Building Your Online Tribe: Jeff Goins Shares His Top Tips and Tools

Author and speaker Jeff Goins recently joined #bufferchat to share some awesome expert tips on building your online tribe.

Read on for the highlights, or catch the full Storify recap here!

What does it mean to build a tribe online?

From Jeff:

• Building an online tribe means finding your true fans, the people who will help your work spread.
• Something I’ve learned about building a tribe is that it’s not who you know, it’s who you help.

More great advice:

• “Finding people with whom you share common interests, but also who you can share with and learn from.” @martinlieberman
• “Building a tribe means building a group of like-minded individuals who support each other (community).” @YouTooCanBeGuru
• “Create a community that supports each other and you. ” @kimreynolds

What tools do you include in your workflow to stay connected to your tribe?

From Jeff:

• Buffer (of course)
• Slack for team communication
• Byword for blogging
• Scrivener for long form writing
• Evernote for ideas

More great tools:

• SproutSocial
• Tweetdeck
• Iconosquare
• Latergramme
• Slack
• Hootsuite
• Commun.it
• Rapportive
• Sidekick
• Mailchimp
• Feedly
• Jive
• Google Docs
• OneNote
• SharePoint

What is most effective to authentically connect with your audience?

From Jeff:

• Share a struggle, some pain point you’ve having. Be vulnerable in an uncomfortable way. People connect with humanity.

More great advice:

• “Talk to them. Take the time to engage one-on-one with your community. Make them feel special – they deserve it.” @cbarrows
• “To connect you need to be genuine, offer valuable insights & appeal to your community’s needs.” @liliholl
• “I like what @annhandley says, you need “pathological empathy.” Always be thinking about your audience’s needs” @mikehale
• “Respect the medium, complement your goals. Do Instagrammy things on Instagram. Do Pinteresty things on Pinterest.” @andymci

What do you strive for: more community members or more engagement?

From Jeff:

• Can I say both? ? More engagement. Doesn’t matter if you get more eyeballs if they’re not looking at you.

More great advice:

• “I like to focus on more conversations, connecting more people that share a common purpose and passion!” @iSocialFanz
• “Vicious cycle. More engagement leads to strong community members, and stong community members lead to more engagement” @AaronFriedman
• “Engagement is also much more fun than simply counting the numbers.” @kid53
• “A bigger community brings new ideas and doesn’t lead to a stagnant rehash of old topics. And I love meeting new people.” @Ares_0926

What do you know now that you wish you knew at the start of building your tribe?

From Jeff:

• I wish I would’ve been prepared for the fact that people wouldn’t like my work & there’s nothing I can do about that.

More great advice:

• “Providing value is what it’s all about. If you provide value to the tribe, they’ll spread it for you. Have to give to get” @mcartertweets
• “Always support and be positive and try to help.” @PetrPinkas
• “Actually I embrace all of the missteps along the way. Social Media is all about experimenting, & it’s the best way to learn.” @lifeofrileyNYC
• “You don’t always need to be the “starter.” You can get as much traction by being an engaged member of someone else’s comm.” @bberg1010

Best books on building your tribe:

• Tribes by Seth Godin
• Shut Up and Tweet by Phil Pallen
• Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
• The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Thank you so much for everyone who joined in on this great chat! Catch #bufferchat each Wednesday at 9 am Pacific/noon Eastern and join our Google+ community for the latest news.

Do you have any comments or answers to these questions? Leave your thoughts in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!