“Online communities should activate real-world interactions.” This I think is the heart of it. Does Substack have any intention of building features to encourage and possibly monetize this? An incentive structure around subscription is an improvement over attention as discussed in the article, but an incentive structure around in person meetups takes it a step further.
Well, you can already email your subscribers by country or state. I did that while traveling, emailing subscribers in each country as I visited and scheduling meetups!
Thanks for this interview. My main takeaway and assignment came from Hamish's comment:
"Online communities should activate real-world interactions. There are certain things you could build into platforms that would actively encourage that, like selling tickets to events. Or helping them run good meetups, happy hours, or gatherings."
I am going to work on that...any thoughts in addition to Hamish's?
I had hoped that posting my substacks on Nextdoor.com would be an entree to personally connect with neighbors who live close by. However, after my fourth time of being kicked off from the site, they have barred me for a year from posting. They told me it was a staff decision because I was writing too much about non local politics. With Nextdoor, you know you are talking to people who live in your neighborhood. With Substack, I have no idea where subscribers are located and how to make face to face contact with them.
You can actually email your subscribers by country or state. I did that while traveling—I emailed subscribers in each country and then scheduled meetups with them!
Bless you for taking the time to steer me in the right direction. I need to take more advantage of your new type of publishing…just got too many things going right now. I do appreciate your efforts to innovate.
Great interview Elle
“Online communities should activate real-world interactions.” This I think is the heart of it. Does Substack have any intention of building features to encourage and possibly monetize this? An incentive structure around subscription is an improvement over attention as discussed in the article, but an incentive structure around in person meetups takes it a step further.
Well, you can already email your subscribers by country or state. I did that while traveling, emailing subscribers in each country as I visited and scheduling meetups!
Thanks for this interview. My main takeaway and assignment came from Hamish's comment:
"Online communities should activate real-world interactions. There are certain things you could build into platforms that would actively encourage that, like selling tickets to events. Or helping them run good meetups, happy hours, or gatherings."
I am going to work on that...any thoughts in addition to Hamish's?
I so agree, I've been thinking about that a lot in my own work. How we can do the things in-person more!
I had hoped that posting my substacks on Nextdoor.com would be an entree to personally connect with neighbors who live close by. However, after my fourth time of being kicked off from the site, they have barred me for a year from posting. They told me it was a staff decision because I was writing too much about non local politics. With Nextdoor, you know you are talking to people who live in your neighborhood. With Substack, I have no idea where subscribers are located and how to make face to face contact with them.
You can actually email your subscribers by country or state. I did that while traveling—I emailed subscribers in each country and then scheduled meetups with them!
Nice. How do you find that information?
Dashboard > Subscribers > Filter > Type > then select country or state (you'll have to use the two letter abbreviation for either)
Bless you for taking the time to steer me in the right direction. I need to take more advantage of your new type of publishing…just got too many things going right now. I do appreciate your efforts to innovate.
Nice…how do you access locations