Keen to hear how folks are finding the recommendations feature so far, when subscribing to others and using to share publications you love—how are you getting on?
I really like this, and I'm careful to only recommend Substacks I enjoy and/or admire, because to make recommendations on the basis of mutual backscratching hurts everyone's credibility.
Big fan of this feature. I’m already using it and, I’m pleased to say, have already reaped the benefits too. I belong to a fairly niche, gardening-focused corner of the Substack world - being able to recommend other writers in this sphere, and vice versa, helps us to club together and turn our niche into… something more.
It will be interesting to see how this enables established writers to give a signal boost to some of the up-and-coming writers. I know there's been some concerns about how it's hard for new writers with small audiences to get the same numbers that well-known names can command; this might enable some of those established writers to spread the love. Fun times ahead!
As a newer, smaller writer here I'm all about features that help us to get discovered by more readers who are interested in what we have to say. I'm definitely keen to try it out and see if it has any noticeable effect on my viewership and that of others. Thanks, Substack!
This is a great new feature. However, I notice that it only cross-promotes to new subscribers. Also, it would seem to hit the new subscriber with a bunch of recommendations at once, when s/he may still be wondering about the decision to subscribe to a new and perhaps unfamiliar writer's Substack.
I have been using an alternative, admittedly more labor-intensive approach, creating a new post on my Substack to share a particular post from a writer I follow. (I am sure other writers do this too.) This puts the recommended writer's work into all my subscribers' inboxes, without requiring them to make a decision to subscribe to the recommended writer before they've read their work. What's missing is an easy way for the other writer to learn that I've recommended them.
Ahh it'll be nice to have control over what we recommend. Unlike Medium where they push content that we have zero control over in an ugly sidebar on our own pages.
Introducing recommendations: simple cross-promotion for writers
Keen to hear how folks are finding the recommendations feature so far, when subscribing to others and using to share publications you love—how are you getting on?
Interesting. The fact that's it's not algorithmic is quite attractive to me. Well played Substack.
I really like this, and I'm careful to only recommend Substacks I enjoy and/or admire, because to make recommendations on the basis of mutual backscratching hurts everyone's credibility.
Big fan of this feature. I’m already using it and, I’m pleased to say, have already reaped the benefits too. I belong to a fairly niche, gardening-focused corner of the Substack world - being able to recommend other writers in this sphere, and vice versa, helps us to club together and turn our niche into… something more.
It will be interesting to see how this enables established writers to give a signal boost to some of the up-and-coming writers. I know there's been some concerns about how it's hard for new writers with small audiences to get the same numbers that well-known names can command; this might enable some of those established writers to spread the love. Fun times ahead!
Substack strikes again with another accelerant for fueling collaborative network effects among writers and readers. Totally badass. Love this!
This really takes me back to when every blog had a sidebar of links...
I really like the human "person to person" aspect of this, I'll give it a go too :)
This is what I love about substack. you always give the option to choose who I can recommend in my profile.
As a newer, smaller writer here I'm all about features that help us to get discovered by more readers who are interested in what we have to say. I'm definitely keen to try it out and see if it has any noticeable effect on my viewership and that of others. Thanks, Substack!
Substack is quickly becoming the place to be for writers. Glad to see updates and new features coming thick and fast!
It's a wonderful feature -- thank you for building it!
This is a great new feature. However, I notice that it only cross-promotes to new subscribers. Also, it would seem to hit the new subscriber with a bunch of recommendations at once, when s/he may still be wondering about the decision to subscribe to a new and perhaps unfamiliar writer's Substack.
I have been using an alternative, admittedly more labor-intensive approach, creating a new post on my Substack to share a particular post from a writer I follow. (I am sure other writers do this too.) This puts the recommended writer's work into all my subscribers' inboxes, without requiring them to make a decision to subscribe to the recommended writer before they've read their work. What's missing is an easy way for the other writer to learn that I've recommended them.
This is a very interesting development. I'll definitely use it to recommend some authors I like :)
Super Excellente!! Thank you!!
Ahh it'll be nice to have control over what we recommend. Unlike Medium where they push content that we have zero control over in an ugly sidebar on our own pages.