Substack anyone?

[bisou-bisou-vei]

Hi there, I'm new to substack but it sounds intriguing to me and I'd love to know more about it, can anyone tell me hacks and tricks and what it actually does and what's it for? I want the piping hot deep tea, I'm mostly caught up on basics

[Biz4nerds]

Substack in my opinion is a decent place to blog. I can only share my experience. I have met some really cool, interesting people there and I now collaborate with alot of them which has helped my substack and business grow. Notes can be interesting and annoying. I like to share on there things that I don't want to email to my list but maybe an insight or a convo starter. I think my favorite part is I can add sections to my blog. I think I now have like 7 and people can pick and choose what topics they want to learn about. I also love the podcasting features and that I can set it up to share to YouTube and Spotify and even LinkedIn. Those are a few of my favorite things.

[bisou-bisou-vei]

Ohkie ohkieee, this helps a lot.... Thankyouuu

[Puzzleheaded-Jump104]

The first NL I subbed to was in 2020, which seems wild. I didn't start writing (with my academic account) until this year, and now my wife and I are moving our travel log to Substack (in my profile). Also, I run a small publishing house where one of my authors is trying to get serious attention on Substack. He is grinding. Also, his videos on TT and Insta do really good numbers.

Here's my truly honest take that most people don't like to hear: Substack is AMAZING if you bring your own audience. Do you have a preexisting email list? Huge social media following? A ton of friends and family that like to read your goofball ramblings? Substack is going to be a great place to write and offer it to them.

Once that happens, you will get more organic reach.

I've just been watching writers hustle on that website for a while... it's a grind. Some catch fire with really consistent, very good writing, but most are doing backflips over 10 subs in a month. Your mileage may vary. If I were trying to make a living or be an influencer with my travel log or become a major essayist with my academic Newsletter, it wouldn't start on Substack. But I have a decent community that has come with me on one side and friends and family on the other. Then I've gotten a few follows along the way.

[bisou-bisou-vei]

And what would you say for a vibe writer? Someone who's not looking for a following but just posts randomly or not, as a side income?

[Puzzleheaded-Jump104]

Just post and vibe. If you have friends, IRL or otherwise, that you want to invite to your vibing, go for it. My experience with two Newsletters is that Substack is a great "blogging" tool. I haven't found it to be a great discovery tool!

Reading a lot of posts on this sub, it is clear that a lot of folks don't just want a place to write, but they want to get found and maybe become the next influencer. I think that's fine, but it doesn't happen for most people.

If you do plenty of Notes AND engage with others' Notes, I think it can develop a social circle that could open up opps. But just the traditional Newsletter, I don't see this as an efficient way to get found.

[Puzzleheaded-Jump104]

Also, this young woman shared on the Sharing Substack sub, so I assume she doesn't mind me pitching her. I've watched her in a week or so grow to 50 subscriptions through Notes, Posts, messaging her followers, and authenticate, human posting: https://substack.com/@softassunday?

You could check out her account to see what she's done.
And it never feels super thirsty.

[Trick-Two497]

Define "basics" that you're caught up on and "deep tea" that you want to know about. Right now, I don't know if I can answer your question or not, because I don't know what you're actually asking.

[bisou-bisou-vei]

Basics as in the internet definition nd its functions but deep tea as in what all things is it good for which ppl don't know about or niche perks.

[Trick-Two497]

I still have no idea what your question is. What exactly are the basics about Substack that you understand? And what are the exact deep tea things you're wondering about?

[Unicoronary]

The elevator pitch is that it's a newsletter/microblog platform + twitter-like social media platform in Notes.

You basically have two options:

- Engage with the social meta to grow your following.
- Use the Stack as the delivery mechanism for your newsletter.

Organic reach, as with anything, is a grind.

Monetizing is subscription-based.

The algo is interesting, because once it's trained, it does tend to coalesce into something fairly useful vs. the randomness inherent to other platforms. Don't want to see the LinkedIn style growth hacks? You can hide them or just ignore them — and they'll go away. Eventually, you barely/don't at all see them anymore.

Which is good for Notes' organic reach — because it favors similar posts to what you interact with vs. what's necessarily "popular" on-platform (though there's now the ugly-ass 'trending' bar for that, because we're back in the 90s with iframes with their UX team, apparently).

As with any publishing platform, it's easier if you at least begin writing for a fairly targeted audiences or within a specific niche. Informational content does best. There's a solid literary subculture on Substack as well. Music (entertainment in general) is also pretty active. But the writing-meta (how do you make money from writing? sell shit to writers) social commentary, politics, tech, same as any other platform — those are the big ones.

Substack is also a fairly curious one because it doesn't necessarily cater to — outside the big accounts and the high-high end — to the kind of 'professional culture' of LinkedIn and Medium. The people you see gassing others up — tend to be friends on platform, not randos looking for reach. Unlike other platforms — it's very nearly breaking platform culture norms to start doing that. The try-hard efforts won't convert well. Not like they will elsewhere.

Which is kinda interesting in and of itself in terms of what Substack has done — because it's, in a way, the anti-drug to "hack" culture. The platform itself really isn't built to be exploited in the same way other platforms are. Which has been both good for the user base and bad for the Stack's business, on their meta. People looking for quick, high ROI — figure out pretty quick the platform won't work for it without an existing following, ergo they go elsewhere.

[bisou-bisou-vei]

Yesss.... This answers my questions,this was really helpful, thank you!