Jess McKay is a lifestyle and wellness creator in New York City. A fitness instructor for 10 years with a degree in Musical Theatre, she shares athleisure reviews, Broadway tips and life in the city with an audience of mostly women in their 20s and 30s.
Her business runs on affiliate recommendations, which means that her success is built on trust. Her audience buys what she endorses because they believe in her picks, and Jess makes a point of rewarding the members who show up for her most.
The creator wanted an audience that was truly hers, instead of one rented from social platforms that could change the rules at any time. She wanted her messages seen, and quickly. Every text also had to feel like it came from a friend.
She found all of it in Community.
Challenge
Before Community, Jess reached her audience on social media, through short-form video and livestreams, with a link in her bio. The algorithm decided who saw her posts. Genuine questions from her followers sat buried in hidden requests. One platform once mistook her engagement for bot activity and suspended her features for two weeks. Her livestream access was wrongfully taken away, and the platform wouldn’t reverse it.
Her first try at text marketing with a small provider didn’t solve her problem. The platform was not designed with creators in mind and couldn’t scale as her audience grew. Her limited sending threshold slowed her messages down, right when product drops needed to land instantly. Support sat in a different time zone and was hard to reach.
Between platforms that controlled her reach and a provider that couldn’t keep up, Jess found Community, a channel she fully owned, one that felt personal, could keep up with her texting needs, and came with a team that understood creators.
Solution
Sending at creator speed
Community cleared the sending hurdle first by treating Jess’s established social following as an asset, pointing to it as proof of a real business with opted-in fans. That earned her faster sending, so her drop alerts went out on time. When strict carrier filters caught harmless product names, like a “puffer” jacket or a color called “merlot,” Jess talked directly with Community’s team, who explained what triggered the filter and helped her clear issues fast.
Messages that read like a friend
Jess writes her texts in the same casual, friendly voice her audience knows from her videos. Her automated welcome flow sends new members a secret code three days after joining, an offer exclusive to her text list. Holiday sales bring her biggest traffic of the year, and she runs giveaways on text alone. Every prize goes to a member who chose to be there, with no bots or spam in the mix.
“Text makes it feel like it’s your best friend texting you, hey, shop this item before it sells out, you don’t want to miss it.”
The right message for the right members
Jess segments members by location and interest. When she promotes a local spa or sauna, only her local New York members hear about it. One brand had locations in New York, Miami, and Washington, D.C., so she reached members in those cities and no one else. Fans who want more on a specific topic are assigned to a dedicated Subcommunity that gets extra messages.
Two-way conversations and real-time data
Members write back. Some send kind notes or private questions they would never post in a public comment. Those messages come straight to Jess instead of disappearing into a hidden request folder on a social platform.
When Jess wanted to gauge interest in a retreat, a questionnaire promoted on social media failed to reach the minimum 8 responses. The same link sent by text received 96 responses within 48 hours all from a text campaign with a 10.7% click-through rate.
Behind the scenes, Jess’s husband, Ryan, handles the numbers and tracks every click in Community as it happens. Affiliate platforms take a long time to report, and occasional glitches show zero clicks on a busy day. With Community’s click data in hand, Jess can show partners exactly what she drove.
“When tracking our affiliate link performance, the affiliate platforms are hours behind and Community shows clicks immediately. This really helps to know what’s exciting to Jess’s audience and where we should continue to put our efforts whether it’s new items, flash sales, special drops, local deals, etc.”
Impact
In a single month, text drives 71% of the clicks on Jess’s affiliate links. She has full control over who sees every message. A social media algorithm no longer decides whether her fans see a drop, and no platform suddenly suspends her access to them.
Her text members are her most engaged audience. These are people who chose to hear from her directly, so they act when she reaches out. Jess sees a far stronger response from the list than from social.
The list has grown to nearly 6,000 members and keeps getting more valuable. Giveaways already live on text alone, and Jess is building more exclusive content for members next, starting with her holiday gift guide.
“You can’t put a price on owning your audience. With social media you never own. You can have your account taken away from you at any point.”
Social platforms can limit content visibility, bury messages, or take away features without warning. Jess’s text list answers only to her, and for a creator whose business runs on trust, that reliability is worth owning.
