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Why Discord has become a key tool to build the Women’s Running magazine community

Messaging platform Discord has grown to be a core community-building tool at Women’s Running. Senior Editor Esther Newman explains how it has helped the publication centre women and learn more about their audience.

It’s not enough to be ‘just a magazine’ in the modern media landscape. We’ve discussed the ridiculous range of platforms that make up most publishing portfolios on the Publisher Podcast, and Women’s Running seems to be using most of them.

Senior Editor Esther Newman describes the brand’s monthly print edition as ‘the beating heart’ of the Women’s Running brand, but she and her team meet their audience across a range of platforms, as she explains on this week’s episode of The Publisher Podcast.

As well as the monthly magazine, a weekly podcast and social media feeds, the magazine offers its audience a Patreon membership and Discord channel. The members-only forum-style app allows users to interact in threaded discussions and has become the centre of community engagement and an invaluable focus-group tool for the brand.

From Patreon to Discord

Women’s Running readers and podcast listeners can choose from two levels of Patreon membership:

• Running Buddies for £2 a month, giving access to live chats over Zoom 

• Cheer Squad for £6, adding exclusive bonus podcast episodes

Esther says that while memberships ‘trickled along’ initially, the introduction of monthly live chats over Zoom boosted its numbers and a Patreon-powered Discord channel has been the ‘game changer’. “Patreon introduced a Discord integration, allowing patrons to join a Women’s Running Discord channel with one click. That’s been absolutely brilliant.”

Magazine publishers that are trying to build a community need to have some way in which their audience can talk to each other, Esther says. “If you just have Instagram or Facebook, all they’re doing is commenting… if they do argue, then it’s just two people having a spat. We needed a way in which they could have a conversation.”

For Women’s Running, that has become Discord.

A safe space

Esther describes the Women’s Running Discord channel as a ‘safe space’. “It’s quite early days, so only in the hundreds of people that are using it, not the 1000s.” However, she says, “No one else can join unless they’re paying [at least] £2 a month.”

She explains that the social aspect of women’s running is huge. “I think people mostly join our community because they want to find what they would find at a social run group, and that’s what we’re trying to offer. It’s that kind of community space for them.”

A lot of the brand’s Discord users are solo runners that don’t have a real-life club to run with. “What they really want is, that nurturing, that feeling of community, where they’re being looked after and supported, whether that’s to do with running or whether that’s to do with the myriad other problems that’s just life.”

She thinks that if the brand ran real-life running groups, the women who joined would know that they’d be meeting fellow ‘Sweary Marys’. “People that wouldn’t mind having a drink occasionally… people that aren’t that interested in breaking three hours in a marathon, but really want to improve their health, and to get out of the house.”

Finding focus

Providing a space for special interest audiences is at the core of nice magazine publishing, but beyond community engagement, the Discord channel acts as a focus group for the Women’s Running team.

Esther said that, recently, she’d faced criticism from Discord users because she and co-host Holly talked too much about running in recent episodes.

“They’re honestly, really, really cross with us,” she laughs. “That is where we hear them going, ‘Ooh, there’s too much talk about running. Please talk about the Great British Bake Off again’. OK, fine, we’ll go back to doing a bit more Bake Off content.”

Esther says the team is quite often surprised by their audience. “You can’t please 100% of the people 100% of the time, but we have so many different ways in which we can communicate with them.”

Sometimes, the communication spills over into real life. Esther says she loves meeting Women’s Running readers and podcast listeners at real-world events, from the National Running Show in Birmingham to the Paris half-marathon.

“We get all the hugs and the love coming back, but also feeling as though we’re doing something worthwhile. You have these vital conversations with people that you don’t necessarily get on Discord. You think, ‘I know we’re rambling into the abyss, but actually, what we’re doing is meaningful for these women who want to feel part of something that is safe and women friendly and supportive.”

The safety storm

Every time Women’s Running addresses the issue of safety directly, Esther says it turns into ‘a storm’. “Going into winter, we talk about safety all the time. But safety is two-pronged. It’s making sure you’re not run over and making sure you’re not killed. It’s highly emotive.”

Esther tells the story of someone she met recently at a running event. “There was such a gorgeous woman at The Running Show who spoke to me, who had accessed our brand and had been listening to us for a year, but she hadn’t quite plucked up the courage to run yet. She just said that she felt terrified, and lots of women feel terrified – about the whole killing thing – but there’s also the fear of just being looked at, being heckled.”

Publishing personas

Esther’s says Women’s Running’s job is to create a ‘safe bubble’ for women runners to feel supported, valued and celebrated for their achievements.

A recent exercise to develop personas for the brand highlighted the different types of women that interact with the brand. “We realised, maybe we could come up with one or two for the magazine, but they’re not going to be the same as the podcast persona. And that’s not going to be the same as the person that uses the website or the person that talks to us through Instagram. I think there’s maybe four or five.”

Discord has given Women’s Running a way to engage with all those personas without travelling to running events, from elite athletes interested in nutrition content to women who haven’t actually run yet.

So while it’s understandable to see running as the central focus of the Women’s Running brand, Esther says the growing community has helped her centre women. “It all comes down to women. I sometimes wonder with the brand, we put equal value on those two words and I do wonder if we need to make it WOMEN’S running.”

She says Women’s Running’s role across all platforms is to encourage women to believe in themselves as women and as runners, whatever kind of running they do and however they interact with the brand.

“I love the way that we are able to do that, and we’re able to support people on their journeys, whatever they’re doing. It’s so important for women to not think of themselves as being somehow not as good as each other – or as men – when they go for their first walk-run.”

This season of The Publisher Podcast & Newsletter is sponsored by Memberful, a best-in-class membership solution for independent publishers and journalists who want to diversify their revenue streams and connect with their audience.

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