How to rethink the way we build a community
The 8 steps I've followed to create a home for thousands
I feel like community is a bit of a buzzword right now. People no longer want followers, or viewers or even an audience. What they want is a tribe; a group, a gang that feels like their people.
A lot of people think they have communities on social media. But can you really have a community of 100,000 people? Or are they more of an audience; individuals who are simply inquisitive about what you have to offer? (Or you know, hate follows, which is a whole other Substack post.)
I have been thinking about community a lot recently. Especially in respect of Substack which is where I mainly live nowadays, my Instagram account having mainly become a repository for random dog pictures and floral arrangements.
When I edited magazines, which I did for over a decade, we were trained to be obsessed about readers. Where did she live? What did she eat? Who did she date? This was how most magazines were put together, with a single reader in mind. That didn’t mean we thought everyone was the exact same person you are to understand, but it was a way to try and corral thoughts and ideas.
For a time that technique worked well. Women’s Health, the magazine I first edited, amassed a readership of 110,000 in its first year. By the time I got to Cosmopolitan, that number was nearer 300,000.
But what did all these numbers mean? I know one thing: they didn’t mean we had a community. This became apparent when we decided to put on a series of events at Cosmo. They were good events by the way- great speakers, a fancy lunch, the opportunity to meet the Cosmo staff and other readers- you get the idea. But selling tickets was hard. Really hard. I think we only had to shift about a hundred tickets but it felt like we had to flog it on every social channel we had (which, by the way had millions of followers); every magazine page we could spare, and every digital article we could muster.
So what went wrong? Nothing. We just had a huge audience but no real community.
I feel like Instagram is the closest approximation we have to magazines; a place filled with lots of lovely glossy houses whose front doors everyone wants to peer through. But just because you want to peer inside a home doesn’t mean you want to live there. Or even grab a cup of tea inside every now and then.
I’ve seen this with my own eyes. As part of my day job (I head up writer partnerships for Substack right here in the UK and Europe) I have to crawl through people’s social numbers. And let me tell you, it’s revealing. Those who have thriving communities are rarely those you expect. And those you think would have huge communities, really are more like a magazines: glossy totems with vast audiences. (Obviously there are exceptions.)
And so I have spent years thinking about communities, as both a former journalist and editor, but also as someone who has been writing here on Substack for over two years.
I have 43,000 subscribers to this newsletter but I would say around 2000 in my deep community. These are the names I recognise; the voices I turn to and the women and men who always have something valuable to say.
So today I thought I would do something a bit different and share with you everything I have learned about what builds, sustains and creates a wonderful community. As ever please feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments or join me on my Chat channel to explore the topic a bit further. (And it goes without saying that if you want to join my community it does mostly happen behind the paywall. But your money does goes towards supporting me and all the writers I am able to pay, many of whom are first time writers as well as so many other benefits.)
Right, let’s get to it…