You can propel the members of your tribe into action by challenging their statuses in a way that creates tension.

Assuming you’ve started to gain a growing group of fans for your product, your next step as a marketer becomes persuading them to actually buy it. And the key to doing this is to create and relieve tension – a sense of uncomfortable pressure to which your product offers the antidote.

One way to do this is to challenge their status – their relationship to a group and their position within its hierarchy. This the ranking system that tells them who has the most respect and power within the group. In this case, the group is the tribe that’s gathered around your product.

The easiest way to challenge your tribe members’ status and thereby create tension is to raise the prospect of separation. Most people want to keep up with their tribe; they don’t want to be left behind when it moves forward or changes direction.

By adopting your product, your tribe is doing just that; its internal culture is evolving. In the statement “people like us do X, Y and Z,” your product is becoming one of the variables. Your task as a marketer now becomes broadcasting the message of that statement.

How do you do that? It depends on the type of people who belong to your tribe and the manner in which they approach their status relationships. There are two basic approaches: affiliation and domination.

People who seek affiliation want two things: kinship with the other members of their group and reassurance about whether and where they belong within its hierarchy. To create tension among these people, you want to send signals of popularity. That could mean having busy trade show booths, getting celebrities to attend your product’s launch party or finding renowned authors to write a blurb for your book. Such actions will signal to everyone that the tribe is embracing your product or service.

In contrast, people who seek domination want one of three things: to climb the ranks of their own group’s hierarchy, to see their group outrank other groups or to achieve a bit of both. To create tension among these people, you want to send signals of, well, dominance.

For example, Uber did this in its early years by boldly taking on conflicts with local governments, competitors and even their own drivers. This sent a message to domination-oriented investors, customers and employees alike: “We’re here to win, and nothing’s going to stop us. So why not join us and become a winner, too?”