Social Media plays an essential part in the way tribes connect in an increasingly smaller world. One organisation MUST (Manchester United Supporters Trust) have begun utilising social media to spread their own campaign message.  MUST have always existed as a tribe in their own right, but as we have seen throughout history the bigger your gang the more power you can exert.

MUST have wanted the Glaziers out since they took ownership of the club, but this season they have given their movement legs with the “Green & Gold Campaign”.  These are the original colours of Manchester United, then known as Newton Heath, with the idea being that the fans will continue to wear Green and Gold until the owners go.

MUST are also aligned with another tribe, the Red Knights, who are the financial arm of the campaign. The Red Knights are made up of wealthy investors, some who are fans of the club, who are prepared to invest in Manchester United if and when the Glaziers agree to sell and then give 25% ownership of the club to MUST.

In February 2010 membership was 50,000 when it was announced that Blue State Digital, the same company who led the digital campaign for Barrack Obama during the presidential elections, were appointed to take the Green and Gold Campaign to the next level.

Membership of MUST, a month and a half later, has nearly tripled and currently stands at 134,440 at the day of writing (Friday 12th March). Using new media such as a Facebook page , a Youtube channel as well as providing easier ways for new signups to share information through their Facebook status is the reason the campaign has mushroomed recently.

Traditional media has caught onto the movement recently too, with not a day going by where MUST or the Red Knights don’t feature in the sports pages.

Every tribe though needs a tipping point and a figurehead. MUST’s tipping point and figurehead could have come on Wednesday the 10th of March after their game against AC Milan. Enter David Beckham, famous the world over for his football playing ability and consumer appeal, who made a clear expression of support when he donned a scarf in MUST colours after the 4-0 defeat of Milan on Wednesday night.

The MUST movement is now ready to explode and reach every corner of the globe and gain support of an estimated 75 million fanbase. This simple gesture by David Beckham is exactly what MUST and the Red Knights needed to cross over into the mainstream.

The power of Social Media in this movement should in no way be underestimated!

David Mulligan

Here are the guys Conor got to spend the weekend with trying to learn to be funny!  Have a look at the video and check out what Conor learnt during the Comedy Crash Course.

Following on from the many successful events held in the past few months, Connector’s “Tribal Love” event held in the Science Gallery was no exception. 

The event aimed to give a platform to up and coming collectives and companies who relied on “tribes” in order to connect members sharing similar interests together both on and offline. The night was kicked off with an enjoyable hour of networking helped along by the stash of free Corona being handed out by Connector’s ever-enthusiastic volunteers. The mix of attendees was varied and the crowd was one of the biggest I’ve witnessed at any Connector event so far. 

The night then progressed into a number of short presentations by tribes including; 121 Marketing , The Attic Studio, Laugh Out Loud, MonsterTruck, Darklight, Funky Seomra and many more.

The highlight of the night for me was Adam Drazin’s initial address. Adam is a lecturer in TCD specialising in social anthropology and ethnography. I found his talk to be both informed and hugely entertaining. His argument for the growing popularity of tribes (online tribes in particular) focused on the idea of a new form of social interaction rather than merely a new form of technology. He defined a tribe as somewhere in between a family and a state- a space where social interaction is ruled ultimately by politics and a sense of intimacy shared between members. The success of tribes is dependant on this shared sense of intimacy which leads to a sense of obligation to other members- a personal connection between tribe members and a sense of belonging to a particular tribe will often lead individuals to participate more actively in a community.

All tribes must seek to create a tangible community within which members will not only actively contribute both their time and knowledge but also share information of a more personal nature. By doing this, members feel a real connection to each other and the obligation to participate more fully in all areas of the tribes activity.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire event and look forward to seeing how the work of each tribe will progress over the coming months. Many thanks again to Connector for organising the event!

This is a bit Irish.  The Facebook group “No to NAMA” has 11,369 members. I want John Joe from the late late toy show to fix my clock group has 47,415! In my opinion, Ireland needs to connect online to have a discussion about the most important piece of legislation in the history of the state.
Lets use social media to voice our opinions and lets get interested in what could potentially make or break our state. Why?

NAMA is purchasing loans at only a 30% discount from the banks. The lands these loans are based on are now priced back at agricultural value. Unless the farmers strike oil on this land, the actual underlying value will remain as low as 10% of the loan value. We’re screwed!
David McWilliams sums up the figures as “we see that there will be €51.5bn of land and development assets and associated loans transferred, based on what he has seen so far, we are looking at a hole of possibly €40bn, where we will borrow €51.5bn from the ECB, for assets worth a little over €10bn”.
A loss of €40 billion ladies and gentleman, puts Ireland in the red for generations to come.
Ireland should prepare for even higher increases in taxes to pay for the debt, unemployment and emigration should this happen. 
Social Media was used as a primary method of communication among opposition supporters in the Iran 2009 elections. Tight state control of traditional media drove the opposition online to spread their message. In the USA, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign generated $60m dollars from social media channels.

Users of social media in Iran and the USA were able to establish a voice in important moments in their history.

