So lately I’ve become pretty obsessed with watching videos of people living off-grid on Youtube.
Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s the fact I’m about to become a dad, or maybe I’m finally embracing more rural living since we moved to the country.
Either way, the idea of getting away from all the screens, noise and social media to connect more with nature is feeding my soul right now!
So, how does this fit with community?
Well it seems that even in the niches of off-grid living, community is prevalent.
Project Kamp is an awesome channel that I recently discovered.
They’re building the early stages of a society on totally abandoned land. It’s pretty impressive to look at the infrastructure they’ve created in a single year.
Many Youtube channels of course are focused on audience, not community.
They pump out regular videos, get ranked on Google and steadily grow over time.
However, asides from a comments section, it always feels very one way. Audience is inherently broadcast.
What Project Kamp do so well is that they weave community into everything they’re doing.
They’re a classic example of building in public, and building WITH your community.
Their community support them financially, either via a cheaper Patreon subscription, or by sponsoring tools and development:
To keep their community engaged, they have a Discord server, where members can chat with them, discuss and influence upcoming developments and generally play a small part in their journey.
They even have various levels of community engagement, from passive Youtube viewer, right the way to their most engaged fans who meet them on-site, and if they’re a good fit, join their IRL team.
Making this a community-led project makes it so much more than a basic Youtube channel putting out content.
How can you learn from their example?
- Document your community build in public
- Find ways to involve your wider audience in decisions that shape and impact the community
- Provide a community space where your audience can connect with each other
- Reference your community consistently in the content you put out for your audience (keep it front of mind)
- Provide multiple ways that your audience can participate in community incentives (from free, to higher cost)
- Leverage the diverse and varied skills of your audience to help your project (Project Kamp find all manner of skilled individuals directly from their audience).
I hope this example was helpful! Truly, community can add to virtually any audience or sector.
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