Throughout the first lockdown I started getting back into playing video games. I had a few friends that wanted to play with me and we ended up playing together online. We played a few games, but settled with Minecraft as we had all played it as kids and wanted to re-live some good memories.
15 months later and we now have a server with players from all over the world… But we’re still growing.
I am setting out to turn a small discord group into a Minecraft community. My goal is to grow this server into a flurry of constant activity. To provide users with a centralised community, a Digital Space if you will.
To move people from the mindset of playing alone to playing with others in our digital space.
I decided to take this on with 4 steps:
- Invest in sites players spend time on,
- Create public content to catch gamers attention,
- Celebrate existing members with shoutouts and rewards,
- Incorporate members ideas to grow the server and improve gameplay,
I started with our social media.
Our Instagram has been running slowly as a side project for 8 months. Here I’ve celebrated the accomplishments and the impressive builds of our members and teased future content.
My plan for our instagram is to continue celebrating players and connect with players who are not yet in our Discord.
I started our twitch recently to take advantage of the giant platform that many players consume on.
With a huge audience and only a small percentage of twitch streamers (according to twitchstats.net), my hope is to use this to gain members in our discord.
Implementing a Fast Inexpensive Simple and Tiny mindset, I asked the discord communities thoughts and started streaming within the week.
Already with 9 followers, I already count this a success as we’ve gained new players through our first few streams.
Finally our Discord is the centralised hub for our digital community. Here is where updates are posted, members chat, and hang out for each other.
Jump into our Discord to join our community and see for yourself!
Until then, check out our videos on twitch and follow us so that you get become part of our gaming community!
See you in the Discord…
Boswell's Brain 
Hey Boswell,
I have checked out your DA pitch and I must say I am very impressed with how much you have already produced, from the server itself to the discord, Instagram, and your twitch streams, you’ve already got a plethora of content already out there for users to interact with.
Firstly, the concept of your DA is such a good idea, and it is awesome that it ties in so well with something you obviously really enjoy, I too was quite the Minecraft player back in the day but haven’t touched it in a while. Having a centralised community with sparling mediums to connect with both the existing player base as well as new potential players is your real key aim for this DA, attempting to expand upon your already existing and impressive community. I think your DA has a lot of utility for Minecraft players who are not only passionate about the game but also want to be a part of a new, exciting, and friendly group, with the mindset of moving those who play alone to joining and playing along with you and the rest of the.
I think that your methodology is currently really good, connecting the existing community on discord and Instagram, but also using Twitch and Instagram as a way to attract new users is smart. I think that your streams on Twitch could be very beneficial, with the potential for new users to stumble across your stream, or even get raided by a bigger stream (that is the extent of my Twitch knowledge unfortunately). The quality of your content also seems to be at a very respectable level, with both your Twitch, and Instagram content is very well produced.
My suggestions regarding your project are essentially to build off what you are doing now, you’re certainly going in the right direction. With the Instagram page you could possibly try and post content more frequently and ask more of your audience, get them to send you their new buildings, cool Minecraft videos they found on YouTube, tutorials for other members, group server event, anything that could make the page livelier and more interactive. Regarding Twitch you could try and collaborate with other members of the group, or even reach out to some bigger local creators and see if they would do a stream with you, something to bring new viewers to your own streams.
Finally, I thought that the quality of your pitch was really good, well written and edited, your message was clear, and I finished wanting to learn more. Hope this was a helpful evaluation and I can’t wait to see how you develop your DA throughout the semester.
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Hey Boswell (The Zone)
I have enjoyed reading and following along with this DA to the point of following and joining this epic project of yours. I appreciate your clearly defined audience and your understanding of where they reside. The use of a discord community and twitch really reaches your desired audience and creates a space whereas you said will begin to move people from their mindset of playing alone to playing with others. This is a great objective and desired outcome.
I’m interested in the use of Instagram within this space. I can see how it targets step 2 of your outcomes – ‘creating public content to catch gamers’ attention’. While I think this is the right aim and desire having looked at some of the content I think this could be one area that could have some improvement although my own argument against this suggestion is that I think it is a secondary priority. My suggestion would be seeing that ‘ Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing app’
https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/30/22557942/instagram-no-longer-photo-app-video-entertainment-focus
It would be wise to consider creating some video content that either highlights components of your Minecraft server or discord community, or some that provide value like quick ‘how to’ reels or just funny moments. Seeing as you already twitch stream the server I’m sure this ideation wouldn’t incur any extra costs on your part to screen record and the like. For some extra motivation, here is a reel that I made for my workplace that popped off because it was favoured by the reel algorithm.
You have some great automated messaging bots in the discord that highlight Instagram posts and dedicated chat threads for screenshots of people’s builds. This is a great use of the FIST framework as it automates the process for you and makes it easy to showcase your audience’s work on other platforms. You could continue to build upon this with a funny moments/highlights thread and encourage them to record themselves playing and clip it and post it for you to use on Instagram. This is just some simple repurposing I think this could also be crucially helpful as you continue to create from twitch and your user generated content. If you want to read about the benefits of doing so you can check that out here:
https://buffer.com/resources/repurposing-content-guide/
You have a great foundation to build upon here and I think this will only snowball and grow in followers, members, and those who create content for you. Numbers produce numbers I believe and you are certainly on the right track to make those numbers of people feel like real people as you provide them with a community that makes them feel known!
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