Growth hacks are killing Substack Notes (and your list)
The problem with performative growth hacks, and how you can write with purpose instead.
People talk a lot about how you can use Substack Notes for growth.
I’ve done that too. I’ve written about specific Notes that earned me hundreds of new subscribers. And it remains true. A well-timed post, a unique anecdote or a reply in the right thread can all help.
But here’s what most people skip over: many of those subscribers won’t stick around.
Some will never open a single email. Some will unsubscribe the second they get one. Others will hang around just long enough to tank your open or delivery rates, inflating your numbers without ever engaging.
So, the question becomes: what’s the point? If you’re spending time trying to ‘hack’ Notes for growth, but those new readers aren’t actually reading, who are you really writing for?
Notes are a tool. But they aren’t magic.
So how can you use Notes for actual growth, and not just for vanity numbers?
An example of a Notes hack
Notes like this are somehow doing annoyingly well. This person posted the same format today, yesterday, and the day before. All at exactly the same time.
Funny that, isn’t it? Almost as though they never actually happened.
It’s frustrating to spend time and energy crafting insightful Notes, only for Chat GPT nonsense like this to get more views, likes and comments.
Do the people who engage actually believe them? Or is it just like LinkedIn, where we all pretend everything’s sincere, even when it’s clearly not?
The thing is: these Notes aren’t actually helping this person grow. Not really. They’ve got nearly 8000 subscribers, but hardly any paid, despite running many paid posts. Even a modest 2% upgrade rate would make them a Substack bestseller, with 150+ paying subscribers.
What does that tell you? Sure, they reach a lot of people. But the people they reach aren’t actually interested, engaged or reading. So what’s the point?
So what’s the point in Substack Notes?
I’ve found the enshittification of Substack Notes has happened quite quickly. It’s been around for a while to some degree, but it really has felt like a budget LinkedIn at times during the last few months.
When Substack first rolled out Notes, everyone was joining in. It felt different to other social media channels, at least until the growth-hack crowd arrived.
It started as something insightful, but didn’t remain that for long. We’ve now seen ‘comment to boost’ threads. Subscribe for subscribe. Some people simply beg for follows. And you know what? Some of those tactics have sort of worked.
But temporary growth isn’t the goal. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.
If your subscriber list is full of people who don’t care about your writing, you’re not building an audience. You’re building a numbers game. And numbers, by themselves, won’t help you write better posts. They won’t increase paid conversions. They won’t even give you a sense of what’s working.
Worse, chasing that kind of growth can lead you to write for the algorithm. You’ll shape your Notes around what performs best, not what reflects your personality or your writing. You’ll start guessing what gets reposted, instead of saying what you mean. Or worse, cringe at your own made-up stories.
And once you start doing that, it’s hard to stop.
I’ve done some of the above. I’ve shared threads that exist only to boost visibility. I’ve commented in places I wouldn’t normally, hoping for a spillover. I’ve phrased things just right to get myself in. And I’ve watched some of those tactics bring in new subscribers.
Then I’ve watched a majority of them ghost me immediately.
You start to realise something once you’ve sent a few too many emails into the void: people who don’t care about your work aren’t worth chasing. I'd rather have 100 readers who open every post than 1,000 who don't even remember signing up.
So how can Notes grow an audience meaningfully?
It might not gain you thousands of likes, reposts or subscribers, but there are ways you can grow an audience meaningfully with Notes.