A Word Of Caution Against Substack: Why You Probably Don’t Need One
I’m gonna hold ur hand when I say this…
If you’re thinking of starting a Substack as a way of marketing your business, or trying to gain more visibility, or as a replacement for your blog or email list, don’t.
Look, I get it. Substack is still relatively new and jumping on a shiny platform where the possibilities feel endless is exciting. It’s exciting to brainstorm new content and ideate and hit “publish” for the very first time in a new space.
But what’s alarming me is the number of people I’m seeing (particularly on Threads) saying that they’re moving to Substack. As in, moving their blogs or email lists.
Maybe I’m wrong here, but I’m getting the impression that people are kind of looking at Substack like it’s the best of both worlds between longform content (like blogs and newsletters) and traditional social media. And in a hypothetical sort of way, it is.
The reality, though, is that Substack is really just a social media platform that’s dressed up to seem more sophisticated.
People get frustrated that their blogs aren’t getting traffic, or they’re paying for an email list that isn’t growing, and think Substack is the ~magical solution~ that’s going to let them put out longform content that instantly finds their audience.
I’m truly not judging, First name / friend, if you’ve thought the same.
At the end of the day, though, Substack’s discoverability is still based on an algorithm – just like social media. ☹️
As someone who’s been on the platform since December of 2024, I’ll be the first to tell ya that for the majority of people, growing on Substack is HARD. Unless you’re bringing over an existing audience, or your publication checks off all the right boxes AND you also get lucky in the algorithm.
(From what I’ve seen, you kind of HAVE to leverage “notes” – Substack’s version of Threads or X, basically – to get real traction.)
So basically, frustrated business owners who move to Substack end up with the same discoverability problem they had originally. Only now they have the added problem of their content not even being on a platform they themselves own.
Which means Substack can remove your account at any time, you could lose your subscriber list, or a random glitch (which Substack seems to have a lot of) could accidentally delete your entire content archive. And, no, that’s not some crazy hypothetical – it actually happened to creator Lucy Werner, who has since left the platform in part due to the poor support she got from Substack when this all went down.
I’m not saying you absolutely SHOULDN’T start a Substack if that’s what you want to do (heck, I have one!). But think twice before ya do, and really think through your reason for doing so.
The “Should I Start A Substack?” Gut-Check
Substack really has a handful of good use cases for business owners in my opinion:
- Something that serves as a creative playground – like my Substack publication
- A place to share business-adjacent content or stuff that isn’t really “business” content – like BTL Copy’s Squirlie publication
- (SOMETIMES) A place to share paid, more in-depth or BTS content – like Kamina James’ Substack
- As a newsletter archive for your actual email list – I talk more about this here
But Substack probably isn’t worth your energy if:
→ You wanna Substack instead of blog on your business website: Your business blog should live on YOUR WEBSITE and I’ll die on that hill forever. That’s where you’ll get the most SEO benefits, it keeps visitors on your website longer where they can easily click to learn more about you/browse your offers/inquire, and did I mention you own it????
→ You don’t want to pay for an email marketing platform: As someone in the early stages of business, I get it, I do. But Substack isn’t a suitable email marketing tool unless you’re planning to ONLY send newsletters and nothing else. With Substack, you can’t create workflows or sequences, analytics are limited, and you’re not *technically* allowed to sell like you can with a traditional email list (this is actually in their content guidelines).
→ You’re looking for a quick visibility platform: The more Substack grows in popularity, the harder it is to get noticed and gain traction there. Transparently, I’ve been on there for over a year and only have 20ish subscribers (!!). For most people, it takes just as much work as any other content channel to grow AND for less gain.
→ You have no clear idea of what you want to share: Sometimes that “clear idea” is literally just all the stuff you’d like to write that doesn’t fit on your existing platforms, and that’s fine. But if you truly have NO idea, dare I say you might just be caught up in the FOMO of it all 😬
TL;DR 💫
Start a Substack IF you’re thinking of it as an extension of your brand/online presence – a place you can go deeper on your beliefs or creative thesis, share more BTS-style content, or simply just mess around.
DON’T start a Substack if you’re trying to make it a core part of your marketing, you’re doing it instead of blogging/email marketing, or you think it’s going to be the key to discoverability (or quick, easy income through subscriptions).