How to build an audience on Substack?

Content creation is hard. The hardest part is trying to make it spread. it could be a little frustrating if only your mum reads.

Substack is a service for creators to build an audience, grow their influence and make money from that influence.

With a beautiful user interface and an easy sign-up process, Substack can help make your content marketing efforts more organized.

Substack is a completely new way to share text with the world. With the click of a button, you can quickly build an online publication, connect with an audience, and start building a community. How to build an audience on Substack?

Write about topics that people care about

This is obvious, but it’s helpful to point out that being a generalist will not help you get readers. There are so many newsletters on Substack, and if you try to cover too much ground in your writing, there’s no way for anyone to find you easily when they search for something specific.

It’s better to be really well-known among a niche group of people than relatively unknown among everyone.

Make your newsletter easy to find

If you want people to read your newsletter, they need to know it exists! When someone searches for something on Substack or Google, you want them to be able to find it quickly and easily.

Even if the topic is highly competitive and many other people have written about it before.

You might have the best content ever written on the topic of making great salads with potatoes, but if your title is “Healthy Potato Salad You Can Eat For Lunch,” then nobody will find it because that isn’t a common search term at all.

Instead: “How To Make Creamy Potato Salad With Hard Boiled Eggs.” Now when somebody searches for “potato salad recipe” or “easy potato salad,” yours will come up prominently in the results.

Find your angle

The best way to find a profitable niche is to start with an area you know something about and build out from there. The more specific the better!

Before launching your newsletter, think about what you’re good at, what you’re interested in, and how you can be helpful or unique.

Remember that your audience is probably already on the internet reading other newsletters, blogs, and articles just like yours. So what’s different about yours? What can only you provide?

Find a way to be helpful

The best way to increase your readership is to give existing subscribers something they can use. A few examples:

If you’re a writer, share tips on how to pitch publications or get more followers on Twitter.
If you’re a developer, write about how you built something fascinating and can explain the process in a way that’s easy for beginners to follow.
If you work as an artist, share behind-the-scenes details about your work

Don’t be afraid to share your perspective and stories

As you start this journey, there’s one more thing to remember: don’t be afraid to share your perspective and stories. Substack is a place for writers who aren’t afraid of having their own voice and sharing it with the world.

Yes, some people might not like what you have to say, but others will find it refreshing and exciting! You can’t please everyone, but you also can’t create great work without being yourself.

Everyone starts from zero when they launch a newsletter, so now is the perfect time for you to take risks and explore your ideas.

If something doesn’t work out or resonate with an audience at first, don’t worry, just try something different next time. Your readers are waiting!

Write with your audience in mind

Writing great emails for your subscribers means writing with them, not for them. To get into this mindset, consider what engages you when you read a newsletter.

You’re probably looking for content that is relevant to your life and interests or contains useful information or advice.

The best way to build an audience on Substack is to write consistently and with your readers in mind.

When you write with an audience in mind, you should keep their interests and preferences top of mind, use language they will understand, give examples they can relate to, and ask yourself whether they will find the content relevant and useful.

Mix it up

Don’t be afraid to mix it up. Your audience doesn’t want an essay about your favorite type of sandwich every week (unless that’s your thing!).

They want a variety of content and a wide range of topics. The more you write on different subjects, the more people you will reach, so keep this in mind when you sit down to write.

Share your Substack on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

Once you’ve published your first post and set up your subscription tiers, it’s important to get the word out about your Substack.

This involves sharing links to your Substack on social media platforms. After all, if you don’t tell them about it, they won’t know!

The easiest way to do this is to share a link to your Substack in your bio on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

You’ll want to make sure that you keep updating these links so that they’re always current.

Additionally a call-to-action like “Join my publication” or “Subscribe now” will give people an idea of what they’re going to be getting into when they click through.

Cross-post on LinkedIn where it makes sense

LinkedIn is a great place to share your Substack. We’ve seen people get hundreds and sometimes thousands of views on their Substack posts by cross-posting them on LinkedIn.

This can be done from your Substack dashboard.

When you cross-post on LinkedIn, we will automatically format the post to look good in LinkedIn’s mobile app as well as embed a link back to your Substack so that readers can sign up for updates from you.

Encourage comments on your blog posts

One way to encourage comments is to post a question. Whether you’re asking readers for advice or hoping to learn from their experiences, questions are a great way to engage your audience and ensure that your email isn’t just a one-way conversation.

Another effective strategy is sharing an opinion, then inviting your audience to either agree or disagree. If you have strong feelings about something, share them!

Don’t be afraid of starting a debate just make sure you’re willing to listen and respond when someone does comment on your post.

Work with others in your field of expertise to collaborate

One of the most effective ways to increase your Substack subscriber count is to make use of someone else’s audience. This is especially true if you’re getting your feet wet.

If you share your newsletter with other newsletters, blogs, or online publications in your field, it will be better for you.

Offer to create guest pieces for sites that your target audience will read. This is another excellent opportunity to cooperate with other people.

If you’re a good writer, most blogs would gladly accept your offer to help them produce content. If you want to promote your newsletter in the body of your article, you shouldn’t do it. Most sites let you write a short bio to link to your Substack newsletter in the bio.

If you follow these guidelines, you’ll be able to build an audience on Substack.

You will need to be consistent. If you want to build an audience on Substack, it’s important that you publish content regularly and consistently. You will have some ups and downs as a Substack writer, but the more you can stick with it and overcome those downs, the faster you will grow your audience. Just Start 🚀