Short YouTube talk by Phil Powis arguing creators should stop "scattering" community-building efforts across many platforms (Instagram, newsletters, Substack, podcasts, etc.) because spreading attention thin prevents accumulation of community. Uses a farming analogy (many small fruit trees, few of each type, hard to bring varied produce to market) to show the difficulty of trying to do everything. Recommends focusing on and cultivating one primary home for community — ideally where the creator already participates — and gives his own example: a long-standing orientation toward YouTube and video podcasting (since ~2013).
Chapters
But I think a lot of people are also just trying to build community in every direction. So they're like, trying to build community in Instagram and on the newsletter and this and that and substack and podcasts and dah, dah, dah, dah. And they're so distracted that they're actually not accumulating that community anywhere. So if I were to equate that to being a farmer, it's like, imagine trying to sell. You have. You have a bunch of fruit trees and. But you only have two of every fruit tree because you need two to pollinate. For those who don't understand farming, you need more than one fruit tree to make sure that they produce fruit. But let's only say you only have a couple of every fruit tree. And now you're. Every week you're trying to sell a different fruit. Well, it's really hard to do that. It's really hard to grow kale and lettuce and this and tomatoes and cucumbers and garlic and fruit trees and everything and try and do everything and bring that to a market. Much more difficult than if you're a master of one thing, solving that one thing at scale, right? So same thing applies in farming as it does in. In community, online. Be part of the community. Build community where you are. First of all, right, Like, I like, I like to recommend that if you want to build, like, I. I'm a YouTube guy. I watch everything on YouTube. I'm a big, big, big video podcast guy. I don't even necessarily watch the video podcast, but I generally consume video podcasts consistently. So guess what I've done since 2013, for the most part, on and off. Right. And recently haven't been doing it, but it's coming back, doing video podcasting. I build where I am. I understand. Or I build community in a space where I participate. Because to be a leader of community is to be a consumer of it too, to be a participant of it, right? How do I show up and give to that community?
