Tracy Friedlander How to Use Substack for Business Growth

What if you could combine your blog, email list, social media, and even your podcast – all while building an audience you can actually take with you? Tracy Friedlander explains why Substack is becoming an intriguing option for small businesses and experts looking to get discovered, grow a subscriber base, and even create new revenue streams.

How to Grow Your Business with Substack

If your content strategy involves a blog nobody visits, an email list growing too slowly, or social posts that disappear before lunch, you’re not alone. Most of us trying to grow a business are playing the same game: write something, post it on the site, share it on social, hope people find it. The problem is nobody stumbles onto your blog by accident anymore, and social platforms are designed to keep people scrolling there rather than clicking over to yours.

That’s what made my recent conversation with Tracy Friedlander so valuable. Tracy is a Substack strategist and the creator of The Second Act Strategist, and she makes a compelling case that Substack solves a problem we’re all struggling through.

The Discovery Problem Your Blog Can’t Solve

Here’s the thing about having a blog in 2026: the content might be excellent, but it’s sitting on your property waiting for someone to find it. Substack flips that. People are already on the platform looking for content that engages them. “Discovery is built in,” Tracy told me. “When you create a blog or have an email list, the next job is to go out on social and try to drive people over there. With Substack, you don’t have to do that.”

That single factor changes the math considerably for businesses already stretched thin on time and budget.

You Own Your Subscriber List

The argument against building an audience on any third-party platform is the rented-land problem. Instagram followers don’t transfer. YouTube subscribers can’t be exported. If the platform changes its terms or goes the way of MySpace, you lose the audience.

Substack is different. When someone subscribes to you there, they’re joining an email list you can download, back up, and take somewhere else if you ever leave. “You can take your list and go wherever else you want,” Tracy explained, “which you can’t do on Instagram or any other platform where people are just following you.”

It’s less like building on rented land and more like parking your food truck there and attracting an audience.

Notes vs. Long-Form: The Party You Need to Understand

Substack has two main content modes: long-form writing (a proper newsletter or blog post) and Notes, a short-form feed that functions a bit like X or LinkedIn. A lot of people get this backwards. They treat Notes like a place to announce their long-form content, which is roughly as effective as walking into a party and handing everyone a business card the moment you arrive.

Tracy’s framing is better: “The notes feed is much more like a party. You wouldn’t just start walking in and start passing out your business card. Instead, you’d be like, ‘Hey, what’s up? What are you up to?’ You’re gonna act like you would at a party.”

The goal with Notes is to be approachable and start real conversations. Then when people check your bio and click over to your long-form content, they’re already predisposed to like what they find. Tracy also pointed out that commenting still matters on Substack in a way it doesn’t on most platforms. Real conversations still happen in the comments, and that engagement is one of the better ways to get discovered when you’re starting out.

Do You Need a Paid Tier?

If you’re using Substack to build your audience rather than as a standalone revenue source, the obvious question is whether you need a paid tier at all. Short answer: no. But you should probably turn it on regardless.

Tracy explained that Substack’s leaderboard features and visibility tools favor publications with the paid tier enabled, even if you’re not selling anything behind it. You may not be penalized for not having a paid tier, but you’re not gonna get rewarded for it either.

Turning it on costs nothing if you never activate it, but it may open up distribution perks that free-only accounts miss. And if you do want to use it for actual monetization, Tracy suggests thinking of it as a pre-education layer: content that helps potential clients get ready to work with you before they’re ready to hire you.

Content That Doesn’t Die Overnight

Substack content has a much longer shelf life than what you’d post on Instagram or even LinkedIn. “On Instagram, if you post something, it’s got 24 hours tops,” Tracy noted. “But I’m seeing people interacting with notes that I’ve posted months and months ago.”

Once you’ve built up a body of work, you can start referencing older posts in new ones, which keeps earlier content circulating and compounds the value of everything you’ve published. It’s a content model that keeps working even when you’re not actively publishing.

