How To Build A Loyal Fanbase

Hank and John Green of the Vlogbrothers are some of the most influential people on YouTube. Collectively, they're responsible for multiple huge channels including Vlogbrothers and Crash Course. Best selling books and movies like the Fault in Our Stars, Harry Potter inspired music and the biggest YouTube conference, VidCon. So it's not a surprise when amazing cool things seem to fall into their laps like this.

Hank, I have no idea why this happened, but someone at Google called me a couple days ago and was like, do you want to hang out with the President? And I was like, eh, it depends the president of what? And they were like, yeah, the President of the United States. United States. Barack Obama. Do you want to be in a Google hangout and ask him a few questions? And I was like, mmm, okay.

And that's not just a one time thing. Hank was one of three YouTubers selected to interview President Obama in person. So in this video we're going to cover how to create that amazing kind of luck in your own life. How to build a community that wields unimaginable levels of influence, and how to be the hub of that community. Even if to you that just means being the center of a group of friends and the person who gets the call to every cool event. But first, let's start with the charisma basics, the way that the vlogbrothers present their material.

I'm scared of the dark. Yeah, as well you should be. It's terrifying. Just be grateful you're not a vampire. My biggest problem is my sister. She is annoying and a vampire. Yeah, well, to be fair, she's probably annoying because she's a vampire. I hate when you're about to sit on the one seat left on the bus and then someone takes the seat. Right. So the thing to do in that situation is to assume, even if it's improbable, that that person needs the seat more than you do. It may not be true, but it will be very helpful to you in terms of keeping sane. Particularly like in parking lots around Christmas.

What you saw there is from a Q and A series that's back to back questions, one answered jokingly and the other seriously. Now, this might seem like a weird quirk of the Vlogbrothers, but it's actually how almost all good education occurs these days. It's spliced in with entertainment. Kind of like mixing your veggies in with sweets. This goes back to a very common theme that we cover in a lot of videos, which is that if you want to Communicate any message. You first need attention. Bouncing back and forth between facts and jokes keeps that attention tight. Check out here how John does just that with with the visuals in Crash Course History.

So one of the reasons that Franz Ferdinand's uncle didn't like him that much is that the Emperor was really hardcore, whereas Franz Ferdinand, you know, he was kind of a moderate.

Another interesting thing about the vlogbrothers is that they don't necessarily lead with the most important stuff, but with the most interesting or most practical stuff. This flies in the face of normal educational practice. For instance, when I studied philosophy as an undergraduate, the first thing we did was read a bunch of old Greek guys who had crazy theories about the shape of fire and wind and water particles. The whole point was to understand and explain their crazy theories, even though modern science proved them to be wrong. It was tedious, and to this date, I have not found a useful use for that in my own life. But when Hank taught philosophy in Crash Course, he'd open instead with questions that sparked curiosity, like this.

It's your funeral. No, actually, you're dead. Your loved ones are all sitting around reminiscing about your life. What are they saying? How will you be remembered? Did you have a good life? How would we know what constitutes a good life? The first thing to consider is whether the value of a life is determined by the liver of that life or by other people.

By making a sometimes abstract topic like philosophy interesting and relatable, Hank is able to connect with a much bigger audience than my university was. But of course, it's not just about being interesting. You've also got to be a teacher that your students can trust. And both Hank and John create massive amounts of trust by sharing vulnerable stories from their own lives. You can check out the whole story in the description, but for now, here's a quick excerpt of John discussing his experience with depression. And it's an experience that many people have had, but few talk so openly about.

So here's a story. I was 24, and my longtime girlfriend had just broken up with me, and I was living in Chicago in what had been our apartment with what had been our cat. And I was pretty depressed. I thought the depression was a result of having been dumped, but in retrospect, getting dumped was probably at least partly a result of the depression.

Normally, I would dive deeper into the presentation, but in the case of the vlogbrothers, the presentation is the smaller part of what makes them so successful. Their real genius is that they are absolute masters of bringing people together. For a common cause. They can marshal enough forces to push a book out five months early, raise money for charity, kickstart a performing career, or make the largest video conference out of thin air. And they do it by creating engaged communities. So I want to break down now how they created theirs. It started with bi weekly vlogs back and forth to one another on YouTube, and despite having spent several months making those types of videos, their first big break came when this video went viral.

I need Harry Potter like a grandylo needs water and as Saturday approaches my need grows. Oh Axio deathly how's incendio Book sales and barbers? It'll be like Phoenix tears on a broken nose.

Yes, it was the Harry Potter fan song that broke through all the noise and got the vlogbrothers their biggest traction. Which demonstrates the first rule of building a community. You're usually better off starting within a pre existing community that you're a part of. Now this rule isn't hard and fast, but it was certainly the case with charisma on command. The first people who joined way back in the day came almost exclusively from Reddit, where I would share my early articles and videos. And this same piece of advice applies to a community of friends as well. So if you're looking for friends, attending meetups, sporting events and co working spaces is a great place to start. Once you've got your first followers though, you need to differentiate yourself. And one of the best ways to do that is is by talking about what you believe.