Whether NAMA is a success or failure will decide the fate of the Irish economy for a generation.

This is an important moment in our history, and we can use social media to establish our voice and contribute.

This is a great book by Seth Godin. Tribes is a great way of expressing the phenomenon of online/offline groups/communities.

We are looking for sponsors for food/drink/prizes for our Connector Tribes event in the Science Gallery. So if you are a brand wondering how you can credibly get into social media, this could be your chance!  If you connect us to a sponsor, you will win yourself a brand new unsigned copy of the Tribal Bible ;-0

Please contact Conor on 086 811 8833 or email conor [at] connector.ie for more information.

Connector ‘Tribal Love’ – Thurs Feb 25 @ The Science Gallery, Trinity College

Connector and The Science Gallery are connecting to bring you ‘Tribal Love’. It will be an event themed around Tribal attraction in the digital age. As well as some prominent guest speakers, we will showcase some of the top Tribes from Dublin.

It’s really exciting to be connecting at this great venue. The Science Gallery ‘Love Labs: Science of Desire’ exhibition, runs from the 11th of Feb to the 12th of March 2010, and as part of this Connector ‘Tribal Love’ will look at the science of ‘group chemistry’.

Tribes are communities of connected people with shared interests & ideas. Whether its 5,000 Shamrock Rovers fans turning out to a windswept Tallaght Stadium for an Eircom League game, or 44,000 people joining a facebook group called ‘I want John Joe from the Late Late Toy Show to fix my clock’: its a human condition; to be connected to an idea; to a movement.

It promises to be one of our best events with a great mix of Tribes from the online and offline worlds featuring. Some of our old friends will be back, along with new tribes with passions for the likes of music, film, fashion and sports.

Please Click through to view our presentation and check back for more details before the event…

Here at Connector, we’re all about connecting individuals but we’re equally fascinated with connecting Tribes, which are communities with shared interests.  Back in May, we held our Connector Tribes event, and at Connector Launches we saw some new Tribes such as The Digital Times and Bloggertone launch themselves to the Digital Public.

At our Christmas Party we’d like to reward the ‘Tribes of the Year’ and today we’re delighted to announce our shortlist for Tribe of the year, congrats to:

Culch.ie
Dartmouth Square
D Light Studios
Synth Eastwood
Funky Seomra

RSVP – Register for this event on Facebook Events (or if you don’t have a Facebook account, Register Here >>)

We will also be announcing 2 Connector ‘Person of the Year’ Awards (Male & Female) on the night. The awards are for friends of Connector who have had a successful year worthy of some peer recognition.  So why not come along to our Christmas Party with some friends and see who has been crowned with one of these new awards.  We’ll also be giving our predictions for the people & tribes to watch in 2010, same as we did with our ‘Top 10 to watch in 2009‘.

The night is sponsored by Peroni and we can’t wait to celebrate our great year with you. We hope to see you there & before then, next week is Tribes Week and we’ve written about each of our five shortlisted Tribes. Check back here to see if you can spot your Tribe and you can check out our Tribes page for more info.

Connector will be giving a Tribes workshop in the new year which will include some really important advice on getting sponsorship, utilising social media to it’s full potential, community management and content creation including podcasts, webTV and blogging. Email conor or rob [at] connector [dot] ie for more information about this event.

As part of Tribes Week, we are featuring all of our shortlisted Tribes on the Connector Blog today. Each of these Tribes have been shortlisted for the Connector Tribe of the Year award. The winner will be announced at Christmas Connector.

Synth Eastwood is a music, art and technology based group that presents different artist’s work from around the world at a gig type exhibition.

As they say themselves:

Since the group’s first show in May of 2006, the number of artists submitting has doubled for each show. In addition to the submitted work bands are invited to play, along with the Synth Eastwood band who perform a set based on the show’s theme. In fact all facets of the show even down to the layout and structure of the exhibition space are considered in relation to the brief.

Check out their presentation at Connector Tribes:

Thursday the 26th of November 2009
Kobra Bar, Leeson Court Hotel, Dublin 2.

Connector decided to create an event based around new business ventures. By using connections made through previous events run by Connector, Conor was able to gather a group of new innovative entrepreneurs and invited them to speak on the night.

These businesses included: Digital Times, Bloggertone, Event Elephant, Style Tonic, Webstrong (relayto), Progressive Productions, Photo Ireland, O’Leary Analytics and finally Jumper Productions.

Each of these businesses had 5 minutes to showcase their ideas, in front of many people in the business community. In following the Connector theme, the speakers were able to network with other organisations in a variety of different areas with the hope of making connections.

Conor decided that it would be of good spirit to support the Mo’vember Charity in aid of Cancer. With numerous kind donations made on the night. Thanks everyone!!!!

Overall, the night was a huge success, new innovative business ideas were shared and many expressed a huge interest in the Connector event.

Check out the event photos on Facebook.

By Sarah Bell and Siobhan McSweeney

Please see below for last night’s Powerpoint (excluding Digital Times)