Why Finding Your Tribe is Like Going to Your First Middle School Dance
Even the best standup comics bomb in front of certain crowds. The same thing goes for content creators. Some say "thank u, next" to the content you create, and others sign up for your emails because they can't get enough of it.
Success in content creation is all about finding your tribe. It begins with determining your niche and creating content for platforms that generates value for others.
But it takes time to figure out who will like your posts and who won't.
Arbitrary rejection is part of sharing content that gets processed and categorized by algorithms before anybody sees it. That's why being specific and targeting the right audience is vital to your content strategy.
We like to think these complicated platforms are more intelligent than we are, but the truth is that they are closer to a middle school-aged child when figuring out who we are.
The Awkward Truth About Finding Your Tribe Online
Meeting people on digital platforms can be tricky.
According to data from Nielsen Norman Group, "90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute) [and only] 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions."
What's more, according to Forbes, "organic reach has been declining. In fact, the average organic reach for a Facebook post is about 5.5% of your follower count with even less for brands with large followings."
So, what does this mean for you, the content creator looking to connect with like-minded individuals on digital platforms? The long and short of it is that you're going to spend a lot of time working on content that only a few people will even see (for now, at least).
For those who lack a healthy marketing budget, this could be a reason not to engage in organic content creation. If most people only see commercial content, it feels self-defeating to share organic content.
And even with the odds stacked against us, some of us decide to share anyway. Then we see the insights for our posts, possibly get trolled, and the rejection creates yet another barrier for entry into the content creation game.
Sometimes, sharing organic content online feels like you're giving a fantastic performance onstage only to find out that the audience has been facing the opposite direction the whole time.
The first time I felt the tinge of rejection after putting myself out there to meet new people was at the first dance I went to in middle school. There were so many factors I later realized were not in my control, yet I was so hard on myself for not leaving the cafeteria that night with a group of new friends that would rival the cast of Saved by the Bell.
The lessons I learned about finding true friendship are just as valuable to content creators that are deciding to move from the 90% of lurkers online to the 1% of people who are creating content.
Going Back to Your First Middle School Dance
Picture it. Miami, 1997. You get all dressed up, hoping to make friends, impress your crush, and share the dance moves you've been practicing in front of the bathroom mirror for the past two weeks. In your head, you're going to walk in there and blow them away. And then, just like in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, nothing goes like you thought it would.
You walk into the school cafeteria, and even though you all just started school, everyone already seems to know each other, making you feel like the odd person out. Suddenly, the dance moves you had down pat last night go out the window, and you feel lucky if you can even open your mouth to say what's up to a kid from your homeroom. And if you're anything like me, you probably trip and fall in front of the whole school, giving them a good laugh and making you want to go into the witness protection program.
The truth is that even though your intention for your first school dance is to make friends and possibly fall in love, the reality is that it happens gradually over time. And all the pressure you put on yourself to fit in that first night only turned people off because it got in the way of them seeing you for who you really are.
Anxiety about rejection stops you from being yourself, making it harder to find your tribe.
At first, you think it's going to be the first dance that will dictate your social future, but in reality, it has far more to do with whom your teacher sits you next to in your chemistry lab, what sports you play, what clubs you join, or whether you engage in school activities at all.
And when it comes to engaging with others online, it's also essential to remember that the school bully could be a bot. So, you might feel rejected and hurt by someone who doesn't even exist and has been created to sow discord online.
It's hard out there for a content creator, yet it's still the best time in history to share your story.
Finding an audience online is a numbers game, but volume means nothing if you don't create authentic connections. It's easy to hit follow on social media, but finding your tribe is about getting people to follow you beyond digital platforms.
6 Tips to Help You Find Your Tribe on Digital Platforms
Here are six tips to help you get over the fear of rejection and find your tribe online:
1. Pour your heart into your content and think of rejection as data.
We've all been there. You're passionate about a project and go the extra mile to document the process with content. You can't wait to share your story with the world. You're sure everyone is going to love it. Then you post it on social media, and it gets ignored.
Meanwhile, another cat meme is going viral.
It's hard not to take low engagement personally, especially when you're sharing something that means a lot to you. But as we now know, most people lurk but don't post, so they don't know what it's like to be in the content creation arena. And even then, most people don't even get a chance to ignore your organic content because they don't see it, even when they follow you.
The moral of the story is that you want to pour your heart into the content rather than into the analytics and insights you get after you post. And if you're lucky enough to get trolled, that counts as engagement, which is better than nothing.
After years of looking at insights, the best advice I can give is to be passionate when you create content and scientific when you analyze its success or failure to reach an audience online.
2. Don't fall into the wrong crowd by trying to fit in.
It's easy to manipulate a narrative when posting edited photos with clever captions and popular hashtags.
The University of Texas Permian Basin notes that "it was Albert Mehrabian, a researcher of body language, who first broke down the components of a face-to-face conversation. He found that communication is 55% nonverbal, 38% vocal, and 7% words only."
So, what does this mean for our social media posts? It means that when we create a post with only words, we only tell a small part of the story. Some creators take that and run with it, while others prefer video platforms, where tone and body language can add context to their storytelling.
