‘Get a dose of sanity’: How Dan Harris found success with live videos

Dan Harris is a bestselling author, the host of the 10% Happier podcast, and a former ABC news anchor. He went live with Substack CEO Chris Best yesterday to share the creative ways he’s been using live video in the Substack app, and offered recommendations for others hoping to take advantage of the feature. Here, we’re sharing a few highlights from their conversation.

Learn more about going live on Substack:

On getting creative with live videos

Chris Best: This feature that we’re using right now, Substack Live, it’s a new thing for us. It’s something that we’ve developed relatively recently. And you have been one of the people who is using it not only very successfully but, in my view, very creatively. And I’d love to hear from you, how are you thinking about it? And what is the live piece of what you’ve been doing on Substack?

Dan Harris: Essentially, it’s 10 minutes of guided meditation, and then I take questions. And so what we’ve been doing recently, for example, is a series of live guided meditations starting on Sunday, running through Wednesday, to help people deal with the tumult around Trump’s inauguration. No matter where you stand, people have strong feelings. And so we’re creating a place where people can come, get a dose of sanity in the form of a meditation from me, and then ask questions.

On the benefits for paid subscribers versus free

Dan Harris: One of the benefits that we’ll be providing to our paid subscribers is we’ll create a chat very soon where only paid subscribers can submit their questions in advance, and those will get preferential treatment. We do a mix of live events for paid subscribers and for everybody. So [these] inauguration [meditations] will be for everybody.

We [also] did a bunch of stuff around the election. We did a series called Election Sanity that was free for everybody. And I also do a monthly paid-subscriber-only AMA, and I’m probably going to up the cadence on that to much, much more [frequent] because the response has been so good.

On the value of posting a live video after it ends

Dan Harris: What we’re seeing is that we get a certain amount of people who tune in live, but we get sometimes 10, 20, 30 times that [number] watching it asynchronously later.

On when to promote a live video

Chris Best: So do you tell people, like, “Hey, this is coming up today. Tune in at this time.” And just give them a little taste of it? How do you promote on [the different] platforms?

Dan Harris: It really depends on the platform. On Substack, we’re trying to give plenty of notice. So today, we sent out an email to all of our subscribers saying that starting on Sunday, we will be doing Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—four days of programming around the inauguration. So we gave some heads-up and we gave times, so people can put it in their calendars.

On Instagram and on Notes, it’s more like, “Hey, this is happening right now. You should come check it out.”

On using collaborative live video to grow

Dan Harris: I have found that working with fellow Substackers has been really helpful. I mentioned I’m doing a series of lives around the inauguration—Sharon McMahon and Van Jones will be participating in those lives with me. And I’ve done joint posts with Susan Cain. And I just got an email this morning from Elizabeth Gilbert, and we’ll do a thing.

And so I actually think if you’re looking to grow, partnering with these other amazing people on the platform is a great opportunity.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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