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When you think of tribes you might think of prehistoric caveman huddled together, going out for hunts together, but thousands of years later humans have changed in many ways but the desire to connect and find your community remains the same. Communities are groups of people who share something, an interest, an attribute, a sense of belonging, they are alike in one way or another. People in communities build connections and grow together. More and more people are working remotely which can leave people isolated. This means that finding your tribe has never been so important. Coworking spaces are growing in popularity but how can you reach out to the people surrounding you? From the day we start preschool we begin searching for our tribe and people to fill our world with, but how as adult communicators and networkers can we find our tribe?

1.       The importance of Communities

Communities are so important, even if you are an introverted person everyone needs human interaction through shared experiences which can form valued relationships. People crave a sense of belonging and one of the best ways to do this is to find groups of likeminded people but the challenge today comes from the large amounts of people working remotely, which makes these skills even more valuable.

2.       It is time to do some self-reflection!

What aspects of yourself do you want to build and what kind of relationships do you want to form? In your life you may feel that something is missing so finding people with the attribute you are missing may help to fill this gap. Take this time to meditate on what you need and once you know what you need it will make it easier to find your people. This will also allow you to see what value you can add to other people’s lives and how your skills and ideas can contribute to others. 

3.       Don’t Judge!

Although it is important to rely on your gut instincts, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give people a chance. Whether you realise it or not everyone has a voice inside their head that judges’ people on their first impression, but if you move past first impressions and focus on what you have in common you never know what this person could contribute to your tribe.

4.       How to attract the right kind of people

Nothing beats authentic and compassionate relationships that can be formed between people with common attributes and values. Now that you know the kind of people you want to attract, time to let everyone know! Get online, join Facebook groups, or plan a meetup to get in contact with these people. Say that you have an amazing idea for a startup but you are struggling with the paperwork aspect, attend a meetup event for entrepreneurs and discuss with them how they overcame their challenges.  When giving your business a kick-start remember to not only build your community within the workspace but also build your following through clients and consumers. 

5.       Get Out there!

As valuable as it is to connect online, the most valuable relationships are formed in person. Many freelancers and startups choose to work in coworking spaces as opposed to their homes. These provide you with the opportunity to connect with others face to face and chances are these people are going through similar situations and you can learn and grow alongside one another. If you get chatting to someone at work but want to learn more, see if they want to meet up out of hours to share ideas in a casual environment.

Content, a very complex concept. Content can be defined as a state of peaceful happiness, a state of satisfaction. But this post isn’t about finding your inner peace but about how to fill your website, social media, conference, launch party or event with engaging content. Let’s start by defining engaging, it is something that occupies your full attention, and allows you to fully immerse yourself in the content. Now creating content is relatively easy, you find an idea, write a title, maybe 500 words, choose a picture, pop it online, you’re done right? Well, the challenge is creating content that breaks through the never-ending deluge and makes people want to read it, listen to it and see it. You need to focus on building a great content brand not just an efficient content machine. The question is how do you direct people to your content and then how do you keep them coming back? Below are the five keys to unlock the door to engaging content.

1.       Find your idea!

These are the key to any kind of content, these will help to block out all of the noise and allow you to hone in on what counts. The problem now is sourcing an idea that is relevant and the best way to do this is to get talking, asking and thinking with those around you. Many hands make light work and many hands will make your idea lightbulb light up! Bounce your ideas off each other and narrow them down to one concise and clear concept. If all of your ideas are completely run dry you can always turn to keyword search tools, that can help conjure up great content ideas, like Bottlenose, Soovle and Built Visible. Your audience is going to follow you for your content so ensure that you stay in your niche and create authentic and consistent content. 

2.       Know your audience and create with them in mind!

These are the key players in your creation of content you need to think about who your content is for, why are you making it and what value does it add to your audience’s life. Everything you produce needs to be directed at them, through language, time of posting and marketing. Create everything with intention, why are you creating, who are you creating for and what is the goal of your content?

3.       Keep it simple, short and easy to follow

We live in a world that is getting busier day by day, people want things to be simple, get the message across and not waste any time getting there. For a blog post, this means don’t ramble on, use subheadings throughout to break it up and make it easily readable, keep a consistent voice throughout and don’t over complicate your ideas. Don’t rely purely on the written word, mix it up with multimedia and infographics, at your events display these infographics and allow people to explore this up and coming form of content. So you’ve carefully curated and created your content but, how are you going to present it, online, in person or a bit of both? The future is all about using multimedia, this means, audio, videos, pictures and infographics. Everyone takes in information in different ways to ensure that when you create media that it is accessible to everyone in your selected audience.

4.       Pack it full of keywords, and not just ones for SEO

Using keywords will get your online site more traffic but these are useful for much more than just Search Engine Optimisation. Keywords create consistency in your content and ensure that you remain on track with the message you are trying to portray. There is no better way to do this than by starting strong by using them to create a catchy title that will grab the attention of the audience.

5.       Use a call to action

This is the key to getting your audience engaged, keeping them engaged and start conversations about your content which will turn into shares. This is a great way to reach a wider audience. A call to action can be as simple as a question for your selected audience, it could be a challenge you set them or asking them to share your content online through social media. Always make sure that your form of content is sharable as social media is your gateway to sharing your content around the world. 

We want your audience to be more than just content with your content, we want them to be engaged and inspired, so take these keys and go create!