You can tell when someone is being fake online, even if it's just intuitively. We're all tempted to edit photos to make ourselves look better and research a popular niche to see what people like online. But when you don't represent yourself accurately online, you risk developing an audience that follows you for all the wrong reasons. Over time, that can make you feel trapped and possibly motivate you to remove yourself from platforms once you realize that your following is feeding a part of you that you don't like.
Like your parents warned you in middle school, falling into the wrong crowd can change you for the worse. Finding your tribe shouldn't change who you are at all. Your tribe should validate who you are deep down inside. That's the whole point of creating a community. And there are people who will love to follow you based on who you really are. You just have to be brave enough to reveal yourself to them.
3. Be kind online (and express yourself as you would face to face).
One of the byproducts of most people only lurking on social media (and being able to remain anonymous) is that these platforms feed the schoolyard bully in us. Trolls feel empowered by disliking or leaving negative comments on other people's content without regard for what it takes to create something worthwhile. And unfortunately, negative engagement is rewarded by most platforms, which creates endless loops of negativity online.
Throw in angry bots, and you can end up frustrated when you want to connect with real people based on substance. But even with all the hurt people hurting people online and platforms mainly looking the other way, it's more important than ever to be kind.
Like in middle school, human decency can be hard to come by on most platforms. And the anonymity bots and fake online profiles provide gives people the courage to spew filth that they would never have the nerve to tell someone face to face.
We all have bad days and fall into bad moods, but dumping negative feelings online doesn't make them go away. It makes it multiply. Your lousy day can worsen exponentially if you hit publish on something you should have deleted.
My rule of thumb when interacting with others online is to make sure that what I'm saying is something I would back up face to face. Even though social media platforms make it easy for anger and stupidity to go viral, being able to stop and think about what we express before we publish will help us all in one way or another.
4. Connect over what you like, not what you hate.
In the same way that connecting over false premises can lead you down the wrong path when finding your tribe, so does connecting over negative emotions.
In her book, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, researcher Brené Brown offers these words of advice for people who connect over what they hate:
"The common enemy of intimacy is counterfeit connection and the opposite of true belonging. If the bond we share with others is simply that we hate the same people, the intimacy we experience is often intense, immediately gratifying, and an easy way to discharge outrage and pain. It is not, however, fuel for real connection. It's fuel that runs hot, burns fast, and leaves a trail of polluted emotion. And if we live with any level of self-awareness, it's also the kind of intimacy that can leave us with the intense regrets of an integrity hangover. Did I really participate in that? Is that moving us forward? Am I engaging in, quite literally, the exact same behavior that I find loathsome in others?"
Like in middle school, bonding over making fun of someone isn't connecting. The kid you bullied in the lunch line for having freckles, and thick glasses could end up being your best friend once you realize you both love to play the same video games. You might even solidify that friendship in college when you both study software engineering and develop video games for a living.
Likewise, the buddy you made while laughing at someone else might end up bullying you once you've made fun of all the other kids in your class.
The things that bother you can change over time, but a connection over your passion can last a lifetime.
5. Create content with the same authenticity as your favorite meme.
I can't help but laugh every time I see the happy meal after a doctor’s appointment meme. It's specific to someone else's experience of showing up to school with a happy meal after a doctor's appointment. Yet, it speaks to my experience in a school across the country, possibly years before this creator was even born.
Memes go viral because they speak the truth that we find so difficult to share in our posts. We think showing up to school with a happy meal is only part of our story, which nobody else would relate to. Then we see a meme that gets millions of likes that tells the same story.
Even if you weren't the kid with the happy meal, you remember the smell of french fries coming from the bag when they walked back into the classroom. Suddenly it made you look at your bologna and cheese sandwich with disdain and your bag of Cheetos, which you were excited about in the morning, felt basic. That's also why Leonardo DiCaprio's face in the meme is so funny. He knows every other kid in the class sees that happy meal box as the golden ticket, and he's relishing it.
Searching for authenticity, even in the most random middle school memories, is a valuable practice and will allow you to make deep connections that will ultimately help you find your tribe.
6. Play the long game.
Even if your first school dance experience went great and you met the person you would be friends with through high school, that doesn't mean you won't one day get into a conversation with someone you overlooked at the dance but ended up having a connection that would last a lifetime.
That's the same way people can find you online.
Have you ever found a content creator on YouTube, realized you loved them, and spent the next hour in a rabbit hole watching their previous videos? That can happen to your channel, too, if you're consistent and improve your content creation skills over time.
For example, a few years back, I published a 3-minute vlog in which I stumbled upon a public park in my neighborhood and just talked to the camera live, being goofy in a way I wish I could say was intended to be comedic. Years later, without me ever optimizing the video, it generated over 11,000 views for my channel. It's certainly not my finest work or something I'm particularly proud of. In fact, most of the content I'm proud of has less than 100 views today. But it goes to show that you should never say never.
If you let people find your content over time, all the disappointment you felt the day you published your first piece of content will be worth it.
Who will you end up with after the dance?
So, will you be the most popular kid in class, student council president, a goth, or a jock? Who knows? But you'll be ahead of the game if you can avoid being a goth when you really want to be a cheerleader.
With content, your tribe might be fickle or hard to find, but don't let that change what you are putting out there. Instead of changing who you are or what you represent to match what's trending online, dig deeper into what you're interested in, and eventually, mentors, followers and friends will find you along the way.
What has your experience with finding your tribe on digital platforms taught you? Share your tips in the comments.
