If you’re the kind of creator who’s showing up on Substack, posting, scheduling Notes, maybe poking at the chat, and it still isn’t adding up to real growth, this post is for you.
Most people treat every feature on Substack like it does the same job, and that’s a problem.
Notes, posts, the chat, live streams, podcasts, your paid tier, your DMs: Each one has a single, specific purpose, and the growth shows up when you stop asking one tool to do another one’s job.
Here’s what each is actually for, and how to use it that way.
If you only get one thing right, make it your posts
Ask which single element to focus on, and for most people the honest answer is posts. Notes get you noticed, but a post is where you earn the reader’s trust.
The mistake is writing posts that are just slightly longer Notes. A Note gets skimmed. A post goes deep. Its whole job is to show you actually know your subject and to walk the reader through a real shift, so they finish it a little different from how they started.
So if you’re spread thin, put your best hour into the post. Almost everything else on this list points back to it.
Notes are signposts, not the destination
Start with the tool most people over-rate: Notes.
A Note isn’t built to create a lasting relationship. It’s built to grab attention and keep you top of mind. Think of your Notes as the little trail signs on a mountain hike: Small markers at every junction, each one quietly pointing back toward your publication. No single note carries the relationship. Together they make sure people keep finding their way to you.
That’s also why the rules of long-form don’t apply here. A Note wants one idea, short lines, white space, and a clear opening, not a compressed essay.
Your publication chat is the channel most people are sleeping on
Then there’s the one hardly anyone uses well: the chat.
It won’t build a thriving Substack on its own. But once you’re past a few hundred subscribers, it might be the most underused tool you have. We post to ours every single day, and have for over a year and a half. Each day has a theme, and each theme has a job: Some spark activity, some run giveaways or challenges, some quietly surface your superfans, the people most likely to buy from you later.
Left empty, the chat is a dead room. Used with intent, it becomes the most active corner of your publication.
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Live and podcasts are how you prove you’re a real human
Two tools do a job no amount of text can: They show people the person behind the publication.
AI is everywhere now, and clean, generic content has gotten cheap. The one thing it can’t fake is you, on camera, unpolished. That’s what live streaming is for. It’s fast, it’s real, and the small stumbles are the point, not the problem. You go live and the message is out instantly, before anyone else has finished editing their video. And if you fumble it, nothing bad happens. The sun still comes up the next morning.
A podcast does a quieter version of the same job. Don’t just read your posts aloud, because hardly anyone wants the audio version of an article they could have read. Give them the behind-the-scenes instead, the asides and the jokes, and build a little insider language only your regulars catch. That inside reference is what turns a listener into someone who feels like they’re part of the circle.
Your paid tier is a door, not the destination
Then there’s the tool almost everyone misreads: the paid tier.
Lots of people treat the paid subscription as the finish line. It’s closer to the starting line. A paid subscriber has raised their hand and told you they value your work enough to pay for it. That’s the signal. Some of those people don’t really want a $60-a-year subscription, they want the next level up: The course, the coaching, the shortcut that saves them months.
So over-deliver in your free content and your trials until people can’t picture leaving, then give them somewhere to go. Treat the paid tier as the door that opens the real conversation, not the last thing you’ll ever offer them.
Your DMs are where the relationships, and the revenue, actually live
Which brings us to the tool that ties all the others together: your DMs.
Go through your comments. Skip the obvious AI drop-ins and find the people asking real questions. Answer them in the thread, then send a DM and start an actual conversation. A lot of real revenue starts exactly there: Not from a broadcast, but from one person feeling genuinely seen.
DMs are also how you qualify. A short exchange tells you quickly whether someone’s a fit for what you offer, long before a discovery call. Notes get attention and posts earn trust, but the DM is where that trust turns into a relationship.
That’s a lot of moving parts, and getting each one pointed at the right job is most of the game. It’s also where most of the trial and error happens.
If you already run a business or a coaching practice and you’d rather not spend the next year piecing Substack together by guesswork, apply to work with us inside the Substack Accelerator.
