By Arianna Crawford, The Social Media Explorer
Platform Watch is a collection of posts that aims to introduce B2B marketers and communicators to new social media platforms that may enable them to generate new, innovative, and uniquely meaningful approaches to reaching and interacting with their audiences. Adopting and maintaining new channels is a long-haul journey and will take time before any return on your investment. If you’d be interested in partnering with Big Valley Marketing, feel free to drop us a line at hireus@bigvalley.co
What is Substack?
Think of it as the combination of Medium and Patreon – creators use Substack to write articles, create videos (including live ones), and chat with subscribers. Those with large audiences often charge a subscription rate. Their subscription network has more than 35 million active subscriptions, including more than 3 million paid subscriptions. Big Valley’s Digital and Social Marketing team’s favorite Link in Bio is hosted on Substack.
What are the features?
- Posts: Think of these more like a newsletter than “traditional” social content. You can discover posts on the Substack website and app. People can like, comment, “re-stack,” share externally, listen to audio read-throughs, and save or archive posts. Subscribers get new posts in their inbox.
- Notes: This feature allows writers to publish short-form content and share ideas publicly. Despite the name, notes function more like social posts (versus posts, which function like a newsletter). They allow writers to share more in-the-moment links, images, quotes, etc.
- Chat: The ability to chat with creators and other readers is a subscriber-feature where you make the guest list and choose the topic. Subjects do not need to be tied to a post, meaning chats act more like a message board. It can include subscriber chats, classes, courses, and even live chats.
- Live Video: This feature allows creators to engage their audience in real time and collaborate with fellow publishers to leverage mutual Substack networks. After the stream, creators get a recording and AI-generated clips to share across Notes and social channels.
What do people think?
Creators love it, and many are switching their large followings from other platforms – from established authors to famous podcasts, and pop culture icons like Ashley Graham. Smaller creators enjoy platform flexibility and how quickly they can gain visibility. That said, the recent introduction of Notes and Live Video is making the platform feel more like Twitter/X and some users are not happy about it.
Should a company or key executive be on Substack? Ask yourself:
- Are we working with an individual thought leader who needs to build a personal brand and is willing to dig in and roll their sleeves up? Is there enough to say at least monthly?
- Is there a multimedia story to tell that is currently limited by more traditional formats?
- Does the person or company have an audience that could become a community?