Patience Is the Strategy

Tracy’s number one piece of advice: give it time. “Show up every day, and don’t watch the clock,” she said. “You have to give it a few months.” That’s not the most exciting version of the answer, but it’s the honest one. The people who see results on Substack are the ones who show up consistently, engage genuinely, and let the platform do its job.

If you want to figure out what kind of creator you’d be on Substack, Tracy has built a quiz at substackstrategy.com/quiz that identifies your creator type and gives personalized guidance. You can also find her work at substackstrategy.com and The Second Act Strategist on Substack.

What to Do Next

Take Tracy’s creator type quiz at substackstrategy.com/quiz before you start posting.
Set up a free Substack account and enable the paid tier, even if you don’t plan to use it right away.
Spend a week reading and engaging in the Notes feed before you publish anything. Get a feel for the room.
Commit to at least 90 days of consistent effort before drawing any conclusions.

The platform rewards people who treat it like a long game. If that’s your style, it might be exactly the channel you’ve been looking for to jumpstart your company’s growth.

Transcript From Tracy Friedlander’s Episode

Rich: My next guest is a former orchestra musician turned online business strategist, helping smart people with strong opinions get known for what they know and build a business around it. Her focus is on Substack as the best place to build in 2026 and beyond.

Today, we’re going to be taking our first look at Substack on the Agents of Change podcast ever with Tracy Friedlander. Tracy, welcome to the podcast.

Tracy: Thanks so much. I’m so happy to be here.

Rich: So I’m curious, what instrument did you play, and what’s your favorite orchestral piece?

Tracy: My instrument is the French horn, and my favorite piece is, of course, Mahler’s Symphony #5. It has to be. Of course. I don’t know if you know that piece.

Rich: Not by name.

Tracy: It’s a huge horn piece.

Rich: If you hum a few bars. Is it a French horn specific piece? Is this where the French horn really shines?

Tracy: Yes, it does. Later on. It starts with the trumpet only, a huge trumpet solo, so you might recognize it that way. But yeah, there’s a whole movement in the symphony that is dedicated to the horn. It’s really cool.

Rich: All right. Well, if I can find a royalty-free version of it, maybe we’ll add that into the podcast at some place in the episode so we can check it out.

Tracy: That’s a good idea.

Rich: All right. So you move from French horn to Substack. Natural progression, obviously.

Tracy: Natural.

Rich: What was that journey like, and why Substack?

Tracy: Yeah. So it wasn’t so direct as I put my horn down and picked up a computer. But it was, to make the long story short, it sort of went like that, you know. I became a mom and decided maybe I don’t want to be on the road traveling, playing concerts, doing all that. And so I started to write.

And I started doing that in 2016 before Substack existed. And I was mostly writing on Facebook and Instagram, and I developed my writing chops with social media, really. And so then when Substack became a thing, and it’s sort of a combination of a blog website and an email marketing platform, but also social media. It’s like this weird kind of social media mix, and my style just really fit there really well.

So that’s why I like it so much, because you can bring a lot of different kind of skills there and still build a following. So if you like email, if you like long form, if you like short form, if you like podcasts, if you like audios, videos, going live, all that stuff is sort of all together in that platform.

And so that’s why I like it so much. And it’s pretty small right now compared to a lot of the other platforms. So if you’re new, if you’re just getting started, it’s kind of… it doesn’t feel as lonely to start over there.

Rich: So what do you think that Substack offers that we don’t already get from, say, our website or email list or social media channels?

Tracy: Discovery by the people who are already there. So if you have a blog, people aren’t going to naturally go to your blog, but people are already naturally on the platform of Substack just like they would be on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or X, whatever you call it now, on any social platform. So that’s the best part. Like, discovery is built in.

So when you create a blog or when you have an email list, the next job is to go out on the other social medias and try to drive people to go over there. With Substack, you don’t have to do that because the discovery’s already there if you’re playing your social media game right over there.

