The Vine

If you want people to listen to you. If you want people to follow you. If you want people to buy stuff from you.

Lead them.

Seth Godin’s fantastic talk from this year’s TED conference is posted below. In it, he argues that the most powerful form of marketing today is leadership.

We are tribal in nature. We yearn to connect with others who share our interests and passions. And thanks to the internet, it’s never been easier for these people to find each other. The opportunity for any marketer, then, is to identify, connect and lead a tribe. This applies whether you’re for-profit or non-profit, fighting for a political cause or selling soap.

The problem with traditional (ie, mass) marketing is that it requires you to act like the king—you’re the one in control, tossing things to the peons. (And how’s that working for you these days?) But when you’re leading a tribe, the desire is built in. Life is good didn’t invent optimism, they simply gave optimistic people a symbol to rally around.

So find a group that already has a yearning for something, but is disconnected. Give them a way to connect, a cause to commit to, and a culture that lets them know whether they’re in or out. Understand that your movement is not for everyone. Be willing to polarize.

I’ll stop there and not give away too much of the material. The full presentation is well worth watching, and just 18 minutes long.

NB: You can hear more from Seth at PCBC next month, where he’ll be the closing keynoter.