Is Discord the New Email List for Creators?

It has always been this way: build an email list. How many people you have on Instagram or how good your TikToks are really doesn’t matter. The minute the algorithm tweaks, you lose all those followers. At least your email list is yours for the taking.

But somehow, Discord has morphed into something different.

The Engagement Problem Is Hard to Ignore

I’ve been running both a Discord channel and email newsletter for about a year. The results are impossible to ignore. People barely open my emails for a few days, whereas they are engaging in my Discord chat rooms in minutes. When I post an update, everyone I care about sees it immediately — not because an algorithm picked it, but because they were there to choose it.

Which is where the idea of “owning” my audience gets more complicated. You need a lot of people in there to do it. An empty Discord feels a bit like a chat room nobody is hanging out in. A lot of creators buy discord members to start. Which is fine. It’s not really different than warming up your email address before sending your first campaign.

The Way Discord Is Different

It’s more than that, though. You can compare them in other ways as well. They’re both private platforms you can choose from. Neither is subject to an algorithm. Both require people to opt in. Plus, your audience talks to each other on Discord, and that is something you can’t do with email newsletters. People start recommending each other, talking to each other on channels, asking questions and having them be answered by other people. A Discord server is less like an email list and more like a community in a room.

Another point is money-making. You can have paid newsletters on platforms like Substack. Subscriptions and private channels have been made available through Discord subscriptions and channels, too. But in Discord, if people pay, then the feeling that they are really part of a community is stronger. Paid email lists are harder to distinguish. For musicians, this means something.

It Isn’t About Choosing

Discord won’t replace email, at least not today or probably never. Email still works best for long-form content, for reaching people who might not be on a communication app as much, for updates that should go to everyone who signed up. It’s probably best to look at them as both working well together. Email for broadcasting to everyone. Discord for conversations.

But the creators who will win with Discord are the ones who are doing more than just dropping Twitter links. They will create spaces for people, communities who will come back time and time again for no one’s profit except the community. That’s what the idea of an email list should have always been. With Discord, that just happens faster.

Build your room. And the people will come.