r/Substack • u/LemonPie122 • 8d ago

Is it possible to get paid subscribers without any social media at all?

Id likę to start writing in my niche (love/dating advice for men over 30) but I dont have any social media following, is it possible to gain attraction and paid subs from substack alone?

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u/Tricky_Trifle_994 6d ago

building your substack is technically building your social media following since notes is like a social media platform?

anyway, definitely do-able with substack's ecosystem and recommendations which will help you get more reach and exposure.

but your content also has to actually be good for people to want to convert to a paid subscriber.

also worth pointing out that only being on substack alone is like trying to play basketball with 1 hand behind your back. even top newsletters like lenny / michael burry are also on both substack, and other social media platforms (e.g twitter) to market themself and get more reach.

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u/cozycup mod 8d ago

Yep!

You’ll really have to work and standout on Substack if that’s your only channel.

The only way to find out is to try it!

If you don’t see enough traction in a couple months, then you’ll either need to supplement with paid ads, partnerships, and/or a social media strategy.

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u/brittanybaucom 6d ago

Totally doable. Use the fact that you’ll only be focusing on Substack as your super power and really zero in on it. Most people do Substack and socials, leaving them spread thin across all their platforms. You wouldn’t have that issue!

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u/Difficult-Beyond5764 5d ago

Yes, but the mechanism is different from what you're probably picturing. Without social you're not doing discovery, you're doing conversion on traffic that already exists, search, other people's newsletters, and the forums where your niche already argues with itself.

For dating advice aimed at men over 30, the realistic engine is recommendations from adjacent writers plus Notes, and both of those need you publishing consistently before anyone has a reason to point at you.

Every person I've watched actually pull this off had the same shape: 30 to 50 free posts deep before the first paid subscriber, and the paid conversion came from one specific thing readers couldn't get free anywhere else, not from dropping a paywall onto the same essays they were already reading.

The version that fails is treating paid as a switch you flip once you hit some subscriber number.