Rich: All right. Now, one concern that I’ve always had and heard from others about these kind of platforms is that we’re building an audience on somebody else’s property. How do we think about that in terms of a trade-off when it comes to Substack?

Tracy: Yeah, so the cool thing is that when someone subscribes to you on Substack, that’s different from following you on Instagram. If they want to get your longer emails, your podcast updates, whatever, they subscribe, and people are subscribing on there and you’re building an email list at the same time.

So you can download it. You can back up the list. You can move it. If you decide to leave Substack, you can take your list and go wherever else you want, which you can’t do on Instagram or any other platform where people are just following you. So that’s sort of a benefit, I think, compared to followers.

Rich: Okay. Now you mentioned that Substack is relatively new compared to some of the other social media sites that we might be familiar with. Now those sites, Twitter, X, Facebook, even YouTube, they all evolve over time. Have you noticed any changes in the time that you’ve been on Substack, either better or worse?

Tracy: Yeah, huge changes, as always. I mean, we’ve all watched the history of all of these platforms. They’re always trying to compete with the other platforms, trying to get similar or the same type of formats and stuff.

And for example, Substack, when it first launched, it was just long-format and that was it, long-form writing. So the people who got on early really were able to build and grow a following fast because the algorithm was set up in a way that you could get a lot of attention. There were less people there.

And then they introduced the Notes Feed, which essentially, it’s the feed, right? Because there wasn’t maybe really a feed before because then the app came out. So each time the thing changes, they add new features and whatever. So they added the Notes Feed.

People freaked out. They were like, “Hey, I write long-form blog posts. I don’t want to have to write short form.” So people got mad, and then other people came in and said, “Hey, if we figure this out, maybe we can grow faster,” and that’s exactly what happened. So then people started to go kind of all in on, like, how do I do these notes things so that people find me in the feed and they go, “Oh, I’m going to read the long-form”? That’s the goal with that.

But then they rolled out going live, just like you can do on Facebook and Instagram, and so then that changed it again. And then the podcasting feature is also changing it. But the nice thing, and you might appreciate this as a podcaster, you know that when you’re a podcaster, people listen sort of anonymously. Like, maybe they follow you in the podcasting app, maybe they download it to their device, but with Substack’s podcasts, you can get an email just as part of the whole process of subscribing and everything.

So it’s a little bit different, especially for small creators and small podcasters. So with each layer that they add, things change. And maybe some people get annoyed with it, like, “I came here for this.” But if we are paying attention to the history of any social media, things always change. And the people who run Substack have a different goal in mind than the people who create on there, right? The people who are creating the platform want to make money, they want to compete, they want to be thought of as a leader in whatever space. So it’s natural. It’s going to happen. Nothing ever stays the same online, right?

Rich: So let’s talk a little bit about that, the monetization part of it. So there are different tiers on Substack, from what I understand. So why don’t you walk us through how a typical creator like yourself uses the different tiers to create a revenue stream?

Tracy: Yeah, so, you can turn on your paid tier, which is a really cool feature. And initially, what it started out to be is you put out free content to free subscribers, and then you create other content that you’ll paywall, right? And depending on who you are, depending on if you already have an audience who knows who you are and what kind of stuff you’ll put behind the paywall, depends on how you create your level of monetized content.

So for me, I currently am a best seller. I just got my best seller badge on Substack, which is really cool, which means that I got more than 100 paid subscribers. But then there’s another level after that, which is 1,000 paid subscribers, and the level beyond that is 10,000 paid subscribers. And you get your little badges that show how successful you are on the platform.

But what kind of content you put behind the paywall does depend largely on your niche and who you are and all that. Because some people came onto the platform and said, “You already know who I am. I’m famous, and so most of my stuff is paid, and if you want to enjoy my work that you already are familiar with, you have to pay.” And so depending on where you are in that fame spectrum would probably depend on what you’ll be able to do to be successful.