We have discussed the benefits of networking but the challenge in this day and age is connecting the online with the offline. We are all so connected online but this can be quite isolating; We are all about community building and connecting talent and we want to bring people together but this begs the question, how do you connect to people face to face that share the same interests or enable you to expand your business network.  Whether you’ve moved to a new city or you’ve lived there for 10 years meeting people with new and fresh ideas is always invaluable. These are 5 online sites that are bridging the gap between online and offline, and we think they’re doing it very well!

1. Meetup 

Meetup is all about connecting people with common interests, activities and hobbies. Whether you want to stick to what you know or you’ve decided that it is time to branch out and try something new. Even though the connections are initially made online, the real impact is made when the member actually “Meetup” and connect, discuss, and practice activities related to their shared interests.

2. Facebook

It is tried and trusted, with it’s 2.45 billion users surely you’d be able to get to know someone who is like-minded. The way it uses pages, groups and events which can all be used to connect with people. The simple use of hashtags and seeing what mutual friends people have can help to connect face to face.

3. Eventbrite

Eventbrite is bringing people together through real-life experiences. Being accessible around the world it is the perfect platform to hop onto to see what is happening in your area. It is all about people who want to create, share and find events that will enrich your lives, whether they’re a festival, marathon or competition it is an amazing way to meet new people.

4. Bumble 

You might only know Bumble as the dating app where women make the first move but what you might not know is that they have branched out and now have Bumble BFF and Bumble Bizz. If you’re looking to expand your business network Bumble Bizz could be your next move, it puts you in contact with mentors and helps you to foster new career opportunities.

5. Startup Grind

Startup Grind is the largest independent startup community. It educates and inspires entrepreneurs nurtures startup ecosystems in over 125 countries through events, media and partnerships. Their main focus is the monthly events which showcase founders, innovators and educators who will share what they’ve learned on their journey to become successful.

6. Teamup

Now for this one, there does need to be someone bringing you all together but it is a great way to plan events, share events, connect people and get them to sign up and eventually meet face to face. We believe that this is where the most authentic connections will be made. 

Startup hubs seem to be appearing all across the world but what is making some cities produce more successful startups. Ecosystems, successful startup ecosystems can make or break a business no matter how good an idea may be. You may have heard the saying that it takes a village to raise a child well in a lot of ways your startup is just like your child. You watch it grow from a tiny little thing, that learns from the world around it, spends a lot of your money, needs frequent attention but if raised correctly it will grow and be successful and if you’re really lucky you may get a financial return. There are a fair few ingredients that are required to create a successful ecosystem for a startup, here are ones that successful cities have had.
1. Ideas!
Entrepreneurs are nothing without their ideas, it is their launching point for their startups. So, for a successful ecosystem, the people in must be rich with ideas!! These are often found near universities so a city with prestigious universities never hurts. Ideas come from knowledge, so being close to universities allows access to a wealth of knowledge through students, professor and the research that goes on within its walls.
2. Access to talent
Whether you’re all about the big city or love the small-town life, for a successful startup there must be people around who are hardworking, knowledgeable and most importantly accessible. Successful startups need good people who are happy to lend a helping hand. These people will also have probably walked a similar path and they can help you to prevent making the same mistakes.
3. Moolah!
When deciding to start a business most people have ambitions of changing the world and revolutionising their chosen field. Whether you are only creating a startup to make money or not the reality is that you will need capital to get it off the ground. If an area has access to angel investors and corporations who are willing to help out the little guy an area will flourish!
4. Government policies
These are often the defining features for whether or not a city becomes a successful ecosystem startup. In some country’s entrepreneurs have to go through a paper maze to get their business off of the ground. In other countries however governments provide funding and support to help get startups off the ground with minimal paperwork. One way for startups to overcome this though is to fork out the money and get yourself an accountant to navigate the challenges for you.
5. Passionate People
This is the most important ingredient for any startup ecosystem! The people involved need to be passionate about what they do, passionate about helping others and create a culture of breaking the standard business model. If a startup has a passionate mentor, it is far more likely to be successful. If people in an area share the same ideals and willingness to work together will lift each other up and grow together.

Most people focus on networking purely to get a new job, but it is just one factor of the valuable thing called networking. Connecting with other professionals will help steer personal and career growth. Networking has come a long way from cigars and whiskey, but there has always been one consistency, and that is face to face. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, have all grown in popularity and new networking tools seem to always pop up. Still, business groups hold meetings, video calls are used to try and recreate face to face and people pay hundreds to go to conferences.

1. Free promotion of you and your business.

If you are out and about, talking to likeminded people a whole world of opportunities opens up. It is a great way to get the word out about what you can do and what your business is doing.

2. Helps other people, creating good career karma!

Networking allows you to become a resource to other people as much as they are to you, it is a worthwhile process. It will give you a good name within your chosen industry and will encourage others to put in a good word for you in the future.

3. Learning from others, and expressing your professional opinions

Friends and family are invaluable but sometimes they just don’t quite understand your professional side in your chosen industry, but networking with likeminded people removes this barrier and opens the door to talk about industry-related matters. It creates an inbuilt support system for you and an environment that will help you succeed professionally.

4. Let’s get your innovative ideas across and let’s take it to the next level

Have you had an idea muddled up in your head, not sure quite how to enunciate it, or need some funding or help from someone far more experienced in the field, a networking event is an ideal route to take. You can share, explore and expand on your idea and get it to the next level with someone’s fresh perspective and understanding. Sometimes all your idea needs are an external perspective to get it going.

5. It is often a long-term investment.

You may not benefit from a connection that you make with someone tomorrow or even next week but six months from now you might be looking for the right person and luckily at the conference, you attended you made what is now an invaluable connection.