What Comes After Substack?
How to Use Substack Without Substack Using You.
I love Substack. But it has changed a lot in the last year.
75% of my new subscribers since October are only using Notes as social media. They are not writing posts. They Free-subscribe to 10+ other Substacks. That breaks the business model.
And Substack is moving to video (trying it again), and the algorithm will favor it, like YT did with Shorts. That will further dilute the content, especially when the OF girls show up and it becomes another Instagram.
Every week I see posts about “So long Substack, I’m leaving.”
What are you doing to outlast the algorithm?
How to Use Substack Without Substack Using You
Back in May-2022, Perpend and I did a podcast episode You Are the Idol in the Temple of Twitter.
We said: Use social media for its purpose: to grow an audience or a brand, to expand your reach or voice.
Don’t just “hang out” on social media, including Substack. You are training the algorithm, and in the process you may just be losing your intention.
How to Use Substack Without Substack Using You?
Don’t just accumulate platform followers. Build direct relationships that will transcend the platform.
Your email list is the only digital asset you actually own. Everything else is rented land.
Export your list monthly. If Substack disappeared tomorrow, could you still reach your subscribers?
Email your list like a neighbor, not a marketer. Real content. Not every email needs to sell something.
Cross-post your articles to your own site. Rented land is fine. Just don't build your only house on it.
Here's the test: if Substack shut down tomorrow, how many of your subscribers would find you again? That number is your real audience. Everything else is rented attention.
Go Even Farther
Build a community of like minded people. Folks that will follow you to other platforms or venues. People who also see themselves as a community and will continue to nurture it without your direction.
I have seen several of the people I follow move their chat and weekly online meetups to the Skool app (must be cheaper than Zoom).
AM Hickman is considering adding/moving to a snail mail version of his newsletter, similar to a newspaper like County Highway.
I am even seeing physical newsletters in newspaper format, including on newsprint paper! Father Turbo Qualls at St, Mary of Egypt Orthodox Church has started sharing church news in a newspaper format.
Build to outlast the algorithm.
Share Stories, Songs, and Rituals
You want to build your Substack and followers that are more than just Likes? Share your worldview. Share your stories, songs, and rituals. That is how you translate culture and worldview. Be the mind virus.
“A worldview is something that every human being has, whether consciously or unconsciously. It is the one defining intellectual activity that underpins each person’s life and informs what he or she thinks and feels about everything.” - Justin Marler.
What comes after Substack?
The same thing that came before it.
Real relationships. Real skills. Real community.
The algorithm didn’t build what matters. You did.
Create Your Own News.
What are you building for after Substack? Share in the comments below.