How to make the most out of Substack chat
The Substack chat is a great place to engage with your audience and get to know your subscribers.
In today’s edition of Grow Your Newsletter I wanted to speak a little about how you can use the Substack chat to effectively engage with your audience. Substack is a fantastic place for collaboration, so why not make the most of it?
How does it work?
You can join the Substack chat on a desktop or via the app. You have the option to message people privately, join chats of publications you subscribe to or begin a chat for your own newsletter. If you’ve never used it before, hit the button below and you can have a look through the Freelance Writing Network chat.
You have a few different customisation options for each chat, too. You can paywall the entire thing if you want, paywall specific posts or even just paywall the replies and nothing else.
You can also notify subscribers of your chat via email (which I do occasionally). Usually I do this for the extra opportunities that I share throughout the week, so paid subscribers get a notification of when these are updated.
If you’re new to the chat function, have a little play around and look at what others are doing. I’m going to share a few ways that you can use the chat to help you grow and engage with your audience.
Get to know your community
Not everything on Substack has to be about paywalls and making money. You might make money from a newsletter, you might not. Even if you do, it might just be pocket money. Writing a newsletter should be about more than just trying to make cash.
Lately I have loved getting to know the FWN community using this tool. If you look at the FWN chat, I’ve asked various questions in the last few weeks with totally open ended replies - literally anyone who subscribes to the newsletter can reply and engage.
I love this because it helps me get to know the writers who read the Freelance Writing Network. There are well over 9000 of you subscribed to this newsletter now, and I absolutely love seeing what you are working on or getting to know you a little. I read all of the replies people send and try to take the time to reply to as many as I can.
I think that using the Substack chat to foster this community is great for keeping people engaged in what you are doing. Not only that, but the conversations and insight can be genuinely interesting. I like using the chat for this because it’s genuinely enjoyable, not for any deeper reason or to just try and make money.
I do paywall some aspects of this newsletter, of course, but I still want a space where everyone can come and share their thoughts and ideas.
Use it for exclusive content
Of course, the Substack chat is a great place to offer more for paid subscribers as well.
Recently I have modified my extra opportunities thread, and this now comes out on a Friday every single week with (hopefully) around 20 extra pitch calls/freelance writing opportunities. It’s only something small, but it means paid subscribers get access to even more opportunities before the next newsletter.
There are other ways of creating extra value for paid subscribers, too. Some ideas and examples of others I have seen include:
An ‘Ask Me Anything’ thread, in which paid subscribers can ask the creator anything about the topic in hand. If I did one of these with the FWN, it would involve taking questions about freelancing and writing. But it could look relevant to whatever your specialism is. If you write about a specific topic, like science or the environment, for example, your ‘AMA’ thread might be ultra subject specific.
Note shares. A few creators I know of run chat threads with Note shares. This is where readers can share their latest Substack Notes and each like and repost those of others in the chat. It’s a way to ‘hack’ the Notes algorithm and boost engagement. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it’s ethical, but it’s one way of encouraging paid subscriber engagement.
Allowing only paid subscribers to start threads. This is something I have in place for all of my Substack publications - only paid subs can start a new chat. This means paid subscribers can ask you anything, while free subscribers can only reply to chats that already exist. It might not encourage new paid subscribers, but it does work as an added benefit.
My best advice would be to have a scroll through the chats of other publications to see if anyone is doing anything interesting. Substack bestsellers (those with the ticks next to their name) are usually pretty good with ideas for this - so nab them! You might have a fresh, interesting idea. You might not. So find something that you can see already works and do it yourself!
How to use the chat effectively
To get the most out of the Substack chat, I’d strongly recommend the following:
Consistency. Being consistent in using the chat is what helps to engage your audience and keep you fresh in their mind. You don’t need to post something groundbreaking every day, just use and engage in an active manner.
Being clear on expectations. It’s great if readers know what the chat involves and what discussions to expect. My book club members, for example, are familiar with the end of month discussion and the mid-month check in. It means they know how the chat works and what to expect. This is especially important if you are going to utilise the chat specifically for paid subscribers.
Promote the chat. Share it in your newsletters, on social media, in your welcome email. Not everyone is aware that it exists, so remind them! Just because you are a chronic Substack user, it doesn’t mean everyone else is. Many of my family and friends are broadly unclear on what the app actually involves.
Ensure it’s interactive. For the most part, you want to encourage discussion, be that with replies or questions. It’s less of a space to share a full newsletter post, rather somewhere to discuss what you’re writing about or the topic at hand. In the chat, people want to actually speak. So allow them the opportunity to do so!
Moderate. It doesn’t happen loads, but occasionally I’ll remove spam from the chat. I have zero issues with people promoting their own work, but people trying to sell a product or advertise in that space is not what I’m looking for. Sometimes comments might be offensive or abusive too (though this hasn’t happened to me yet as people on Substack have been very polite). Just keep an eye on the threads to make sure they are used appropriately for what you want.
Any questions?
If you have a question that you would like to ask me about the chat, please do feel free to lave a comment! I’d love to hear any thoughts or queries that you might have.
And, of course, as a paid subscriber to this newsletter, you can start threads of your own in the Freelance Writing Network chat!