Having spent the last 7 months evolving my Substack "audience" into a "community" I'd say the two are quite different.
The key is member-to-member communication over you-to-member communication. As is the idea of membership... There needs to be some kind of barrier (not just paying) for people to be a part of the community for them to feel like the quality of it's members is guaranteed.
I've just separated my community from my Substack because I wanted to add an application process, focus on in-person events and delegate ownership to everyone. It seems to be going v well so far and feels like a super exciting next step!
Thanks for sharing this gem, Charlie! I immediately ordered that book and will definitely work through your notes. Super curious to learn more about how you're separating the community from your Substack. I'll follow up to your other message so we can grab some time!
For creating content it mostly comes down to consistency + being opinionated about something. I've legitimately made friends with complete strangers on LinkedIn in a way I haven't on any other platform.
Having spent the last 7 months evolving my Substack "audience" into a "community" I'd say the two are quite different.
The key is member-to-member communication over you-to-member communication. As is the idea of membership... There needs to be some kind of barrier (not just paying) for people to be a part of the community for them to feel like the quality of it's members is guaranteed.
I've just separated my community from my Substack because I wanted to add an application process, focus on in-person events and delegate ownership to everyone. It seems to be going v well so far and feels like a super exciting next step!
If you read one book on the subject, I fully recommend "The Business of Belonging" by David Spinks. It's the complete works on community building. In fact, here are all my notes from it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kz4sSFiPjyT9ywwnfzbaab8hc8mUhBDGr3t-lIBx4kA/edit?usp=sharing
Happy Community Building Nick!
Thanks for sharing this gem, Charlie! I immediately ordered that book and will definitely work through your notes. Super curious to learn more about how you're separating the community from your Substack. I'll follow up to your other message so we can grab some time!
Featuring other solopreneurs is a really cool idea—and that's another way to build community 😉
I'm building my own little referral loop: I feature someone -> they post about it -> I get more subscribers -> I feature one of them :)
Was just thinking how to better tackle LinkedIn. These are nice suggestions.
For creating content it mostly comes down to consistency + being opinionated about something. I've legitimately made friends with complete strangers on LinkedIn in a way I haven't on any other platform.