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

Nicole Miller -

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:

More great tools:

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:

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!