It is Sunday, January 12, 2025 as I work on this post and podcast episode. TikTok is literally 7 days away from being banned in the United States. According to Google AI Overview, there are over 170 million American TikTok users. It may surprise many people to find out that North America lands at #4 on the list of regions across the world using the app with Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa and Latin America rounding out the top three. However, none of that matters to you if you’ve landed on this podcast or post. You’re likely one of thousands of content creators who are trying to figure out what’s next. Now you’re thinking about moving from TikTok to Substack. Listen to this episode before you start setting up; your newsletter.
You’ve likely put in a lot of time, energy and angst to build a unique brand that serves a community that might not be served if you weren’t doing what you do. And, you’re fighting to keep from losing your actual business. The income that you’ve been building over the years. It doesn’t matter if you’re making fun side-hustle money or full-time money, these days any potential loss of income is scary to consider. With all this going on now you’re thinking about moving from TikTok to Substack. Before you make the move, there are some important things to consider. I’ve grown a Substack newsletter since August 2022 with 2025 being my third year on the platform. I’m going to share what you need to consider before saying “Yes” to Substack. Also, I do want to quickly mention that while I normally edit my episodes, this one hasn’t been edited that would have delayed releasing the episode.
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Listen to the Podcast
Creators Getting Paid
Creators Getting Paid helps Black, Brown and Allied Content Creators who’re creating spaces, services and communities that otherwise wouldn’t exist strategize how to earn money with their work.
This is done through sharing case studies, conversations and tools developed by other creators who are earning money serving similar communities. Head to creatorsgettingpaid.com/newsletter
Show Notes
Before I get into this, I’m going to briefly share who I am and why I initially starting building a project on Substack. My name is Michelle Jackson, an award winning multi-passionate content content creator. Initially, I have been known for my work in the personal finance space for a brand that I built previously called “Michelle is Money Hungry” that has been rebranded to Your American Money this year. I’ve spoken at numerous events ranging from being the keynote for the Black Podcasters Association Summer Picnic in Brooklyn, Podcast Movement, FinCon, Podcast Movement Evolutions and Denver StartUp Week. I have 2 additional projects-one about the state of Colorado and a romance pen name.
Yes, that’s a lot.
That said, in some ways I’ve done a good job of building out a personal brand despite not having a social media forward brand. A couple of years ago I recognized that there was a huge issue with the business that I was builiding-with the exception of my romance brand, I wasn’t actively building lists. It was clear that this was a huge mistake especially as I was trying to work through the increasing toxicity of Twitter-a plaform that had enjoyed being on. I was looking for a place that I thought I could build a list relatively “fast” had a nice user interface and would be easy for me to use because I’d already gone through learning how to use WordPress and didn’t want to go through that type of learning curve again.
So, I said “Yes” to Substack
The Bad Things About Substack
I’m going to work my way backwards and start with the bad things about being on Substack. Then I’ll talk about best practices, then end with the good. There are three aspects to using Substack that I would consider “Bad” or concerning.
- Substack has made similar stances on Nazis/Far-Right and Freedom of Speech that Mark Zuckerberg (META) and Elon Musk (X) have made for their platforms. I feel like most third party platform in 2025 would rather lean into making money vs. creator and community safety.
- If you’re trying to sell on the platform-You may get pushback from OG users who may have internalized issues around sales. This is a them problem, not a “you” problem and I’m constantly confused by this issue on the platform because it was literally designed to help creatives make money online.
- Substack is Not Profitable Yet-I actually hadn’t realized this until last week when someone brought this up. With that in mind, Substack will need to raise more funding and likely is working on changes to its business model behind the scenes. They can’t just rely on paying newsletter subscriber. I’m sure that some folks on the platform aren’t going to like the changes that will be coming. It’s just a matter of time. Here are some other details about the platform.
- Conversion from Free to Paid-I’ve seen some variations of this statistic being around 5-10%. It’s my view that the percentage is a bit lower. HOWEVER, I think that is for two reasons:
- The audience on the platform-Remember how I said you may get pushback for selling.
- Newsletter design and what creators communicate is behind the paywall. This is something that you (the content creator) just have to continually work on.
