Last week we kicked off the Foundation Creator Academy with our first session.
If you aren’t aware of what the Creator Academy is, we created a community of disc golf content creators and are having 12 sessions focused on helping them grow their following and monetize their content to turn their content into an income stream for them.
I lead the first session with a focus on building a community and not a following. Prepping for this session and reflecting on Foundation’s journey to where we are currently made me an even bigger believer in the importance of community in regards to business and brand building.
I’m not going to go into the details and tactical side of community building that I did in that first session. Still, I did want to use this post to explain how we at Foundation have built a community (mostly on accident) and some of the benefits we see from it!
The biggest early contributor that I see when looking back on how we built a strong community is our podcast Grip Locked. This has always been a weekly podcast, but when it first launched it was a live show. Having a consistent weekly livestream provided an incredible outlet to build a community without us even realizing it.
The weekly livestream became a part of the viewer’s routine and something that they worked into their schedule each week. This led to the same people being in the live chat each week and building a relationship with us and with the other weekly viewers. Each week that they showed up and we engaged with them, that relationship grew. As they became more engaged and felt more a part of the show, they became more likely to tell their friends and engage with other pieces of content that we put out.
As the podcast grew, so did the main YouTube channel. Then, as the community got bigger and bigger, we launched our Discord server and amped up our Patreon. These provided a home for our engaged community members to interact with us more frequently and in a more one-on-one way.
A lot of what we were doing just felt natural and was not intentional, but what we were doing was building a community that would set our content and future endeavors up for success before we ever launched them. Looking back, we missed some opportunities but our excitement to connect with like-minded individuals and talk about things we were passionate about helped us naturally build a community around our brand and content.
So why did that matter?
The benefits that we are seeing now are very obvious but it wasn’t until I started planning for that first session that I was able to tie it to one thing.
Our community provides consistency in our content’s performance. This is a big one for working with brands in advertising on our videos and podcasts. Being able to know how a video is going to do before we hit upload has been invaluable these last few years and that is all because our base community that supports every upload has grown and grown over the years to be very predictable in their engagement.
We can soft launch ideas to our diehard fans and get feedback before pouring time and resources into full launches. This has been huge several times in confirming our assumptions or proving us wrong when it comes to a stamp design, new service, or features on the site. Being able to reach out to people who genuinely care about our business and use the features that we are looking to change regularly for feedback has been a huge time saver in letting us know if we should dedicate resources to a project or not. That feedback is crucial.
Our community is, well, a community. Our content over the years and platforms like Discord have provided a place where people can connect and bond over their love for disc golf, our podcasts, our content, or anything else and form friendships with each other. This further deepens their connection and ties to our community and is a way that we provide value to them even though we just provided the platform for them to connect.
There is a vast number of other benefits that building a community has had for our business, but the final one that I want to highlight is the unwavering support. Having a strong community helps take the risk out of a lot of decisions because we know that we have a small army supporting what we do. New merch or disc launches are way less stressful. When we launch a new channel or start focusing on a new platform, we can rely on the community to back it and help get it off the ground a lot faster than usual. Their support also provides value in its validation of what we do. Creating content is all worth it when you see the response and enjoyment that people get out of what you do. Knowing that we are able to bring joy to people through disc golf content in so many different forms is an indescribable feeling.
Building a community and not just a following online has genuinely been the biggest reason for any type of success that Foundation has experienced so far.
If you are growing a brand or launching a business, brainstorm ways that you can get people involved through your content. Dig in and build a relationship with the people who are there watching your stuff no matter how big or small that number is. A community of 1,000 is a lot stronger than a disengaged following of 10,000. Provide as much value as you can to as many people as you can and watch what happens.