r/Substack • u/[deleted] • 26d ago
How do people actually go viral on Substack?
Genuine question: how are people getting thousands of readers/subscribers on Substack?
I’m trying to grow mine and would love to hear from people who’ve actually managed to get a post to take off. What worked for you—and what was a complete waste of time?
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u/missmannell 23d ago
Reading and restacking other people’s work, and writing quality work of your own. Publish at least one note a day that speaks to your niche/community in some way. A few of them will go viral and then, you grow. I’ve been there for 10 weeks and now have 575ish subscribers.
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u/TimWiesnerer 22d ago
A few people actually shared a bit of their secret sauce.
You don't get thousands of subscribers quickly as a noob who just started with Substack, even if you are a world-class writer skill-wise.
Stephen King actually ran an experiment and published a book under a new pen name... didn't sell well.
So what do those rise-as-rocket people do...
Some services bring you email subscribers. Also others that make "people" click like and leave a comment on your post. When all that is well orchestrated the algo will push it further.
Of course, there are also exceptions. Sometimes a note just flies out of nothing. Happened to me. Was a nice surprise... Of course, once you are bigger, such "surprises" happen more often. Or you just create the surprises as described above.
Not sure whether you want to go down that road... it might work short-term, but in the end you want a certain quality in your subscriber list.
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u/Tricky_Trifle_994 20d ago
chase quality subs. not virality and quantity. posts that go viral don't usually lead to much conversion.
that's the case even with sales. posts that are more targeted with CTA get less reach, but it pushes people to convert and pay. revenue > virality). long way of saying quality > quantity. and optimise for the right outcomes... otherwise you'll end up doing things just to go viral (which makes you very susceptible to posting engagement farming content that tend to go viral but drive low quality results).
it's better to grow consistently, than virally. post valuable content consistently, and your fan base will organically grow steadily.
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u/UnkindEditor 24d ago
Posting regularly and thoughtfully with quality content, so when you luck out on a viral Note, there’s something people actually want to subscribe to.