Hey y'all, a quick backstory before I ask my questions:
I have a newsletter with 500+ subscribers that started about 9 months ago. When people sign up, they get redirected to a Typeform asking them what else they'd like to see.
"Community" is the clear winner, so I'm playing with the idea of how that would look like.
My question is: What is the critical mass # that's large enough to turn an audience to a community?
I'm thinking that although I'm getting some leading indicators from my audience that they'd like a community, I'm not sure the pool is large enough to make it active and dynamic.
Would love to get your inputs, here to learn :)
Top comments (4)
I think it all depends on what you want to do with the community and how you're measuring 'active'. A Twitch streamer with say 800 followers and an average of 25 viewers can have a community and not just an audience (often with a Discord etc), but that community may only be particularly active in the time preceding, during, and just after a stream.
So maybe you want to do weekly discussions on the topic of your newsletter or something like that, which will peak activity. It just depends - what I will say is that just because your audience says they'd like a community, you yourself should have reasons you'd like to change the relationship from audience to community, and once/if you do, you can use those reasons as goals to measure success against.
That's super insightful, Alex - thanks!
My personal reason is for the communication not to be that one-sided. I get replies to my newsletter editions that gets me thinking "this would be so much more fun if other like-minded peers could chip in their two cents instead of just me"
But this a great thinking framework that begs to be explored deeper. Thanks again for your input!
@thepracticaldev turned into DEV slowly and steadily.... Originally asking folks to post to DEV as a way to get shared with the community, as opposed to trying to early on to foster that natural multi-sided marketplace.
Most of the best communities grow slowly and steadily over time. A lot of startups start building community right from the beginning. I'd suggest going from audience to community as soon as you start.