Best Practices-Don’t Lose Sight of These Things
You’ve decided to move forward and build a newsletter/resource/community on Substack. Truth be told what you’re building on Substack could be one, two or all three of these things. Here are some very important things to keep in mind.
- Substack moves slowly-Before I stopped using TikTok, I found myself amazed by how “fast” the experience felt. I would watch a cooking video and then the algorithm would inundate me with similar videos. People on Substack tend to savor the content and react more thoughtfully on the platform. If you love a quick speed of response on your platforms-that’s not Substack (at least right now)
- Diversify where your audience is coming from-This is huge. I think it can be very, very tempting to just focus on the Substack eco-system for newsletter growth. DON’T DO THIS. The people that earned the most money from came from other areas of my brand. My podcast, other podcast interviews, website content, social media. Move people from your world to your newsletter. If you solely rely on the Substack eco-system please take into account that you will have to warm up this audience for awhile because you’re likely new to them. You’re starting from scratch.
- Don’t call your newsletter a Substack-When connecting with your audience. They don’t care about the tool you’re using. They care about the content. If you talk about the fact that you’re on Substack with other content creators, that makes sense because they may actually be interested in what happens behind the scenes. Don’t confuse your audience.
- ‘Cadence vs. Calendar‘-Show up consistently, but you have the power to decide what that looks like. I use a “Cadence” process where I publish at least once a week…typically on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I don’t share an actual time when I’ll publish. There are other people who share exactly when they will publish. For example, Tuesdays at 8:00 am EST. Whichever process works best for your creative approach is the approach you should take.
- Newsletters and List Building-Are LONG-TERM areas of focus and your effort will scale overtime.
- Monetization Isn’t Just About Paying Subscribers-There are so many ways you can make money with your Substack. Stop leaving money on the table. Sell and ignore the haters.
- Paid Subscribers
- Workshops
- Affiliate marketing
- Book sales
- In-person and Virtual events
- Download Your List-Once a month download your CSV file from Substack and upload it elsewhere. I upload to my list on Flodesk. Luvvie Ajayi Jones made a point of sharing this on Threads. Things can happen on third party platforms. I’ll never forget when Codie Sanchez from Contrarian Thinking got locked out of her Substack of 50,000 subscribers. That was not good.
- The Bigger Your List-The more you need to work with Substack or any host of your newsletter to renegotiate the terms of the cost to host your list on their platform. I don’t have a big enough list to worry about this yet. But, once I hit around 30,000 subscribers some conversations would have to be had.
- Backup your Content-I create content on my website and save them as drafts. If anything goes wrong with my Substack profile-I can have those posts “Go Live” and keep things moving. No one would know the difference.
- Limited Funnel and Tagging Options-If you’re trying to set up funnels, sequences, and Zapier functions-Substack isn’t really going to be the place for that.
If you’re thinking, Michelle, I just need to set up shop somewhere ASAP and I’ll worry about these things later. No worries, I just want you to keep these things in mind.
The Good Things About Substack
I know that I started with the bad, but there are some wonderful aspects to hosting your work on the Substack platform.
- Ease of building an engaged community-I am so appreciative of the wonderful people who have said “yes” to Creators Getting Paid. This week I’m just shy of 2,500 subscribers and I love receiving their comments, input and hanging out with them at events. They’re also doing some amazing work so it’s wonderful to support the work that they’re doing too.
- Ease of Use-The platform is really easy to use. You don’t have to have tech skills to set up a Substack and you could watch videos on YouTube if you’re a visual learner.
- Possibility of Collaborating-With other creators on the platform. There are some cool people designing amazing work on the Substack platform.
- Creativity is celebrated-The platform is a wonderful place to be a “creative’s creative” There are some truly beautifully done creative concepts on the platform that I love.
Moving from TikTok to Substack
May be a decision that you’ll have to make right now and in the upcoming months. Substack has embraced video, audio and a Notes feature which is similar in some ways to the Threads feeds. Ultimately, changing platforms when you don’t want to is stressful as hell. It’s my hope that this podcast episode and the show notes have given you some things to consider before making the change. While I’ve truly enjoyed my experience on Substack not every platform is for every body. I also would like to say that there’s a huge opportunity for video content creators migrating onto Substack because video is a new addition to the platform. No matter what you decide-do begin building a list and as always, side-eye all third party platforms.