But the truth is that people with much smaller followings or much less famous, like myself, I’m not famous, can still make money there. Which I think is really cool because on other platforms, when you talk about monetization, you’re talking about tens of thousands of views before you get paid a dime on YouTube or whatever. But not the case with Substack. If you grow a following, if people really are leaning into what you’re saying and what you’re doing there, they’ll pay you. And it can happen pretty fast.

Rich: So a lot of what I saw when I went on Substack recently, I had subscribed to a couple of newsletters through Substack over the years, not really paying attention to the platform itself, is that there is a lot of content creators on that platform, and that makes sense.

If you’re a content creator, this seems like a great platform for you to be able to publish, whether you do audio or video or the written word, and it’s a way to build subscribers, and it’s a way to ultimately monetize the content that you create.

Is there a business model for a small to medium-sized business where they’re creating content, whether it’s the owner, the marketer, communications director, what have you, where they can use the platform to help grow their business and possibly to generate additional streams of revenue?

Tracy: Absolutely. I mean, I would love to know what kind of business, like when you say that, do you have a specific type of business in mind? Because I like to work in tangibles, because it makes it easier for me to explain it.

Rich: I think certainly when I took a look at it, I’m like, “Oh, if this had been around 15, 20 years ago, I may have jumped on this platform.”

So I run a digital agency. What are some of the ways that I could be leveraging Substack to build either an audience for flyte new media’s services or another revenue stream where we could just add that to the bottom line?

Tracy: Right. Okay, so the first thing I would say that you would do is create free content that gets people aware of what you do, and then perhaps the paid tier would be some probably educational thing. Like, what you would want people to know.

Like, maybe it would be the stage before they hire you, for example. Like, you wouldn’t want someone to come to you asking for your services because they might not have things in place that means they’re ready to work with you, right? So maybe behind the paywall, they get some deeper foundational stuff that they would have to do on their own before they can work with you. And now they’re in your world, now they know how you think, and it turns into a decent income stream once you get the numbers that you’re looking to build. And maybe some of those people don’t end up hiring your agency quite to that level, but they become customers in other ways. Or they connect other people with you. So there’s a lot of benefit, I think, there.

And right when you were giving me that example, and you started with the symphony, I would say if I could use a symphony as an example, I think it would be brilliant. The symphonies always have email lists. They always use social media. They’re pretty much always pumping out social media advertising for their concerts, right? But there’s a layer that they rarely dig into for money, and this is one of the things that once I became really into social media and internet marketing and showing up online, it started to bother me a lot how behind the times they were.

Because they could create something where they’re running a part of their email list and maybe podcast. Maybe they create a podcast on Substack. And then the paid tier would be deeper workshops around the composers and what they’re doing. Like, the composer of the piece that is being played on Friday. So instead of saying, “You have to come to the concert early and, and hear this talk,” you could grab it on a paid podcast on the way to the concert, for example.

You know, I think there’s just all kinds of cool, creative ways that you can start to bring more people into your world and also get paid for that.

Rich: Well, and the way that orchestras and a lot of other creative arts organizations throughout the U.S. and everywhere in the world are often struggling with people who are aging out of their demographic or whatever the case may be and finding ways of bringing new listeners as well as new revenue streams.

Because I could see if you’ve already got an email newsletter, why not move it to Substack and then have the patron of the arts tier where you would get things like, “Here’s behind-the-scenes video of us practicing for this upcoming concert,” or something along those lines. Or, “Here is a song that we didn’t get to include in the performance because of time, but it was a piece that we practiced, and you as a patron have access to this.” So there are definitely some other ways.

Tracy: Yeah. Or behind the scenes, some moments where the orchestra was laughing or goofing around, or the conductor was making a joke. Things that they normally wouldn’t see, but they get to pay because they’re behind the scenes. I love that. I mean, it’s cool.

