Bringing your LinkedIn followers to Substack
Tips from writers who are turning LinkedIn followers into Substack subscribers, and taking back control of their audience
LinkedIn can be a useful surface for grabbing the attention of businesspeople and professionals. After all, for many LinkedIn users, it’s the only social media they look at. However, you never really own the relationship. As with all social media, on LinkedIn the platform stands between you and your followers, and algorithms determine whether they see your content—or miss it.
That’s why writers and creators of professional, business, and investing content are taking back control of how they reach their audience, by building on Substack. With Substack, you always own and control your list of email subscribers, and they see everything you publish—not just what an algo shows them. You also have the option to turn on paid subscriptions, and make money from your most dedicated readers.
How to bring your followers with you
To help you get started with building on Substack, here are a few best practices for inviting invite your LinkedIn followers to subscribe to your Substack.
Add a link to your Substack on your LinkedIn profile. Stating you have a newsletter and adding an emoji in your bio makes it extra clear for your followers. How to do it: While viewing your LinkedIn profile, click the pen icon to edit your profile; then under Contact Info, click Add Website, and add a link to your Substack.
For example, here’s how Michael Spencer, writer of the Substack AI Supremacy, added a link to his Substack on his LinkedIn profile:
Post your Substack posts on LinkedIn, along with a short blurb of introductory text to let readers know what they’re about and entice them to click through to read the whole thing. Melody Song, writer of the Substack Headlines, posts a link to her Substack posts with a few lines of introductory text. The social preview image automatically populates in the post.
Another example of posting a Substack post to LinkedIn, from Marc Rubinstein, writer of the Substack Net Interest:
Post a behind-the-scenes image highlighting a milestone for your Substack. Michael Kevin Spencer of AI Supremacy made a LinkedIn post of an image of his subscriber growth chart. He then replied to his own post with a link to his Substack so readers could check it out.
If you have a LinkedIn newsletter, post the summary version of your post on LinkedIn, and the full version on Substack. Rachel Botsman, author of the Substack Rethink with Rachel, starts her LinkedIn newsletter articles with a call-to-action for readers to head to her Substack for more:
At Substack, we don't think social media algorithms should decide who sees your work. Instead, we believe writers should be empowered to control the relationship with their readers. By shepherding your LinkedIn followers to join you on Substack, you’ll be able to build a deeper relationship with them, via community features like comments and Chat. Plus, you’ll have the option of building a stream of income by turning on subscriptions.
Getting started is easy
Haven’t launched your Substack yet? You can get started for free, and publish for free for as long as you want. The first step is to set up your Substack publication so you can grab your desired domain name. This takes less than a minute:
Want to learn more, or have a question not answered here? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions.
I think a lot about this topic, was surprised and proud to see you included me in this post. Suffice to say that because the click-through-rate is higher on LinkedIn to external sites like Substack, doing LinkedIn Posts well is a huge benefit for Substack Writers looking for high-quality traffic and the SEO boost that LinkedIn's domain provides.
Many of the fastest growing Substack Newsletters do it due to referral traffic from LinkedIn. Since the audience tends to be older and more senior in their careers they are also more likely to convert into paid subscribers as a whole. This means that LinkedIn traffic tends to be of higher value than Twitter, Reddit, Hacker News and other places for technology and business Newsletters.
With reference to some of my recent articles on Substack, I have noticed that LinkedIn is preventing substack website site previews from loading on LinkedIn posts.