I am extremely excited to hear that Substack is building Yem into the platform. I used Yem when it was a separate service (shoutout to Reid, who was always responsive and helpful!) and wished very much that it was better integrated -- I think the ability to send campaigns, welcome or otherwise, from inside the Substack dashboard could be huge for so many of us.
Discovery is such a massive problem on any platform devoted to writers. I see authors complain about how difficult it is just making readers aware that their book exists on any platform you care to name, i.e. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Wattpad... everywhere. Substack may very well be (and probably is) the first company to actually tackle this issue and try to do some of the heavy lifting for the writers.
The engineers who make things like this happen are amazing, but praise is also due to whoever is responsible for such clear thinking about the actual problems writers face and then taking considered steps to improve things. Thank you.
Thank you Substack for all you're doing! I just reached the one-year milestone of my newsletter, "Colorado Mountain Running & Living," and recommendations account for more of my growth now than social media. I wrote about Substack's inspiration and platform in my latest post if you'd like to read: https://sarahrunning.substack.com/p/one-year-in-the-substackverse
Wow, wow, wow 🤩 Everytime I think you couldn’t possibly do any better for writers, you completely up the ante. I am so so grateful to be here! And to be part of a new era for reading!!!!!!!!!
I came to Substack so that as a small writer I could grow to a medium-sized writer. How do these features work for us? Most of your writers are small to medium and your features need to work for us equally if Substack is to keep its integrity and ethos.
"Today, the Substack network is driving more than 40 percent of all subscriptions across the platform" I don't know this, but I'd bet the network recommendations drive 80%+ of new subs for writers over 20k subs and 15% for writers with less than 1k subs.
How is the product team taking this into account in how it shapes the algorithms which decide which publications to recommend?
My concern is that Substack will replicate the winner-take-all dynamics of the algorithms of Twitter, Facebook, Mighty Networks, Twitch, Instagram, etc. Those algorithms ensure and enshrine that the biggest fish get all the food. The ecosystems of earth don't work this way. An apex predator such as a lion doesn't eat 95% of the food, it only eats what it needs. Each layer of the ecosystem from grasshopper to lion must get the required nourishment. It's equally true of our technology for it and US to thrive.
If you already have a big audience it's easy to bigger audience on the internet. That's true nearly everywhere. Replicating the Pareto power law in this way is failure, not success.
Love all these features. Would also love some type of referral system for free subscribers... I would love to say for every 10 free subscribers someone refers me, they get 1 year free access to the paid version of my newsletter
We are starting to see this work, but we are only getting 5% of our growth from the platform right now. An LGBTQ category in the discovery page would really make it easier for people to find us.
boost enabled ✅
I am extremely excited to hear that Substack is building Yem into the platform. I used Yem when it was a separate service (shoutout to Reid, who was always responsive and helpful!) and wished very much that it was better integrated -- I think the ability to send campaigns, welcome or otherwise, from inside the Substack dashboard could be huge for so many of us.
Recommendations have been huge for me. They really super-charged my growth, and I recently hit 1,000 free subs (and counting). I wrote about that journey and talked about some of the benefits of growing on Substack. https://michaelestrin.substack.com/p/i-hit-1000-subscribers-heres-what?r=1fqhx&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Discovery is such a massive problem on any platform devoted to writers. I see authors complain about how difficult it is just making readers aware that their book exists on any platform you care to name, i.e. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Wattpad... everywhere. Substack may very well be (and probably is) the first company to actually tackle this issue and try to do some of the heavy lifting for the writers.
The engineers who make things like this happen are amazing, but praise is also due to whoever is responsible for such clear thinking about the actual problems writers face and then taking considered steps to improve things. Thank you.
Love the focus on continuous iterative improvement. Just turned boost 🔛
Forever grateful for this community, that brings writing back without the gimmicky marketing, and attention grabbing tactics <3
Thank you Substack for all you're doing! I just reached the one-year milestone of my newsletter, "Colorado Mountain Running & Living," and recommendations account for more of my growth now than social media. I wrote about Substack's inspiration and platform in my latest post if you'd like to read: https://sarahrunning.substack.com/p/one-year-in-the-substackverse
Wow, wow, wow 🤩 Everytime I think you couldn’t possibly do any better for writers, you completely up the ante. I am so so grateful to be here! And to be part of a new era for reading!!!!!!!!!
I came to Substack so that as a small writer I could grow to a medium-sized writer. How do these features work for us? Most of your writers are small to medium and your features need to work for us equally if Substack is to keep its integrity and ethos.
"Today, the Substack network is driving more than 40 percent of all subscriptions across the platform" I don't know this, but I'd bet the network recommendations drive 80%+ of new subs for writers over 20k subs and 15% for writers with less than 1k subs.
How is the product team taking this into account in how it shapes the algorithms which decide which publications to recommend?
My concern is that Substack will replicate the winner-take-all dynamics of the algorithms of Twitter, Facebook, Mighty Networks, Twitch, Instagram, etc. Those algorithms ensure and enshrine that the biggest fish get all the food. The ecosystems of earth don't work this way. An apex predator such as a lion doesn't eat 95% of the food, it only eats what it needs. Each layer of the ecosystem from grasshopper to lion must get the required nourishment. It's equally true of our technology for it and US to thrive.
If you already have a big audience it's easy to bigger audience on the internet. That's true nearly everywhere. Replicating the Pareto power law in this way is failure, not success.
Substack can and must be different.
Love all these features. Would also love some type of referral system for free subscribers... I would love to say for every 10 free subscribers someone refers me, they get 1 year free access to the paid version of my newsletter
Just when a girl needs a boost.......
Magic is the word. We're feelin' it. :) :)
I’m not putting up Lenny-type numbers, but can confirm the power of recommendations. Easily 15% of my readers have come from them.
We are starting to see this work, but we are only getting 5% of our growth from the platform right now. An LGBTQ category in the discovery page would really make it easier for people to find us.
And bringing Yem on board is great, been using them for a while and have seen a very positive to growth
Excellent - keep rolling out these updates. Product gets better and better.