You’ve all heard of (and probably read) Seth Godin’s excellent book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
ABC’s LOST has one of the most passionate tribes since Star Wars. Even if you’ve never seen the show, if you’re on Twitter or Facebook (or have any water cooler talk at the office) you’ve encountered people talking about the show.
Now ABC’s business model doesn’t really include monetizing a certain show’s fan base other than promoting them to advertisers while the show is on the air. There’s an official LOST Facebook page, but they’ve gone mostly silent since the show ended. There are tons of unofficial message boards, fan pages, blogs and web pages devoted to the show.
One such site, LostBlog.com, has no interest in shutting (or slowing) down after the show’s finale. They’ve organized rewatch discussion boards (planned times to rewatch certain episodes, starting from the pilot) and highlight the Twitter conversation, including new “Losties” who are beginning to watch the show for the first time.
They’ve also organized a LOST book club where fans will be reading through books featured, mentioned, or alluded to in the series (and believe me, there are a lot). They continue to have advertisers and they use the Amazon affiliate program, so while I doubt they’re making a fortune they’re definitely monetizing.
The question is, are your tribes doing the same thing? Are they setting up discussion boards, activities or events centered around your product separate from you? If so, is that okay with you (because your business model, like ABC’s, ignores profitability after a certain point) or would you like to get in on the action?
One of the ways this might happen is if you never thought of rewatch parties or a LOST book club. So think outside the island. Have you thought of every way you can grow your business, even if a certain product is “over”? I’m betting you can’t afford to miss opportunities like these. So… what haven’t you thought of?