Rich: And again, these are still content creators or at least content players, concert performers, so it’s a little bit easier, perhaps, to envision that than maybe somebody who runs an HVAC company or an accounting service.

But one thing that you did mention earlier that I thought was interesting was the podcasting piece. So obviously, we’re already at flyte podcasting through the Agents of Change podcast. We’re creating this content. If people who are listening right now are also creating similar content, how might we leverage Substack to reach a new audience? Can I just take my podcast recording and upload it there, or is that frowned upon or is that not allowed? How might that work?

Tracy: You can do all of that. You can actually, you don’t even have to move or do anything with where your podcast is currently. You can just set up something where it’s sort of like a reverse RSS. Maybe you just use it with an RSS feed.

I’d have to really look at what the exact thing that you’re trying to do. But you wouldn’t have to move anything from your current hosting site. You could just have it feeding through Substack and automatically generating the podcast there. So yeah, you can absolutely repurpose content that you have.

You can plug in your YouTube right in the back settings, so everything can be getting posted in those both places. So there’s tons of ways that you can do that, that you can take stuff that you’re already doing and bring it into Substack. And it’s not a bad idea, even if you don’t plan on spending a ton of time there.

Rich: So let’s go back to something you were talking about earlier and the fact that discovery is kind of built into the platform. So let’s say that we want to get started on Substack, and we’ve got a small audience or no audience at all. How do we actually get found once we start publishing content to the platform?

Tracy: Well, there’s three parts. Number one is you definitely have to do the long form writing. And you have to post short form notes that’s related to what you talk about in your long form. But my tip about this is that you’re not trying to just make the long form shorter. The notes feed is much more like a party.

Let’s say you’re saying if you’re new and you’ve never shown up on this platform, how do you get started? It’s just like if you were going to a party you wouldn’t just start walking in and start passing out your business card, right? People would be like, “Who is this guy? Why is he doing this?” Instead, you’d be like, “Hey, what’s up? How’s the weather? What are you up to? How’s the family?” You’re going to act like you would at a party. You’re not going to say those exact things in the notes feed, but you’re showing up in a way that makes it yourself, approachable, and starts conversations. That’s the key.

So the notes feed is a conversation starter. When people get to know who you are based on the kind of stuff you’re saying in the notes feed, then they’ll go check out your bio and they’ll say, “Oh, this seems like something that might benefit me, might interest me,” and then they might read the long form.

And the other third piece to that is interacting. So maybe on social media, the bigger ones, you don’t really see much of a benefit from making comments anymore. Everything is automated it seems like. People have ManyChat on Instagram and you make a comment and someone goes, “Check your DMs.” It’s like nobody’s going back to their post to have the conversation. But on Substack, that’s still happening. So if you go into the feed, say some stuff, get to know people, actually get to know. Like, I’ve met a bunch of people on there that I’ve actually had Zoom calls with later, and then later we go live together and then we help each other grow our lists. So it’s really interesting how it’s very collaborative there, too.

So once you get to know friends, and some people might go, “Ugh, I don’t have time for that.” But any time you want to grow, you want to become known, it helps if you meet other people, especially if they’re further along than you are. Everyone can help each other grow, and that’s sort of the vibe there right now. I really see it.

Rich: All right. So let’s say that we’ve been discovered on Substack. What turns a casual reader into a subscriber?

Tracy: That’s such a good question. I think what turns a casual reader into a subscriber is when you’ve shown up enough times giving value in a way that is almost a surprise. I’ve had a lot of people say to me, “I can’t believe you didn’t paywall this. Why didn’t you paywall this? It’s so good.” When you do that enough times, people will pay you just because they’re like, “I like this, and if this is what she gives for free, I want to see what I get for paying.” And that’s the best compliment, to be honest, if you can do that.

