Levels of Substack: Part 3 — Designing the Projectkin Forum
In the third in our Substack + Family History series, we explore the landscape of our Projectkin publication. We share the design decisions we made and how to get the most out of the forum.
Part 1 should have given you some context for what the platform is, and how it’s different from alternatives on the market. Part 2 dove into the lexicon of the platform to give you an overview of how to use it. This last Part 3 explains the design choices for our Projectkin publication.
Designing the Projectkin Forum on Substack
Like an onion, ogre, or donkey1, our
has layers. I wanted the Forum to be welcoming with articles that explain in more detail what types of events we host and resources we share. Since I launched it without a paid tier, I don’t use Substack’s paywall infrastructure.Insider sections of the Forum
Instead of a paid tier, I’ve stored the high-value parts of our Forum (event recordings, resources, and recipes) in sections that are not directly accessible to non-subscribing visitors. Those special goodies are tucked away in sections you can’t get to from the top level. You’ll see them referenced with a lock emoji in the title like 🔐 Members’ Chat Room.
The idea is to encourage visitors to become subscribers. Subscribing is entirely free, and gets you …
Posts to every event recording sent to you via email as they’re released
Resources and materials as shared in each program
Access to our online database of project ideas
Access to the recipes showing how to duplicate presented projects
Here are the discussion threads in Chat (tap any to join the discussion)…
Event Archives (All event recordings go out to all members as video posts as soon as they’re available. The collection is then available in links in chat.)
Project Ideas (This includes a database I use to track these wonderful and crazy ideas long before we have a completed project to celebrate with a recipe event.)
General Questions (This has already ballooned into an active topic.)
As the publication editor, I may curate Chat thread topics into existing or new pages as appropriate.
TIP: Use the Find feature in your browser to search for Chat threads. That should work in any computer browser. Use the search button along the navigation bar in the
to find any posts in the archive. (This works the same way in all publications.)
Until we get a routine established, the ability to start new threads is limited to editors of the
. If you have a topic question but don’t see it already started as a thread, feel free to add it to the General Questions thread. You have to be a subscriber to chat, but if you aren’t any link to Chat will get you set up in a few short taps.Engaging & Sharing
Since sharing is key to the success of any publication, Substack encourages subscriptions at every turn:
Post links take a visitor straight to the post.
Publication links, like projectkin.substack.com, take a subscriber straight to the publication. A non-subscribing visitor, however, will first see a welcome page that introduces them to the publication and suggests they subscribe with some useful recommendation blurbs supplied by other subscribers.
Generally, anyone can view the contents of any page, unless that page is behind a paywall:
Post, Chat, and Note links can be embedded in any post by pasting a link (see the Chat example above☝️). All subscribers in the Projectkin Community Forum explore the Chat interface. (Some publications reserve chat and comments for paid subscribers.)
Posts are configurable by the publication owner with sophisticated sharing elements. You may see some of these on social media, like this:
On publications with paid subscriptions, paid sections will require a paid membership. It’s pretty simple.
Here on the Projectkin Community Forum, anyone can view our content though I encourage subscriptions.
Event recordings, resources, and recipes are some of our most compelling materials. My current approach is to present this special content in “locked” sections designated with a 🔐 emoji like Project Recipes 🔐.
If these pages are shared, then they get the same treatment as an ordinary page. Visitors can still view the page, I’ll simply encourage them to subscribe.
You’re welcome to share these “Locked” pages with friends you think may enjoy the material and choose to join us. New features give subscribers a mechanism to like ♡ and share video clip from any event recording.
Sharing and recommending are key to the growth of any particular publication — and the success of the Substack platform. This is why you see such a rich set of tools for sharing.
Many of you have been recommending Projectkin.org to your friends and readers already. Thank you for that. Share using any mechanism that feels right for you: Projectkin.org,
, or any Post, Note, or Chat that resonates for you.This button gives you the flexibility to share each element as an email, on social media, or simply as a link.
Why this works for us at Projectkin
After just a few weeks on Substack, I’ve been thrilled by the incredible growth we’ve seen. I attribute that to several factors including the existing community of family historians here on Substack. They’ve been wonderfully generous in their advice and welcoming to our mission.
I’ve taken the time to share this level of detail about the platform because I think it might be instructive to others considering Substack for their blogs, newsletters, and communities. The more genealogy and family history buffs collaborating on Substack the better for everyone in the field.
I continue to be active on a large number of different social platforms representing Projectkin. You’ll also find a handy list of the links in the footer at Projeckin.org. I’ve captured the list with my characterization of each platform here:
The Future of this
For all the reasons described in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I’ve been very happy with the transition to Substack and our rate of growth. It stands to reason, right?
Every family (somewhere) has a family historian
Every family historian is (somehow) hooked on stories.
What we’ve lacked is the confidence and support to explore these stories in ways that are easy, relevant, and will resonate with future generations. Too often the incredible storytelling technologies we have access to today seem intimidating. They shouldn’t be.
We’re in this together and here for you.
We’re not here to advertise, print books, or make stuff. We’re here to help you capture and share your stories — in whatever form works best for you. This is why I’m convinced this is a mission and not a business.
I’m keeping these events and materials available and free. I can fund the small incidental expenses myself and Substack’s architecture has made that possible. Once we’re big enough, I anticipate turning on the mechanisms to collect contributions as expenses grow with scale.
I’m all in favor of economic incentives. I fully support the many businesses growing here on Substack sharing their work, insight, and writing — AND getting paid for it. I love the model and am happy to support other writers and share what I’ve learned.
I want this
to be collaborative and supportive. I’m delighted you’ve come by for a visit and invite you to join us as a subscribing member and recommend Projectkin to others.This Part 3 should have given you some perspective on the design of our publication as a community. If you missed it, Part 1 introduced Projectkin on the Substack platform and Part 2 described a high-level view of how key features of the platform work.
In crafting the publication, I realized that layers were the best metaphor so that we don’t drown new members in the details. I hope it’s helpful. Certainly, it’s fun since “nobody don’t love parfait” 😉.