On 13 October, Substack launched Chat Channels. A publication can now run several subscriber group chats instead of one, and the creator controls who can join, post and reply. Each chat can be paywalled to paying subscribers or left open to all. Obsession reports each publication can run up to 16 rooms, each with its own name, photo, audience and posting settings, and rooms can be limited to paid subscribers or founding members.
Double click and Substack is chasing the paid community. Obsession compares it with Patreon, which allows up to 10 tier-locked chats, and with Discord, which sits in a separate app. My read: Substack wants members to pay for the conversation as well as the newsletter, and to stay inside Substack to have it.
For a brand, the interesting part is segmentation. Separate rooms mean you can give your founding members, your repeat buyers and your product testers their own spaces, with different rules, instead of one noisy group.
Our PR and community rule: know your avatars, find where they are, then get in front of them. If your avatars already read your Substack, this is a cheap way to go deeper with them. If they don't, it's a tool looking for an audience.