Aloha Flow Riders,

Katie screwed up this week. The numbers looked incredible, but Josh—one of her most loyal community members—had the worst experience.

The lesson: Your vanity metrics don't matter if you're destroying the experience for the people who actually show up.

The Big Lesson We Learned This Week

Katie tested Ecamm's dual-mode streaming. One show, multiple platforms, both vertical and horizontal feeds.

The problem: YouTube split the streams into two separate feeds, wide and vertical. Josh, one of Katie's most engaged community members for The VHS Club Podcast ended up alone on the vertical feed with no one he recognized in the chat. Meanwhile, everyone else was in the main chat laughing, connecting, having a blast.

Josh was on an island. Alone.

The game-changer? Josh felt comfortable enough to reach out and say "Hey, this didn't feel great."

That's community. An audience member would've just left.

YOUR 4 COMMUNITY MOVES THIS WEEK

1. Choose Your Clubhouse

Pick ONE primary space where your community gathers.

Katie's fix: She's keeping vertical streams as "display feeds" for discovery, but immediately directing new viewers: Want to be part of the conversation? The VHS Club is chatting on YouTube's main feed.

If you multistream, tell people where the main party is. Pin a comment. Say it at the start. Make it obvious.

2. Make ONE Clear Ask Per Episode

Stop overwhelming people with 47 different calls to action.

One ask. That's it.

3. Create Experiences, Not Just Content

Stop obsessing over perfect equipment. Start thinking about how it FEELS to be in the room with you.

Quick wins:

• Add a scene that highlights community comments
• Welcome people by name when they show up
• Respond to comments in real-time. It's a conversation, not a monologue.

4. Test Without Stakes

Want to try new tech or formats? Do throwaway streams where nothing is on the line.

Doc's advice: "Pop up on a Thursday and say, 'Hey, I'm testing some scenes. Hang out and work while I work.' Get your reps in when it doesn't matter."

WATCH THE FULL EPISODE

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This newsletter only scratches the surface. In the full episode, Doc and Katie also cover:

• Why promoting community members to moderators changed everything (and when to do it)
• The "vertical feed creeper" problem and how to handle trolls without losing your mind
• How to handle feedback when you thought you nailed it (spoiler: your ego will hate this)

COMING NEXT WEEK

Expert Guest: Becky Pearson Davidson

Becky is a community-building powerhouse and podcaster who's going to break down exactly how she creates ride-or-die communities around her shows.

Then in Week 4: Our first-ever Mailbag Episode! Send your questions or wins to ecamm.tv/mailbag (video format, landscape orientation preferred for easier editing).

Join us every Tuesday at 12 PM Eastern at flow.ecamm.com​

Mahalo,
​Doc & Katie

P.S. Got a win or question about building your community?

Record a quick video (landscape, please!) and send it to ecamm.tv/mailbag. We might feature you in our Week 4 mailbag episode!