Substack Lives: What's Great, What Worries Me, and Whether To Do Them
What to pay attention to on Substack this week
» If you’re one of our many new subscribers, welcome! SW@W is a top-10, featured Substack, trusted since 2023. I’m Sarah Fay, the leading Substack Strategist and lover of all cats everywhere. Each week, I tell you what to pay attention to in order to grow without all the noise, hype, and overwhelm.
Substack Lives (a.k.a. live streams) are the thing right now.
They aren’t new but have been updated in the extreme and are much, much, much easier and way more fun to do than when Substack rolled them out a year ago.
But with every new feature comes a common Substack emotion: overwhelm + FOMO. (Thank you, Premier member and letter-writing expert Lindsay Hurty—subscribe to her Substack (!)—who astutely pinpointed this Substack emotion.)
To save you time and energy, I bring you:
What’s great and what worries me about Lives
How to know if you should do them
How to get people to your Lives and run them to attract and convert paid subscribers
My Step-by-Step Lives Tutorial and Written Guide
What’s great about Lives:
They’re a fluid, high-energy way to host a podcast or videocast or do workshops, interviews, etc.
They’re really fun (if you don’t mind being on camera).
They’re a way to 1) collaborate with other Substack writers and creators and 2) connect with your subscribers—the two things that make Substack such an amazing platform.
What worries me about Lives:
Right now, there’s this idea that you should do Lives: a new feature is introduced (audio, video, Lives), and everyone starts thinking they have to start doing it.
I’ve been on Substack so long that I remember when they introduced images. Everyone said you have to use images and then audio and then video and then... You don’t.
Rumors may even spread that Substack “favors” those who use x or y feature. (To my knowledge, they don’t.)
Whether you do Lives comes down to one thing: Does it actually fit with your Substack DNA and what you’re here to do? Your Substack DNA is the core of your Substack, which means it’s the core of you (but not all of you).
If you’re on here to write, just write. If you’re someone who loves reading your work, do audio.
No shiny new objects for the sake of them.
Substack Lives in a nutshell
Substack Lives are the platform’s answer to Instagram and Facebook Lives, but done in more interesting ways:
interviews, conversations, casual drop-ins
author readings, watch parties, Q&As
workshops, podcast recordings, co-working sessions
You don’t have to be on camera. Artists can do draw-alongs. Professional recipe taster (!) and Premier member Kerry Faber—subscribe to her Substack (!)—and I talked about just showing us her kitchen or with just the food on screen.
Now let’s talk strategy…
#1: How to get people to your Lives
If you don’t want to broadcast into the void, you have to tell people! Schedule early, get the join link (Dashboard > Live video), and share it everywhere.
And do this:
Mention it in every post beforehand with the link.
If it’s open to everyone, post the link in the SW@W chat.
On Notes, don’t just paste the link—right now, no image comes up, and it’s utterly scroll-past-able. Create an image in Canva or write an actual invitation. Make it an invitation.
Substack will offer to auto-email your subscribers when you schedule and go live. It’s tricky. Automated emails get unsubscribes. I recommend sending your own email the day of instead.
#2: How to use Lives to attract subscribers
Before: Set visibility to Everyone.
During: Keep your QR code on screen. Add it under Brand effects when setting up. (Find it: Settings > search QR > download.)
After: Post the replay immediately but uncheck Send via email under Delivery so it lands in the feed without emailing. If YouTube, LinkedIn, or your podcast are connected, upload right away. Then send it on your regular posting day.
#3: How to use Lives to convert free subscribers to paid
First, do everything above, including immediately posting the live to your site but don’t email it to subscribers.
A paid live replay should have a different value beyond the recording. Edit the replay already posted (but not emailed). Add a summary, commentary, timestamps, bits from the transcript, or video clips in the text portion of the video post.
Add a summary, timestamps, transcript bits, or clips. Then send it to paid subscribers only, with a paywall and preview using the lock icon on the video.
» Paid subscribers, I created a Step-by-Step Lives Tutorial and Written Guide just for you. Get the written guide here.
Until next week…
Your Substack Growth Strategist,
P.S. Come spend May with us in my signature Substack Growth Foundations Course. For Substack writers who want a strong foundation to accelerate their growth. We changed the dates to accommodate the Memorial Day holiday. We meet May 1, 8, 15 & 29, Fridays, 12-3 PM CT (no class Memorial Day weekend). Limited space available. » Save my spot.
Post Consistently and Well (!) on Substack: How journaling and the haiku (!) can keep you showing up with award-winning writer Mary Hickman. Tuesday, 5/5, 1 PM CT. Details here.
Join this week’s Notes Boost Community here.
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When I read this, my heart sank. I've done all this kind of thing before and I just don't want to do it. BUT - I am so glad that Sarah has created this, just in case I change my mind! Which is entirely possible. You never know. So I am stashing it away and we will see what happens. Change can come in a moment, after all.
If anyone is frightened of taking part in a Live, I was too, pulled out of one and then wrote about it. It was a well read post. See https://arichardson.substack.com/p/i-pulled-out-of-a-substack-live-was (Sarah - if you feel it is inappropriate to add this link, feel free to delete it)