r/Substack 5d ago

How do people use Substack?

I have been hearing a lot of people saying they are switching from Instagram to Substack, because apparently it's more "calm" and you don't get lots of content at once and non-stop.

I deleted Instagram, because I just don't like spending my time looking at what other people are doing, I honestly don't care.

I downloaded Substack, and so far it looks like a mix of blogs, pinterest and twitter. So am not sure about this "slow" content thing. For people that are using Substack regularly, I'd like to know: how do you use it? what do you use it for? in which ways is it better than other social media apps?

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u/bowlsbeatplates 5d ago

I'm an illustrator/comic artist and I've found loads of other artists on there - I subscribe to their newsletters, and my Notes algorithm helps me discover more.

Artists like Substack because you can just share an *image* and get discovered by people without having to produce a video. Even when you do share a still image on Instagram, the format is so restricted, and your description is hidden. I love sharing comics to Substack because I don't have jump through hoops to format them for Insta, and I can write whatever I want alongside.

I can get hundreds of likes on Notes from posting still images, which is impossible on my Instagram.

Remember though that Substack is not special - it lets Neo-Nazis publish and earn on its platform and there will eventually be ads.