Medium vs Substack: my first Medium post
Hi all,
I run a Substack newsletter and am pretty familiar with it. And recently, in response to Trump's Twitter ban I wrote a medium post (mostly because my newsletter wasn't the right audience for the post).
You can find it here: https://johnfowler-31722.medium.com/the-architects-of-our-own-decline-why-twitter-shouldnt-have-banned-trump-b70187061ce3
Here are my initial thoughts on the two platforms:
- Medium articles are far more appealing to look at imo. Substack is very limited (though recent changes make it better).
- Medium allows you to be far freer in format, topic and thinking. You don't know who your audience will be, and unless you start a publication, they choose to read on an article by article basis.
- Substack locks you in to a certain style because you build trust with your audience. They place trust by giving you their email, you have to deliver something close to what they agreed to sign up to.
- Because Substack forces you to build trust, and cadence, it is far more conducive to regular writing. Regular writing is the only way to get better, and ultimately that's the goal.
Overall, I'm using Substack to build a brand, because I love the locked-in structure. Their ethos seems to be avoiding the paradox of choice, which is great for just getting writing.
Every so often, when the mood strikes and I want to write an article that's off topic, I think I'll do that on Medium. Hopefully, I can even create a nice little flywheel of cross promotion.
I'd be fascinated by your thoughts, and of course would love feedback on my writing!
Cheers,
John
https://internationalintrigue.substack.com/
One thing I’ll add is that medium is much better if you want to leverage SEO. I’m using both now for my blog (https://content.streamfunc.com)and what I’m testing now is repurposing content from the substack to medium. The content is the same but the framing of the content is different. For substack, if you’re a subscriber the value is that you’re getting the content of my blog a week before I post it on medium and there is slight content changes on Medium to reflect the difference in the time-of-post since the content is time sensitive.
Interesting point. And what is the point of you chasing the SEO juice? Are you trying to drive readers to your substack so you can monetise it, or are you just trying to build a personal brand as a thought leader by getting your stuff in front of many people as possible?
I can see cross posting being great for the latter. If you want SEO benefits, what's stopped you setting up your own website/email situation? Just cost/effort?
Definitely the latter. My goal is to eventually drive subscribers to an app where I can monetize the content + features so the focus now is to grow awareness as much as possible. Building the blog platform myself I actually didn’t even consider much. Medium and substack already gives so much for free so I can focus on the end goal app.
Makes sense. I'm trying to grow a newsletter, so I think my own techstack with SEO + email makes sense in the long run.
This is an interesting observation (I paraphrased it; I hope this is what you meant) and true. Thanks for sharing. I write on both, but didn't think in those terms.
Yep, much more succinct! 😂 It's a good way to think about you present your content.
Thanks for sharing John!
When you say substack is very limited, what do you mean?
I'm building a blog platform and curious what you wish substack had.
Hey thecrev
Well, I mean that until last week there was one font, you could choose one colour, if you want the tracking pixel to work properly it has to be less than 102kb, you can't really get rid of the substack domain unless you pay (I think $50) for it, the formatting options within the editor are VERY limited, and so on.
You can't really personally brand it, where Medium gives you a few more options on that front.
Don't get me wrong, Medium has its limits too (though I think looks a little nicer), but its more flexible with how you use it.
I'm sure you know this, but main difference is just distribution models, email vs blog.
Of course, none of them are like you're own site but for out of the box solutions, they're both great.
Hope that's somewhat helpful mate.
John
yes, thank you!