The 7 Substack Strategies I Used to Grow by 350%
How experimenting daily turned posting into the void into a thriving community.
In the beginning, writing on Substack can feel strangely quiet. You pour yourself into something honest, something that matters to you, and then you just… wait.
Your notifications don’t light up, you don’t get any messages professing what your writing means to someone - You’re just writing and waiting quietly.
Most first-time writers will tell you that the early months on this platform involve a lot of waiting.
As writers, we come to Substack for many reasons - To unwind our personal stories, to reconnect with the creative act, and to reveal something special and personal to us.
We’ve come to Substack to reintroduce ourselves to the act of making something personal and to sharing it with others. So when that silence lingers, it can start to feel like the selves that we’re sharing aren’t worth it.
But what that silence really is, I’ve learned, is the sound of a foundation being built.
Here are seven unconventional lessons I’ve learned from building my foundation here on Substack.
1. Treat The Silence as an Invitation to Experiment
Before I started publishing on Substack, I spent years experimenting with algorithms for marketing teams. I wrote about that experience in a recent post, and it’s this experience that helped me approach this space with patience.
I knew that every platform has its own signals and quirks, and I expected a period where my words would drift without much response.
Instead of resisting that, I treated the silent time as a time to experiment free from audience expectations (or an algorithm’s expectations).
Early on in my Substack career, I wrote about:
I experimented both with what topics felt sustainable for me to write about, but also what topics might break through in Notes and bring some Subscribers in.
I still experiment now, but in a different way. I’ve more or less drilled down to the topics I like writing about on this account - Organic growth for creators, and working culture dynamics - And now I’m focused on how to deliver value within those sectors.
2. Comment More Than You Post
When I first considered writing on Substack, I figured Posts would be my most important content, since without content like this very article, I wouldn’t have a Substack presence at all.
Once I came to grips with the platform, I realized that Posts don’t get promoted very well on Substack, but Notes do.
Cool, so Notes must be the most important content on the platform.
I started writing Notes… And those barely got any engagement, either.
It wasn’t until I made a choice to pursue Substack full-time for a few weeks that I stumbled into the actual most important content I write - Comments.
Substack is a community-oriented platform, and their algorithm is tuned towards communal goals. That’s why on Substack, real growth begins when you stop trying to dominate the space and start participating in it, instead.
Starting about a month and a half ago (as of this writing), I made it a daily habit to leave thoughtful, genuine comments on at least ten Notes from other writers every single day.
This small shift brought me back to center with why I, and so many others, flocked to Substack in the first place.
I’m ultimately not here to promote myself. I’m here to engage in conversation and deepen my thinking.
I suspect you are, too, and commenting thoughtfully on other people’s work is a surefire way to re-center you with this ambition.
I wrote more deeply about this in my post How I Grew My Substack by 30% in One Week, which focuses entirely on this practice. It remains one of the most consistent drivers of engagement I’ve ever found on Substack.
3. Tag Creators You Admire Inside Your Posts
I started tagging creators I admire in my posts about a month ago.
The idea initially came less out of a pointed growth tactic and more out of a desire to share writing that really impacted me in some way or another (not a ton of my friends are on Substack yet - Though I’m pushing for it 😈).
I wanted to highlight the people whose work had shaped my own point of view, rather than continue writing matter-of-factly pretending that my worldview sprang, fully-formed, into my head with no outside influence.
So, I created a section in each post where I could call out awesome work done by other creators on Substack.
It looked… Well, it looked kind of like this:
🌟 Writers Worth Reading
My favorite posts from other Substackers that I read this week:
“When It’s Your Job to End Someone Else’s,” by
This deeply personal essay will make you think of HR, the job market, and personal responsibility in a totally new light.
“When the Title Falls Away,” by
This great essay interrogates the feelings we have when our work identity, personal identity, and lifestyle begin to diverge.
“How to Achieve Your Dream Life in Your 20s,” by
This value-packed essay focuses on grounding yourself and your work in authenticity before designing a lifestyle around it.
What happened after I began this practice felt very organic.
To my surprise, some of the creators I had tagged came by to read the post.
A few commented, others subscribed, and occasionally they would tag me back in their own work.
More importantly, my readers began to explore the writers I mentioned, and it started to create a small ecosystem of shared attention.
By elevating others, I built visibility in a way that felt collaborative rather than competitive.