What matters to me most is how much I love people and how much the people that I love love me.

Most importantly, try to surround yourself with people you are important as who you do it with. No matter your circumstances, you are valuable and rare and worthy of love.

Simon Sinek highlights this point in his book and TED Talk Start with why. But it bears repeating here. People want to be around others who believe what they believe. So if you want to make your community really passionate, you can't just entertain or teach or tell jokes. You need to let people know what you think life is about. John and Hank make it clear that to them, life is about giving and growing and being unashamedly passionate about the things that you love. This ethos comes through in nearly everything John and Hank do, and it attracts people who feel similarly in terms of making friends. It means that when you meet people that you might like, you've got to find a way to let them know what you're passionate about. Otherwise, all those introductions turn into Facebook friends that you'll probably never meet again. So once you've got your group of people who believe the same thing, you need to create ways for them to identify and signal their affiliation. This could be secret handshakes or signs.

Like this Nerd life is just so much better than regular life. Ch ch ch.

Nerdfighters or it could be unique words and inside jokes like Doobly doo dftba and puppy sized elephants. But what you absolutely need is a name for people to call themselves. Think of how strongly people feel when they say they're Republicans, Democrats, New Yorkers, or even Beliebers. In the case of the vlogbrothers, you've.

Nerdfighters Nerdfighter is basically just the community that sprung up around our videos and basically we just get together and try to do awesome things and have a good time and fight against World Suck.

Much to my shame, I never did this for charisma on command, despite the fact that 800,000 people have subscribed to the channel and thousands more have joined our online courses. So I want to correct that with a proper name for anyone who follows our stuff or practices the type of things that we teach now. We joke around in my house often, but cock commanders might give people the wrong idea. So if you have any good suggestions, please write them in the comments. I'm looking for a good name, but all of this, the beliefs, the signals, the name only lays the groundwork. Because what has made the vlogbrothers so special is that they aren't content to let their community exist solely in the comments section. Once they have this group and that group is passionate and they care about the same things and they have a name, they invite them to the same physical location vlog behind it. This is where the magic happens. Internet friends are great, but to get the most potential out of any group, there needs to be a physical space where they can mix, bump into one another, hug, dance, and really connect. When you think about building your own communities or friend group, focus on finding a common interest, whether it's board games or soccer or sci fi book discussion, and then invite people to the same place to participate and mingle again. I have not done a great job with this with our channel, but it's something that I'm going to be working on more this summer. Anyway, there's one other thing that I should mention and it's that despite all of the effort that both Hank and John put into their thousands of videos, the events they hold, the books and the albums that they've created, they are Insistent on crediting their community for their.

Success, trying to find something that they believe is important. And I'm so grateful. Changing topics here really fast, that Nerdfighteria.

Has provided that for me.

People talk about other things that I've been able to do, but it is only because I found something here that I can believe in.

Keep congratulating me after they see the Fault in Our Stars movie. As if I did anything. But all I did was get lucky. Lucky that the book was published so well. Lucky to have a great cover. Lucky that the people I sold the movie rights to happened to be brilliant. Lucky that the wonderful cast and crew and director came together to make a great movie. I mean, Hank, I didn't make savvy decisions in this process or anything. I just got lucky.

And this is the most counterintuitive piece of community building. The more that it's about you, the more, the less vibrant the community and the less influence it has. But the more you make it about other people, their interests, the more you empower them, the more you get to participate in all of the amazing things that come out of that community that you never could have dreamed up yourself. So whether you're trying to make a 20,000 person conference or a group of five great friends, keep the focus on other people. That means that you don't sit at home on Friday night and wait for someone to invite you to a super cool party. You organize something fun like a scavenger hunt or laser tag or even a game night. Make it about other people having an amazing time. About them meeting cool new friends and improve their lives. If you do that, you will have what the vlogbrothers have. You will be the hub. You'll be one of the people that everyone calls on a Friday night to find out what to do. The one that knows about every party before it happens, and maybe even the one that gets to talk to the President when he makes his official YouTube debut. There you have it. Some of the most basic steps to building a community and friend group. If you're curious about some of the fundamentals of how to handle some of those first interactions with that new group, we've set up another video that discusses discusses the four emotions that lead to a great first impression every time. And if you want to see that video, just click the button here. Submit your email on the next page and you'll be taken to see it right away. If you like this video and want to join our community of whatever the heck it is that we decide to call ourselves in the next few weeks, go ahead and click subscribe Now. If you do that, you'll be more likely to see our new videos in the sidebar and the homepage. Plus you'll hear about any in person events that we set up based on the inspiration from the vlogbrothers. So if that sounds like something that you're interested in, go ahead and click subscribe Now. If you've got any Cool names for U.S. topics to cover, please write those in the comments. I'm very curious to see what you come up with. Please, please though, keep it pg. Of course. I hope that you've enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one.