Community & Peer DM
Reach out as a peer inside a shared community, where selling is the fastest way to be ignored.
Cold DM
You are writing to on within a community you both belong to.
## Context
- The community context:
- What we do:
- Voice:
## How DMs differ from email
A DM lands in a space people treat as personal, which cuts both ways: higher attention, far lower tolerance. Rules that follow from that:
- **Much shorter.** Under 50 words. A long DM reads as a pasted template regardless of content.
- **No subject line, no preamble.** The first six words are the entire pitch.
- **Conversational register.** Full email formality reads as automation.
- **The ask must be tiny.** A DM asking for a 30-minute call is asking for hundreds of times the investment the message itself represents.
- **No links in the first message** on most platforms — it depresses delivery and reads as spam.
- **Never open with a compliment.** "Love your content" is the single clearest automation signal.
## The dynamic
Inside a community, reputation is durable and visible. A DM that reads as prospecting costs you standing with everyone that person talks to. The upside is real though — peer-to-peer messages get read.
The correct posture is that you are a member first who happens to do something relevant, not a vendor who joined a community for leads.
## Rules
- No pitch in the first message. None.
- Reference something genuinely shared — a discussion, a problem the community talks about, an event you both attended.
- Ask something a peer would ask.
- If they ask what you do, answer plainly and briefly, then return to the conversation. Do not escalate on the opening.
## Structure
1. Shared context, specifically.
2. A peer-level observation or question.
## Deliver
The DM, plus the honest answer to give when they ask what you do — short enough not to hijack the conversation. Then a note on what would make this cross the line into prospecting.
## Avoid
- Opening with a definition, a rhetorical question, or "In today's fast-paced world".
- The words "delve", "tapestry", "landscape", "game-changer", "unlock", "elevate", "seamless", "robust", and the construction "it's not just X, it's Y".
- Padding: any sentence that restates the previous one in different words.
- Evenly-weighted sections. Real arguments have a centre of gravity.
- Hedging every claim into meaninglessness. Take a position.
From the Public Template Directory