How to make the most out of Substack chat
Are you making the most of this underused Substack function?
Hey!
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.