Diary of a Substack Growth Strategist #1
The Great Slowdown, why links feel like homework, and Billie Jean King is here
Your weekly behind-the-scenes look at what’s happening and working on Substack—with the platform’s leading Growth Strategist, Sarah Fay.
As a consultant, I’m behind so many Substack dashboards week after week and have always wanted to use this space to tell you what I’m seeing on the platform and how I’m advising people in real time.
And as someone who’s written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, et al., I think like a journalist and have also always wanted to report on the platform to keep you in the know.
So join me for Diary of a Substack Growth Strategist—based on what I’m seeing each week with my clients and what’s happening on the platform. Most of the good stuff will be below the paywall.
This week: The Great Slowdown, Substack is for lurkers, the new stats feature I’m loving, the paid subscriber opportunity you’re missing, and more…
Client session spotlight
This week, I worked with a client who, with her husband, runs eight companies and still finds time to post on her Substack two to three times a week. Blows my mind. Her Substack has tens of thousands of subscribers and is humming along nicely, but like so many, she’s feeling a dip in new subscribers and a drag on her paid subscriptions.
In a case like this, the first thing I usually do is look at the posts:
Do they have a visual structure to guide people as they read in their crowded inboxes?
Are they written in a way that draws people in?
Is the Substack writer present?
In this case, the answer to the first two was yes and the third was not enough.
Here are two of the most important lines from the notes I sent to her:
Post two times/week max. Post only what you love doing and know is worth sending.
We want it to be more of you now and what’s preoccupying you.
Imagine I just sent them to you.
If you only posted one type of post that you love writing and knew was worth sending, what would it be? (Even Leave a comment can feel like asking people to do something more than just read and appreciate.)
Asking people to “join my community” feels like work. Looking at her paid offer on her About page, we joked that Join our community immediately felt like work. The word community is so early 2020s. Historically, 90 percent of people prefer to lurk online, not participate. Add to this the mental and emotional energy involved in entering most online spaces and content overload and digital fatigue, and, well, no one wants to join anything. Yes, the same 9 percent of contributors are still out there, as are the 1 percent of “superusers,” but just be aware that your Substack is a newsletter, and maybe that’s one less thing you have to do.
Links, when done badly, feel a lot like homework. She had two types of posts with recommendations and links. With few exceptions, links usually feel like homework, even if you tell us these are the things you’re loving. A roundup should be you cataloging your actual week, sharing yourself and your life—and then yeah, sure, point us to the source, but we shouldn’t need it. Austin Kleon is the master of this with his 10 Things Worth Sharing, which he’s been doing for almost twenty years.
What’s out
AI. Instagram is starting to label AI-produced content “AI creator.” Maybe it’s just a matter of time until Substack does the same. One can hope.
What’s in
The Great Slowdown. In the media, people have finally realized that people actually don’t want or need “content” (without or without AI) simply because we can. The term comes from Daisy Alioto, who said, “If everyone is sending a newsletter, how do you know you’re actually getting people’s attention?” What this means for us? Never send a post for the sake of sending a post.
Substack supporting media founders, not just social media algorithms :) They’re running a new interview series called Open Tab with writers whose Substacks have been influential enough to be considered independent media outlets. The first interview is good but a wee long.
