these in mind when thinking about building your own online tribe. It is possible to do but to do it well really takes understanding what makes a brand tribe distinct from brand communities.
Read next: How Do I Create a Niche Online Community?