And perhaps most importantly, it reminded me that writing online is a network of human relationships, not a leaderboard of metrics. This is especially true on Substack, where the algorithm is designed to facilitate community.
4. Optimize Your Homepage Like It’s Your Storefront
At around 150 subscribers, I realized my homepage was holding me back.
People were reading my posts, but conversions from reader to Subscriber were too slow for my liking.
So, I spent a day treating my homepage like it was a storefront display: I looked at everything through the eyes of a first-time visitor: the fonts, the color palette, the tone of my tagline, and even the way the subscribe button appeared against the background.
I chose a font that reflected the personality of my writing, cleaned up my archive so it didn’t feel cluttered, and made sure the subscribe button stood out with a color that felt intentional.
I also rewrote the short introduction at the top of the page to attune it more towards the value propositions that I hoped to provide for my readers.
It may be a coincidence, but within the next week - This was around the same time I started commenting regularly on other people’s Notes - Conversions noticeably increased, and by a lot.
Coming from the world of organic marketing, I already knew how crucial presentation is to your content strategy.
In an always-on world, it’s critical to stop the users’ scroll and make them engage seriously and at length with your work.
Doing so can involve lots of little psychological cues that we all take for granted - Even things as simple as making sure your Subscribe button has high contrast against the background, so it stands out.
It struck me, then, as kind of funny that it had taken me this long to optimize my own Substack page for conversions - And I’m not done yet.
I’m sure there additional rebrands in the future, as I learn more about what makes my Subscribers convert.
5. Share Your Process, Not Just Your Product
When I began writing on Substack, I honestly had no idea what would resonate with my audience - See that messy post history above for proof of that.
I posted lots of essays on a variety of topics, but as someone who used to run marketing experiments for a living, the actual act of experimentation itself felt like one of the richer topics to delve into.
Posts like this one aim to give the reader not just a how-to list, but a look behind the curtain into the strategy, work, and mistakes that go into building a Substack.
I’m now leaning more towards sharing the messy process, rather than just the final result, because that’s what all of you are going through right now, too.
And I think it’s valuable to both share what I’ve learned, and also share that you, as a writer here on Substack, aren’t alone in your experiences.
6. Build a Recognizable Visual Identity
One of the most underrated forms of marketing on Substack is visual consistency.
Most people scrolling through Notes or reading in their inbox make subconscious judgments in seconds.
So I’ve started thinking more of my publication as a brand. Not in a corporate sense, but in a visual sense - A unified and recognizable visual experience.
Something that will stop people from scrolling because they recognize the imagery.
I’m still very early to this part of Substack optimization, so it’s likely that I’ll tune my brand visuals further from here. For now, I’ve been using a lot of visuals from Unsplash, and looking for stylistic consistency between them.
But it feels like there is lots more to be done on this front, at least for me.
I see some creators on here with amazing, consistent branding. You can tell it’s them as soon as they post.
So I’m working on a brand bible which will define the visual narrative for all of my posts.
For now, I feel it’s no coincidence that my most popular Substack posts (linked below) all have a more or less consistent visual narrative relating to the theme of the post.
💡 More Like This
7. Create a Daily Substack Practice
The single biggest shift in my growth came when I started treating Substack as a daily practice instead of an occasional outlet.
For the past 90 days, I’ve made it a point to read at least three Notes from other writers and leave ten meaningful comments.
Like I said earlier, it’s not even about writing the posts, really - I meal prep my posts ahead of time, so when inspiration strikes I can knock out several posts in a week.
My daily routine is all about promotion.
It’s simple, and it takes less time than most people think, but it has completely changed my results.
The new rhythm built momentum.
My engagement increased by 350% in the 90 days since I’ve started (it’s been about 3 months since my first post, as of me writing this), but more importantly, it’s made me feel connected to the other users on this platform in a deeper way.
Consistency compounds. The more you show up, the more the ecosystem starts to respond.
Some days will be quieter, but others will be exponential.
Despite what some may tell you, there are no shortcuts to a successful Substack (other than importing subscribers you might already have somewhere else).
That silence we all face at the start isn’t failure, then. It’s the blank space where your story begins.
Every time you publish, comment, and connect, you’re teaching the platform and its people how to find you.
Keep showing up long enough, and they will.
Love your work 🫶 and thanks for the shoutout. Always full of real advice
Comment more than you post and embrace the silence to experiment resonate