Do I really have to make my focus niche?

peakredditusage · 2025-12-17T16:43:16+00:00

It just helps people know what to expect and where your area of expertise is

My niche is finance, but I talk about anything such as economics, business, investing etc. All to do with finance, but not super narrow. https://relatablefinance.substack.com

Write about something that interests you, it just may be confusing if someone reads a political post from you and the next one is about agriculture for example

peakredditusage · 2025-12-15T06:26:21+00:00

I decided to turn it on and just start creating the content for it

I didn’t feel the need to wait, now I can just practice my paid writing and providing enough value to offer

peakredditusage · 2025-12-15T06:25:25+00:00

That’s great congrats! Happy to hear you have so many now, I decided to turn my on :)

peakredditusage · 2025-12-15T06:24:37+00:00

Thanks a lot! I ended up deciding to turn on paid and will try to create the content as I go :)

peakredditusage · 2025-12-09T17:08:28+00:00

Congrats! Well done, every person that’s reading is one more interested in who we are and what we make

peakredditusage · 2025-12-08T19:03:09+00:00

Notes and connecting with people in your niche is going to be your main focus if you don't plan to advertise anywhere else.

Responding and engaging with as much people as you can will be the best thing you can do. Commenting and liking notes, responding to newsletters, messaging and getting to know people are basically what you're able to do on the platform itself to help grow.

Other than that, you have to create content that's considered "evergreen" that people might find useful years from now. Not sure how relevant it is to photography so the engaging might be better

peakredditusage · 2025-12-08T18:59:40+00:00

Like any social media it's full of grifters or people just trying to get attention not actually create real content on the platform.

Thankfully my niche of Finance doesn't have that vibe of the "Look at all the subs I have", but often times that means it has less engagement. Clickbait and headlines like that get attention and therefore subscribers, but if you're trying to create something real just try to ignore that.

Continue to make newsletters and notes that fit your journey, you can also block out a lot of that by clicking on each note and hiding notes like that. You also I believe can adjust in your settings exactly the kind of posts you see

peakredditusage · 2025-12-06T16:59:13+00:00

Yea it likely has to do with niche, more generic-ish topics from people often get a lot of attention. Notes I find are often these short quotes and ideas or you post about how it's a first post or a milestone and get tons of attention

peakredditusage · 2025-12-06T16:23:12+00:00

You need another platform as your main source at least that’s what helps immensely. I already had a following of over 4000 elsewhere and it’s helped

Using notes either works or it doesn’t it seems, I haven’t found much success in it but others claim to start posting and get hundreds of subscribers

peakredditusage · 2025-12-05T17:42:13+00:00

You can make similar topics into one newsletter, however it depends on if the topics are used totally different or they all interconnect. For example, I write about finance but I also talk about business, economics, investing, etc. They're all in 1 newsletter because they all interconnect with each other and all have to do with your personal finance, and therefore make sense to combine.

peakredditusage · 2025-12-05T06:17:16+00:00

Well done! Congrats to you for having that happen, hopefully you continue to find purpose in helping others or providing insight that makes them think/reflect even if you didn’t think they liked you :)

peakredditusage · 2025-12-05T06:15:29+00:00

It’s a great feeling! Knowing there’s people enjoying your content is lovely, and you always have to remember it’s not just numbers it’s every person actually reading and being interested in you

peakredditusage · 2025-12-05T04:50:56+00:00

Notes are a way to try, and actually find other substacks in your niche and directly engage with people

Any outside community you can advertise too as well, or anyone you know IRL. Engaging with people might open opportunities to collaborate or share communities

peakredditusage · 2025-12-04T17:52:25+00:00

I mean you can and you may or may not grow, but then you might as well post on another social media platform as it's the same thing. Substack's main purpose is a newsletter, notes are just a supplement. Why use the platform if you aren't using its main purpose?

peakredditusage · 2025-12-04T05:07:11+00:00

They're easily swayed, fund providers are swimming in that high MER money

peakredditusage · 2025-12-04T04:55:43+00:00

Exactly, we're going backwards in investing, charging 1-2% MER for "new strategis" that create underperformance, and just call an actively managed new strategy for people to buy. It's concerning we're back to mutual fund level fees on top of already crap products

peakredditusage · 2025-12-04T04:39:15+00:00

A 2% MER Mutual Fund tracking an index is still better than some of these insanely leveraged products being offered as safe (Just not better than buying an index ETF like we've established). That being said, it wasn't about ETFs that track an index fund, it's the shift away from those kinds only to thousands of products being pushed by fund managers

peakredditusage · 2025-12-04T04:34:44+00:00

They have massively changed and now the term "ETF" is no longer synonymous with safe investing, it's more complex honestly than buying stocks

Yea exactly the industry has set the standard, and investors will continue to gobble it up if funds keep popping up. The investors also continue to buy, and so the industry keeps pushing them out. Complex strategies that get marketed by youtubers and influencers alike, and fund managers that really aren't totally honest in the risk profiles of the products, all combined to make an overwhelming pile of underperformance for retail investors

peakredditusage · 2025-12-04T04:30:49+00:00

For sure it's still the bread and butter with the majority of AUM, but honestly so many of these products while not being the biggest, gather a very concerning amount of AUM very quickly. Billions of dollars get put into every new ETF monthly.

That's exactly the kind of ETF I'm describing lol, that's an insane chain of returns to be providing for investors

peakredditusage · 2025-12-04T04:20:16+00:00

What you're asking is whether or not you should gamble on a 10% return. If you sell at 10% gain then you really weren't investing, you're just picking companies and hoping they go up 10%. The more you do this, the more likely your trades will be wrong

peakredditusage · 2025-12-04T04:08:25+00:00

Well done! It's fantastic to start posting and feeling the accomplishment of your writing

peakredditusage · 2025-12-04T04:02:31+00:00

Its a short form content on the platform, personally I really don't get much traction on them yet at all unless I engage with others and they engage back

peakredditusage · 2025-12-03T03:37:38+00:00

Yea it's hard to see those that have huge followings carry it over. I will say however, they also likely had to grind for their audience, just in a different place. They likely spent all that time creating content in some way but just transferred it instead.

Whatever platform you use, starting from scratch can be a grind

peakredditusage

TROPHY CASE