So you set up your Discord server and you want to keep your community updated with important news, event announcements, or special updates? A Discord announcement channel is the perfect way to share information with your members without cluttering general chat.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to set one up step by step. Whether you're running a gaming community or a business, an announcement channel ensures your most important messages don’t get lost in the conversation. Let’s get started!
Jump Ahead:
How Is a Discord Announcement Channel Different from a Regular Text Channel?
A Discord announcement channel is designed for broadcasting essential updates, like event details, product launches, or community news. On the other hand, a regular text channel is an open chat space where members can freely send messages, share media, and have discussions.
The key difference is that announcement channels allow members (or even other servers) to follow them, meaning your updates can be automatically shared across multiple communities.
How to Set up a DiscordAnnouncement Channel
Step 1: Enable Community in Your Settings
Before creating an announcement channel, you need to enable Community for Discord from your Server Settings by choosing the options from the dropdown next to your server's name.
FYI, Community doesn’t mean that your server will get more exposure or attract more members, it just means that you’ll be able to share posts from other servers on your server and vice versa.
Step 2: . Complete the Safety Checks
You’ll need to verify your email with Discord and enable Scan media content from all members. This ensures that no one will post any explicit content in your server.
Step 3: Designate the Required Channels
To set up your channel for Community, you’ll need a designated rules channel and a channel specifically for Admins and Mods to receive updates from Discord. If you don’t have these channels created already, an option will appear to have Discord create them for you.
Step 4: Confirm the Final Suggestions and Click Finish Setup.
Discord gives you the option to have notifications default to Mentions Only, which is useful for limiting the number of pings you receive. There is also a suggestion from Discord to remove moderation permissions from users in the “@everyone” role.
The “@everyone” role is meant for general users who are below “Admin” and “Mod” in rank. It’s a good idea to check this to ensure that only higher-ranked users can make changes in your server.
Step 5: Choose a Channel to Designate as an Announcement Channel
Click the gear icon next to the channel of your choosing and it will take you to this screen.
Here you can toggle the Announcement Channel option.
Step 6: Your Announcement Channel is Ready!
The megaphone icon means that you successfully created your announcement channel—well done! Now that your announcement channel is set up, you’ll see an option to “publish” posts. This allows your announcements to reach not just your server members but also anyone who follows your server. Likewise, if you follow other servers, you can choose where their announcements appear in your own server.
Discord’s “Follow” feature lets you pull updates from other communities into your personal server. For example, if you run a Genshin Impact server, you could follow the official Genshin server and have its announcements automatically posted in a channel of your choice. You can also follow fan-run servers, like meme or news servers, to keep all relevant updates in one place.
This feature helps consolidate information, so you don’t have to jump between multiple servers to stay updated. If you use it, make sure your announcement channel settings are restricted so that only you (or designated admins/mods) can post, ensuring your followers receive only relevant updates.
Give it a try and see how it enhances your community!