How to create a Discord community and assign roles for your publication

Discord is a free online communication platform that offers voice, video, and text chat, primarily organized into virtual communities called servers. Within a server, members can collaborate in real time, with access and permissions managed through Discord roles.

With beehiiv’s native integration (available in the App Marketplace), you can automatically add subscribers to a Discord server connected to your newsletter, and create private, role-based channels that only paid subscribers can access.

Before using the integration, you’ll need to:

• Create a Discord account and community.
• Set up a Discord server for your publication.
• Create roles to manage subscriber access.
• Create a channel with role restrictions.

This article will guide you through those setup steps. Once complete, refer to our article on integrating beehiiv with Discord to start seeing these features in action.

1. Go to the Discord login page and click on Register, found below the Log In button.
   
   
   
2. Fill out the required fields (email, display name, username, password, and date of birth), then click on the Create Account button.
   
   
   
   
   For additional guidance, you can view this quick tutorial from Discord on setting up an account. 

A Discord server is the digital home for your community. It can contain multiple channels (like #general, #news, or #pets) to organize discussions. Servers are free, support groups of any size, and include built-in moderation and customization tools.

1. After creating your Discord account, a pop-up will appear to create your server. You can start from scratch or choose a template such as Artists and Creators.
   
   
   
2. Select For a club or community from the options. 
   
   
   
3. Name your server to match your publication or brand, upload an icon, then click the Create button.
   
   
   
   
   For additional guidance in setting up a Discord server view this quick tutorial from Discord. 

Roles are used in Discord to organize member permissions and access to channels in your server. They can also be used to assign access to exclusive channels in your server that require an upgrade to a paid newsletter subscription — which is a great way to use roles with your beehiiv publication. 

Having at least one role configured is also a requirement to integrate Discord with beehiiv. This ensures new subscribers are properly assigned when they are added to your Discord server and gives them an exclusive identifier, available only to your newsletter subscribers

1. From your Discord account, right click on your server icon, then select Server Settings > Roles.
   
   
   
2. On the Roles page, click the Create Role button.
   
   
   
3. Name the role. If you plan to tie it to a paid subscription tier in your beehiiv account, choose a name that matches or resembles the tier.
    
4. Select a role style and color, then click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen.
   
   
   

1. From your Discord account, click the + icon for the Text Channels section to create a channel for paid subscribers.
   
   
   
2. Select a channel type:

• Text: Best for chat-style conversations (and most common).
• Forum: Useful for larger communities or threaded discussions.
  
  
  

3. Provide a channel name that reflects paid subscribers, toggle Private Channel on, and click Next.
    
4. Select which roles can access the channel, then click Create Channel.
   
   
   
5. Once the channel is created, you’ll see a lock icon indicating that access to the channel is limited to certain roles.
   
   
   

1. From your Discord account, click the settings icon for the channel you want to set role restrictions for.
   
   
   
2. Go to the Permissions tab, then toggle on Private Channel.
    
3. Click the Add members or roles button.
   
   
   
4. Select the roles that you want to have access to the channel, then click Done.
   
   
   
5. Lastly, click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen.
   
   For additional information on managing roles and permissions, please refer to this guide from Discord. 
   
   
   

Now that you have a Discord account and have assigned roles for your publication, please refer to this article for details on using the beehiiv Discord integration.