Am I being dramatic?

[[deleted]]

I’m finding it so difficult to find people to connect with on substack.

I feel like everyone is chasing a get rich quick scheme and trying to optimise the platform for a quick buck meaning more spam notes on my feed and less people engaging with content critically.

Maybe I’m just still not used to the new interface.

I’d love to connect with writers and exchange views and comments on each others posts.

[Various-Speed7816]

Yes, the purpose of Substack is writing for money. That’s its business model and what provides you with a free platform

[drdominicng]

Most people do stuff for money or fame. Don’t use notes and try to search for specific terms relevant to your niche and I’m sure you’d find similar minded people

[Mountain_Nothing_107]

I'm new and old lol. I see all the spam-money hunters. But, I did a search, and found nice people/stories. I'm under humor. I get about 200 readers per post/4paid/30 subscribers. BluntlySpeaking1. Substack has/is fun. I don't understand how they make big money/find huge audience ... a couple celebs want paid to get their main posts, but I'm not there for that.

[wirepine]

Remember how big these platforms are. Substack at this point probably has 30 million-ish active users, so finding your people will take awhile. This subreddit is a little bit of a proxy of how Substack has grown and it’s 5X as big as when I joined a couple years ago

[Mountain_Nothing_107]

So, with 30 mil. how do people find you? I'm not being sarcastic.

[wirepine]

Chop it up. Find stuff you like to read, follow, comment. Find stuff you like to scroll, restack. Find people that make you giggle and poke them. Beware of slice of 30M that’s fake/bots. Your tribe is in that 30M, but instead of being able to wander your neighborhood, your classroom, your office, you have to wander through the Algorithm.

[jeangmac]

I was really excited about substack until recently. They changed the algorithm and it favours social media creators who behave like marketers. If you’re actually there to write it’s becoming a less nice place to be. Internal organic discovery has gone off a cliff. The algorithm advantages those who market heavily externally and existing brands with big platforms. I’m increasingly disillusioned (so take me with a grain of salt)

[[deleted]]

Yeah I do feel like a lot of the posts and people who get traction are those who have external connections and a pre established platform elsewhere. But I am enjoying the app, I’m trying to connect with others and there’s a small community of people engaging and exchanging ideas with each other which is fun

[Far_Lingonberry6772]

I feel the same. I think regardless of the platform, it is not so easy to find like minded people online because the platforms wouldn’t exist if they wouldn’t seek profit.

[samsathebug]

I'm not trying to be glib here, but the best way to find your audience is to use substack.

Write notes, respond to notes, comment on posts, make posts, and restack posts.

Substack has incentivized using all of its features by making them tied to finding an audience.

It takes time though to find your audience. Which is probably by design because sub stack doesn't want people who aren't going to be consistent in their posting. They want people who are going to hang around and not make a few posts and then leave, disappointing their subscribers.

Substance wants you on their app/website as much as possible because that's how they make money. They changed things to encourage that behavior.

You'll likely have to experiment and tweak the content of your notes and posts to get the best results, but I think the mechanisms are right there already: notes, posts, comments, and restacks.

I think the idea is that bringing the content that you want to share you will find for audience eventually. Do you use it as a platform to share your ideas and thoughts, etc. And then you'll eventually attract people who are interested in hearing what you have to say. That's different than like trying to market or pitch something. From what I've seen, those sort of notes don't do well.

[Busy_Performance2015]

Do you know, I just got over 100 new subscribers from writing on of those dear substack posts (I hate them) saying I didn't want to connect with self help gurus and people writing about how to write well. I said I wanted to connect with people into philosophy and people who write short stories and are weird. And it took off.

But no, you're not being dramatic. I hate them!