I left a Slack group a month ago. No one noticed.

After three months, I stopped getting value from a Slack group, so I left. As I was clicking the logoff button for the final time, I felt a little bad for not saying goodbye to anyone. But, I figured no one would notice. I was right.

Building your tribe is just the first step.

Whether you’re a Medium writer, building your brand on social media, or developing your website, building a following is crucial. But, growing your tribe is just the first step. You must nurture your following to keep growing and maintaining your audience.

Nurturing group members extends into any group you hope to build and grow: churches, social clubs, even circles of friends, and extended family. Ignore individuals in your group, and eventually, they will go away.

Marketers often talk about the high cost of acquiring new customers as compared to the lower price of keeping existing customers. The same is true for your followers, members, and subscribers. It’s far more cost-effective to keep a member than it is to replace one.

Temporary or short-term membership makes sense for some groups. Members join for a specific purpose, accomplish their objective, and move on. For other groups, the longer you can retain members, the better.

Regardless of the anticipated duration of your members’ participation, you need to proactively nurture those members throughout their expected group lifetime. Especially for short-term groups, you need those departing members for referrals, recommendations, and positive reviews. Ignore them, and they’ll leave before expected, with a poor opinion from their experience, and share that instead.

How exactly do you nurture your members?

Nurture strategies depend on the type and purpose of the group and the expectations of your members. But for social groups, nurture through personal communication and participation. Here are some ideas on how you can create a plan of your own.

1. Create a schedule. If you’re using a communication channel like Slack, set aside specific times to participate. Post your schedule to set expectations within your group. And, while you may love the freedom of working when you want, you need to create a schedule that makes sense for your group, not so much for you. You need to be available when your group members are available and most active, not necessarily when it’s convenient for you.
2. The 80/20 rule applies to groups as well. To make sure you’re maximizing your effort, spend more time working with your most active group members. Don’t ignore the lurkers, though — you never know when you can bring someone from the 80% group into the 20% group.
3. Respond to emails and inquiries within 24 hours. Honestly, that’s even too long for someone to wait for a response. Especially with new members that are excited about your group, keep that excitement going by being as responsive as possible, as quickly as possible. Automated email responses are great for transactional communications, but anyone with two brain cells knocking around can spot those a mile away. Nothing screams, “I don’t give a shit!” like an auto-response to a personal request. Use auto-responses with care.
4. Set boundaries for what members can expect from you. If your members begin to demand your time or expertise in ways you didn’t anticipate, guess what? That’s an opportunity for an upsell. Create a 30-min consultation offer that members can purchase. Or, offer it free with a couple of new member referrals. Either way, you win. A consultation product is a subtle way of letting your group know your boundaries, but also shows your commitment to sharing your expertise and helping them with their objectives.
5. Pay attention to individual member activity. If you notice a regular contributor has gone missing, reach out to them. If nothing else, it lets the member know they were valued in the group, and you noticed their absence. Who doesn’t want that??

Maintaining your tribe requires time and commitment.

I get it. Nurturing your group takes a lot of time. But so does building it. You’re going to invest the time and effort one way or the other — either focusing on acquiring new members because of high churn or splitting your time between nurturing existing members and adding new members. It’s up to you to decide which provides more value.

Consider this: if you invest in your existing members, you have the opportunity to tap into their personal or professional networks to acquire new members. It’s member growth on auto-pilot. You have a built-in staff of recruiters at your fingertips.

Be honest with yourself about the time you’re willing to invest in maintaining your tribe. Whether it’s participating in Slack conversations, sending regular newsletters, or responding to individual emails, you took on this responsibility when you started building your group. Your tribe has also invested in the group with their time or money if it’s a paid membership. Your participation shows respect for your members’ investment.

For those of you who might find yourselves over-committed, delegating is an option.

If you don’t have the time or desire to commit to the nurture side of your group, all is not lost. You can partner with one or more of your peers, respected group members, or simply hire or trade services with someone to nurture on your behalf.

The two most important aspects of injecting an agent, or agents, to represent you are making sure they are qualified and can accurately speak on your behalf and ensuring your group members understand their value and your trust in them.

When introducing those representing you to your group, share their qualifications, and why you trust this person to be your voice within the group. The last thing you want is for your members to feel like they’ve been duped with a bait & switch situation, primarily if they’ve invested money in the experience.

If you can’t commit, exit respectfully.

On the other hand, if you’re dream has turned into a nightmare, or you simply don’t want to maintain your group, respect your members enough to tell them your interests have shifted, or you’ve taken on other commitments that require you to leave the group. Maybe someone else will want to take it over. Perhaps the group will migrate to another virtual home and continue without you. But just failing to show up is lame. Put together an exit strategy.

The bottom line.

Be careful you don’t throw away all your hard work building your tribe. When you feel overwhelmed by members, think back to when you were hoping and praying for that first member. Remember how excited you were?

I know it can be hard to feel grateful — you’re slammed with work, and your responsibilities seem to be pulling you in 10 different directions. Take a breath. Evaluate everything on your plate and figure out what’s going to move the needle toward your long term goals. If you’re letting your tribe nurturing slide, remember what it took you to get to this point. This may not be the area to push off your plate.