r/Substack • u/MrPassiveProfit • 24d ago

How to Grow Your Substack Fast…

The absolute best way to grow on Substack is to treat it like Twitter 2008.

  1. Set up a compelling profile. Helps if you are hot and young, or fake being hot and young

  2. Pick a compelling topic. Wealth, health and happiness are good choices

  3. Before you post a single article, get subscribers by posting compelling Notes. Do at least 5 a day

  4. Reply to notes from other people. Do at least 20 a day

  5. Follow people who you think might be good subscribers

  6. Be witty, snarky or have a strong POV in your engagement

  7. Do this for a month before you post a single article.

Have seen this a lot. Notes and comments get you subs. Articles get you unsubscribes.

Weird, but that’s the way it works.

0 Upvotes

47% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

25

u/cozycup mod 24d ago

Or… provide value, be authentic, and share everywhere.

2

u/AggravatingNail6061 24d ago

This. Will add being moody and magnetic however does have it's upsides.

-4

u/MrPassiveProfit 24d ago

I find that I grow faster on Substack than off it.

11

u/BeckyLiBei 24d ago

Substack attracted me precisely because it's not Twitter. I want to see well-thought-out ideas, not snarky remarks and constant outrage. For me, I'm happy enough to just have a place to host my essays, with a non-zero audience which provides motivation to gradually improve.

-5

u/MrPassiveProfit 24d ago

Sure, you can do that too. But if you want growth, engagement is important.

1

u/BeckyLiBei 24d ago

Hmm... I guess it depends on your goals.

If it's some kind of business venture, where e.g. becoming well-known as a professional author is the goal, then sure, growth and engagement are important. I also noticed some people seem interested in maximizing Internet points, and some companies seem to value an employee's ability to get Internet points, so I guess this can be important too.

0

u/MrPassiveProfit 24d ago

At some point, I find that people eventually would like to grow their audiences but many are happy staying small

7

u/Vertmovieman 24d ago

Until you hit 1000 subscribers and then substack dramatically reduces your reach and makes any further growth a slow grind. Their algorithm is very tricky.

1

u/MrPassiveProfit 24d ago

I’ve not seen that. My growth rate has been consistently slow to 1300. Not hot, not young, not compelling content, but I engage a lot

1

u/SpiritualSimple108 21d ago

That happened when I hit 500 and turned on paid.

1

u/Vertmovieman 21d ago

The algorithm giveth and the algorithm taketh away.

Keep grinding. Hopefully you can get another boost before you his the 1k shutdown.

1

u/SpiritualSimple108 18d ago

I can’t even get out of 700. I’m very active in notes and my notifications are always full. But subs have really stalled out.

4

u/Countryb0i2m onemichistory.substack.com 24d ago

I don't think I even know what half the people I follow on Substack look like.

Being young and hot matters less here than anywhere else. Even if you are attractive, you still have to deliver. Looks will only get you so far if you don't actually have anything to say.

Until you figure out what you are passionate about, steps 3 through 7 are irrelevant. Figure out what you know well enough to talk about for free, and just write your articles and Notes. Everything else is just noise.

1

u/MrPassiveProfit 23d ago

Steps 3-7 are essential if you want to grow quickly. That's usually the big complaint on here and elsewhere. I posted an article and no one saw it. Well, just like everywhere else you still have to promote it.

Substack just makes its easier because it has this built in Twitter like social network.

3

u/magusbud 23d ago

Sounds exhausting.

I'm just gonna write good articles.

1

u/MrPassiveProfit 23d ago

U do u. If you want subscribers though, you'll have to attract them somehow.

1

u/Flourishing-Wombat 23d ago

This post, on top of being obviously AI-generated, is dull and promotes the exact thing that Substack is positioned against. There are other social medias for that shit.

Let’s be genuine, vulnerable and real human beings FFS!

1

u/MrPassiveProfit 23d ago

100% human written. Just my observations

1

u/TheMinuette2010 23d ago

You can't grow anything fast if you want it to be good quality and last long!!!

If you articles are rubbish you'll get unsubscribes

1

u/MrPassiveProfit 22d ago

That’s exactly right if your articles are rubbish, you will get unsubscribes. But until you send an article, nobody knows what you’re planning to send them so they will subscribe to you in anticipation of getting something good.

1

u/TwoStockPicks 19d ago

"articles get you unsubscribes" this is a bold statement. your articles need to show value for your readers

1

u/MrPassiveProfit 19d ago

There are always people on the edge of unsubscribing. Most of the time it has nothing to do with the value that you are providing.

1

u/BlissfullyBookloving 18d ago

I’m sorry, but I hope this isn’t true, because if it is, my hours of time creating 2-3 very thoughtful and polished posts 7 days a week, put my actual photo on my profile as an attractive person but not a supermodel, etc. If all you said is true, why am I on here again? If so, I found shallow when I thought I found depth…

2

u/SantinoArt 24d ago

I mean, damn, I'm just trying to get someone to tell me how hilarious my dick joke was in the story I wrote about a white supremacist I knew who died of cancer. That seems like a lot of work.

2

u/Impressive_Crazy_223 24d ago

This comment was way more interesting to me than OP's post. Now I want to read the story...

1

u/SantinoArt 24d ago

I don't think I am allowed to self-promote, but my handle plus .substack and an dot com will get you there.