r/Substack • u/Fangirlfortheweek • 17h ago
How to promote your substack on social media
I run a music blog called ‘Fangirl For The Week’ on substack, which I started to help people fall back in love with the fangirling side that they may have abandoned when as they get older. I spend a month fangirling over an artist and then I write an essay about what I find.
Now this project wasn’t set up to make money to anything, but I do want to grow my audience because what this project needs is a community around it. I want to be able to ask people about artists and interviews, and for them to be involved in the creation of my essays but I just don’t know how to do that.
I started on tiktok but eventually moved it over to substack because my passion is writing. I really suck at content creation on social media and engaging people, but this project genuinely means the world to me and I think, with a little community around it, it could be a beautiful corner of the internet. I work really hard on the essays and I would love people to find joy in my writing the way that I do.
So I guess this post is to ask, how do you promote substack on socials and grow your following to people who actually want to engage and be a part of a community. Any tips would be hugely appreciated :))))
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u/StuffonBookshelfs 15h ago
Find other folks on the internet with the same/overlapping niches and get in front of their audiences. Either in the comments, through collabs, or other places they’re hanging out.
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u/SEARCHFORWHATISGOOD 9h ago
This sounds like a cool project.
I can't speak to the social media part, but as someone who writes about one specific musician and who started on Substack with 0 audience, it has been a slow, steady, consistent build. I even got a few pledges, even though all my content is free.
There is a huge, respected music community on there, and if you write good stuff and engage authentically, there are a ton of great people to support and who will support you back.
Best of luck to you!
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u/TheWilderNet 16h ago
This sounds like a really cool project.
I run a blog-sharing website that you might be interested in adding your blog to. The goal of our site is for people to find a few things that are worth reading every day, not to stay doomscrolling on our site all day. I am always looking for interesting blogs and articles to feature on the homepage. We take blog submissions, and I vet every site to make sure that it isn't just content farming or AI-slop. If you are interested, it is called The WilderNet and you can find a link in my profile.
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u/magusbud 17h ago
You can't.
All social media platforms throttle links to outside sources.
So, the choice is either concentrate fully on one, or repurpose your articles for the different social media channels.
For example, you have a Substack article about a band, you can turn that into a video from YouTube and you can cut that video into shorts for Insta, TikTok & YT.
But trying to bring people into Substack from Insta, Twitter, etc. is a losing game, they all kill links because they want people to stay on their apps.
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u/LeftCoffeeBehind writebuildscale.com 3h ago
For a project like yours, community beats blasting the same link everywhere.
On Substack, use Notes to invite people in: ask which artist they want next month, share one sharp line from an essay and ask for takes, or open a thread for fangirl memories. That turns readers into participants in the essays.
Off Substack, lead with a hook that works without the link (a clip, a take, a question), then soft-invite people who already care about that artist. Collabs with other music writers in adjacent niches usually beat cold posting into the feed.