Substack growth: first six months

Including links to two unpaywalled posts, for those who couldn’t give a monkeys about Substack growth.

Wooo hooo!

I can’t believe we’re at six months already, since I started Off on a Tangent, it has really flown by!

Overall, I’m very pleased with the growth rate, it appears to have become a bit steeper since passing the 100 subscriber mark (around the Feb 11 marker), which means the growth rate is increasing, which is very healthy.

I hesitate to use the phrase ‘my Substack appears to be gaining momentum’, but that’s mainly because I know how strongly my old Physics teacher would have disapproved of that phrase, even though, we all know exactly what I mean.

Here’s the subscriber growth back story:

• After 3 months: 67

• After 4 months: 207

• After 6 months: 435

[Pushes glasses up nose, and gets out imaginary laser pointer.]

So you can see that despite it taking four months to get the first 207 subscribers, it has only taken a further two months to get a further 228.

At this rate, I will happily be sailing into 1,000+ territory by the end of the year, if not well before then.

The beauty of the ‘back catalogue’

My Substack now has the benefit of its previous posts, and it never ceases to amaze and delight me how often they gain extra ‘Likes’, as new readers stumble upon them.

They are not particularly time sensitive, I think the absurdity of KittenAir is just as relevant today, as it was when I wrote it, and the immense fun that can be gained by playing Celebrity Star Spot on holiday is timeless.

In fact only last weekend, our group of Bank Holiday revellers spent an inordinate amount of time discussing whether in fact that was ‘actual Dana Carvey’ on his way to the bar, in the hope of bagging a double pointer.

So, for all of you who are relatively new here, I’ve lifted the Paywall off those two posts above, so you can have a read and hopefully a chuckle as you cruise into the holiday season.

Just so you are aware, my Paywall is set to kick in 12 weeks after publishing to give the Paid subscribers added value. 

Commercially speaking, that’s probably too long a timeframe, but I like to give my ‘babies’ a chance to swim in open water before netting them back in.

Posting frequency

Ok, confession time, this is the elephant in the room. 

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed… literally every subscriber who I know in person I’ve asked this question to…

“Have you noticed that my posting frequency has decreased from twice a week to once?”

Literally everyone’s response: 

“Oh no, I hadn’t noticed…” they say somewhat sheepishly, not knowing if they’ve just offended me, so they then add hastily “I tend to catch-up with them in sessions”.

This answer relieves me greatly, so I quickly reassure them that was the correct response and they can breathe again.

The reason for my decreased number of posts, is I think mainly due to the onset of Spring… as the other thing I like to do is grow flowers… and where possible from seed, which is the most labour intensive, but also most rewarding (and let’s not overlook cheapest) way of filling your garden with flowers.

As you can see it’s pretty hard to not get distracted when you have a bench of seedlings to attend to and a couple of beds full of tulips to daydream at. 

The view from my greenhouse/shed.

Off on a tangent

I do view seed sowing as a little like digital marketing… bear with me…

The initial sowing in a seed tray or cells, is similar to launching a fresh campaign, and looking at all those rows of zeros in hopeful anticipation of when they’ll change into numbers.

The first sight of growth poking through the compost represents ‘impressions’, at which point you know you are going to get some kind of result, so the excitement builds.

A fully fledged seedling is akin to a ‘click’, and then BOOM – a flower, is the final ‘conversion’.

If there’s any fellow Digital Marketers out there, this view point will really help your retirement. 😉

Back to the stats

As you can see in the graph below, the ol’ posting schedule took a bit of a battering from March this year, the tall bars are posting days. 

Here’s the interesting thing… it made no difference whatsoever to my subscriber growth rate!

Which is pretty logical when you think about it. 

I’m sure when you discover a new Substack that you want to subscribe to, you might check out the most recent posts, but at no point do you look at the comparative frequency and see if it’s slowed down over the past few months. 

Why would you care? You simply don’t, and neither do I.

Whereas posting twice a week, was relatively easy when it was winter and cold and miserable outside, it’s proved a huge challenge when the greenhouse has been beckoning.

And no one has mentioned it.

By ‘no one’ I mean you guys, my gorgeous readership. So I’m guessing you don’t mind either. 👏

Why did they unsubscribe?

I often see Notes from people who are dispirited with unsubscribes from a recent post. 

Please never take offence by a few unsubscribes. The most likely reason is that the most recent post is simply acting as a reminder that they are subscribed to you at all! 

So it might be that the last five posts haven’t resonated with them, but they kept forgetting to unsubscribe, and then this latest post reminds them to do it.

Never fear unsubscribes, instead think of it like this… with each one, the overall demographic of your readership gets closer to ‘your kind of people’, and that’s what you want.

A happy band of engaged readers, instead a huge pile of email addresses who’ve forgotten all about your Substack. 

Followers at 6 months: 1,236

This is where the one-woman-mexican wave was employed this month!

I’ll be honest this ‘four-figure-busting-phenomena’ was accompanied by a slight tinge of disappointment, as I had spent a good deal of time wondering whether there would be a comma employed, as per 1,000, which I much prefer to the more modest 1000.

I think my logic, is that it looks closer to 1,000,000!

However, can you imagine my horror when it ticked over and I was greeted by: 

So demoralising Substack! 

What were you thinking?

Two measly characters for such a gargantuan achievement!!!

Does this mean, I’ll have to wait a full 1,000 more Followers to see any further movement?!

The good news, is that unlike our family roast potatoes scoring system Substack does indeed recognise the need for two decimal places. 

There is a God. 👏

Explore vs Following on Notes

And just when I was feeling pretty chuffed with my Follower number, I noticed something quite disturbing in Notes.

I was wondering why I kept seeing Notes from people I definitely, 100%, wasn’t following or subscribed to, and then I noticed the V-shaped ‘burger’ menu to the right of ‘Notes’.

It had changed to ‘Explore’ which is basically those that Substack wants me to see, rather than ‘Following’ which are those that I actually want to see.

I don’t think this is a great development and the most frustrating thing is, it keeps switching you back to ‘Explore’, each time you move away from the page.

If I wanted to just be shown random stuff that I didn’t choose I’d go back to Instagram.

Grrrrrrr.

Recommendations

This is where I need your help. 🙏

Recommendations are a fantastic way to grow your Subscriber base, if other Substacks are ‘recommending’ you then your Substack is offered up as ‘one they might like’ whenever someone subscribes to theirs.

So admittedly, they probably also attract the highest ‘unsubscribe rate’ when people realise they signed up for something that, actually they’re not really into, but at least they give you a chance to reach a new audience to see if there is a fit. 

I currently have 19, which I thought was pretty OK, until comparisonitus kicked in when I was reading Mika’s post and she has a whopping 61, with a subscriber base of 722, which is a much higher ratio that mine! You go girl!!! 👏

I must admit I have not focused on these at all yet, but if any of you have Substacks of your own and you do genuinely enjoy my musings, could you please possibly see your way to ‘Recommend’ this little Substack?

Otherwise I’ll have to hunt you down one by one and send a begging email, which will put both of us in an awkward spot.

In return you will receive:

• A reciprocal Recommendation (if indeed I enjoy your Substack too). 😉

• A warm fuzzy feeling for helping out a fellow Substacker.

• My undying love forever.

Thank you so much!

K8x

Join in the comments below:

Were you aware of the Explore/Following pull-down menu?

Do you notice other Substack’s posting schedules?

Thank you for being here, please ❤️ (below) if you enjoyed this piece, it really helps others find it.

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