Don’t Be So Concerned With Growing That You Neglect Your Community!

When you first start streaming it’s hard to get past that 0 viewers stage and when you finally do, those couple viewers mean the world to you. It’s people who have given up their own valuable time to tune in to your show and support your art. A lot of times we bend over backwards to try to please those viewers as we are scared to death of going back to zero.

However, from personal experience, if you aren’t careful you can quickly allow just one or two of those “supporters” to ruin the entire community you’ve been working so hard to build and eventually turn away other members within your community. Let’s talk about it.

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I remember the first person that joined my community that was a little off. They rubbed me slightly the wrong way at times. However, as I mentioned in the intro to this video, it’s hard in the beginning. You are working so hard, trying to create something from nothing. Trying to get the attention of anyone who is willing to give you just a touch of their time. Even worse, you start to become friends with these faithful few in the beginning which makes it even harder when little things start popping up.

In my case, it started with comments that I would consider to be slightly rude or just a bit distasteful. Then moved on to, as I grew, promotions of his own stream and trying to get people to come from my stream to support him. And not just by asking for follows, but begging people to subscribe and donate to him. Even going as far as trying to make people feel bad if they didn’t.

I noticed all these things of course, and it bothered me, but I never said much because he was one of only 3-5 viewers that I had at the time and I was afraid of losing any viewers at all. Also, it can seem like those in your community aren’t that bothered by the persons behavior even if they might actually be. In fact, that’s exactly what happened. Several people in the community reached out to me letting me know that they had also had personal incidents with the person and mentioned several of the things I had seen and noticed myself but had been to afraid to act on.

I had become so concerned with growing and not losing any viewers that I neglected the health of my community. And the community noticed.

I quickly acted and spoke to the person and removed them from the community. It was uncomfortable, it was hard, but I knew even before it was brought up that it needed to be done. My community just gave me the kick in the ass I needed. However, if I would have choose to not act it could have easily been the loss of my entire community and that’s the risk you take by not acting.

What’s even worse, is sometimes the person is someone who you have no immediate issues with and in fact, may even start gaming with as they grow within the community and become close friends with. You may not even have an issue with the person personally but there’s something happening that you know is impacting the community that you’re trying to build in a negative way.

I had this as well with a person that I considered to be a good friend. They started off as a viewer who watched every livestream, joked around, helped others in the community, etc. but then after we became closer, an issue started coming up.

And this is where it gets more tricky. It wasn’t an issue like the first person. In fact, the person did nothing wrong per say. What was happening was that we would continue getting in to these discussions that eventually would turn in to arguments because of differing beliefs. When I say arguments I’m not saying either of us was necessarily doing anything wrong except arguing over beliefs, however, it was affecting the entire community once again as most people are not there to listen to two grown men argue on a gaming livestream.

Now I’m not about just cutting people off the moment you have an issue and I had spoke to the person privately and we had tried to up with ways to combat the discussions going that far, but it continued to happen which left me with a decision to make. End a friendship with a person I enjoyed playing with and even enjoyed having these conversations with or allow it to effect my community in a negative way.

Because I’m making this video, I think you know which one I chose. This person was a subscriber of the channel, he also gifted subs and it was not someone I wanted to lose in the stream once again. And it beat me up for a while before finally doing what I knew I needed to do because again I allowed myself to become more concerned with growing instead of the health of my community.

I ended the friendship. In case one it was an easy decision, in case two it wasn’t, but nonetheless both were effecting the community in a negative way and it was my responsibility to ensure that it didn’t continue to happen despite personal feelings or friendships.

I didn’t start streaming to “make friends.” Of course I want to make friends while doing this, but I also have a business to run as well as a community to protect which requires me to put aside personal needs or desires sometimes.

I think this is why most streamers tend to stream solo and don’t play many games with others on stream.

My point in bringing all this up is not to put any of these people on blast as unfortunately there will be people from my streams who will know who I’m talking about, but instead it’s because I know there are plenty of other small streamers who can learn from my mistakes or may be dealing with the same things and just need to hear someone say it’s okay to let people go as you grow your livestream.

I think it’s important to remember you are not trying nor will you be able to appeal to every person in the world. Even if they aren’t a problem, there are just some people you won’t click with and it’s okay to remove people from your community. You’re looking for those like minded and that enjoy what you have to offer and that share the same ideals and thoughts that you do. It doesn’t make you wrong for wanting that, nor does it make you wrong for choosing that.

Because if you don’t, you may just sit back and watch your entire community fall apart.