3 Lessons From Writing Online
(Photo Credit: Courtnie Lewis)
On this week's podcast, I spoke with Stew Fortier. Stew is the co-founder of Compound Writing, a community-powered writing workflow driven by some of the internet's best writers, editors, and experts.
We discuss starting an online community, the importance of writing online, and turning membership into a habit.
Why You Should Listen to this Episode
This episode combines two topics that I feel are relevant today: writing online and building a community. Stew has been writing online for years. He realized that despite there being a lot of material on writing, there was still an opportunity to build a community. He was right. Compound Writing is building the premier online writing community. Stew shared his secrets on why it's working and how he is scaling it.
Ari's Three Actionable Takeaways for Marketing, Branding and Communication Professionals:
1) Experimentation Can Lead to a Career
Stew's first foray into writing was a complete fluke. He had the idea of starting the onion for the tech industry. There was no grand plan to take over the world or even generate income. It was something he did for fun.
He enlisted a few friends and they launched it. They created a whole "persona" for the brand. The company, TechLoaf, was born with
a fake CEO, Carl Cantana and the lowest ranking on Glassdoor. They had an email list with a few thousand subscribers and even ran a series of events. One notable event was creating a GoFundMe for Gary Vee to buy AirPods. Gary Vee was known for his wired headphones. The joke was to help Gary Vee pay for wireless headphones. Stew was shocked to see people donate to the cause.
Ultimately, this foray taught Stew that a group of a thousand email subscribers was much more valuable than a thousand social media followers. After that, Stew saw the power of writing online and building an email list.
2) Creating Collaboration and Aligning Incentives
Stew's writing community requires collaboration. It's not only for people to write, but for them to give feedback on each other's writing.
Stew realized that the best way to do that was to screen applicants and then align incentives. Everyone can’t join the Compound community. You need to apply and be selected. This exclusivity ensures that only high quality members can join. Once they are selected, they onboard the user to help ensure a smooth transition.
While they don't have an official rewards program similar to companies like Reddit. They are thinking about rewarding members for helping others. Informally, many members give shoutouts to writers who help with peer reviews. These shoutouts plus the focus on peer events help make the community more collaborative and less isolated.
3) Writing as a Career Multiplier
Much of my content talks about how companies can benefit from producing content. Stew talks about how writing benefits individuals. He thinks of writing online as a career multiplier. Networking isn't enough anymore. You have to use writing to showcase your skillsets and explain your expertise. Are you in paid marketing? Write a case study about some of your work. Write an article on a trend in paid marketing. Don't only say your an expert, but prove it through your writing.