So what you do is you figure out what people that are gathering or around the topic that you talk about, what are the things that you need to say and talk about that will gather a crowd of people that you want to reach, people that could be your potential clients, people that you would hope would ask you for help, for example, because that’s how you get paid on another level.

If Substack paid tier is your first level, like your entry kind of low-ticket experience, as long as they’re getting that kind of value from you, like if they’re getting an actual outcome from reading your post, even if it’s just a realization or, “Oh, I never thought about it that way,” kind of feeling, they remember you for that. And then later it could become a one-on-one client or some kind of a customer later.

Rich: All right, so just to be clear, there’s the casual reader who might occasionally see your stuff. Then there’s the possibly free tier, but they’re a subscriber, so now they’re getting alerts, emails, whatever every time you publish something new.

And then there’s the paid version where it’s behind a paywall and they’re stepping up with money in hand saying, “I really want more of your content.” If you’re already running a business, but you’re like, “Hey, this might be an interesting channel for me,” do we need to go to a paid tier or can we just use the platform to build an audience and to gain subscribers?

Tracy: Absolutely. You do not need to turn on a paid tier. But I would recommend that people turn it on anyway. And then even if they don’t necessarily offer anything for the paid tier, mainly because Substack earns money by you earning money. And it doesn’t mean you would be punished if you don’t earn money, but it just means that you’re more free to show up in leaderboards and different things like that if your paid tier is turned on.

I’ve noticed that people will get rising in their category, which is just a list that gives you more exposure if you have the paid tier on. But you can absolutely turn ‘not intend to sell anything’ there and just have all of your content for free. A lot of people do that.

Rich: So you may not be penalized for not having a paid tier, but you’re not going to get rewarded for it either, especially when it comes to some visibility opportunities, it sounds like.

Tracy: Exactly.

Rich: All right. Obviously, we can measure how many subscribers we have, how many people who have done the paid tier and things like that. Are there any other metrics or KPIs that you pay attention to when you’re on Substack?

Tracy: Yeah, because you can also see reach, and you can also see views. Like you said, if someone is a casual reader but they don’t become a subscriber, even a free subscriber, you can see those things. You can see how many views, for example, something has had.

And one of my first breakout posts has had thousands and thousands of views even though I experienced that before I had thousands of readers that were subscribed. So that’s pretty cool, right? Because if you send out an email from your private Kit list, the only people that can potentially get that are the people who are on the list, but not on Substack.

On Substack it can be viewed by lots of people. So you’re just getting a different kind of exposure. And yeah, it is borrowed land, like you said earlier, but I think that’s the way to grow. You have to kind of show up on the borrowed land. And the nice kind of piece of the puzzle of that is that you still get the list if you decided to leave.

But yeah, that’s definitely the number one thing that I look at. I’m like, “Oh, views.” And even on a note, the nice thing too about Substack is that posts and notes don’t die as fast. Like on Instagram, if you post something, it’s got 24 hours tops maybe. But I’m seeing people interacting with notes that I’ve posted months and months ago sometimes, and posts as well.

And then what you do, this is a little tip, once you have a body of work, you reference your own work in your work. And so people will read that and go, “Oh, I got to go read that other one later.” So it kind of is something that’s working for you even when you’re not actively putting out more content, which I really like.

Rich: Tracy, if someone’s listening right now and they’re considering Substack, it might be worth experimenting with, what’s the first thing that you would recommend they do?

Tracy: I would recommend giving it time, showing up every day, and not watching the clock and going, “When is this going to pop? When is this going to happen?” Because so many people come on and they go, “Oh my God, it’s taking forever. Everything I post doesn’t get any attention.” You have to give it a few months. Don’t give up unless it’s been six months. And if you still don’t see the action, then it could be that you’re not interacting enough, or you’re not putting the right content in the right places, or there’s some piece that’s missing.

But if you’re genuinely showing up, interacting with people – that’s a key – and you’re consistent, then it’ll happen. But it just won’t happen overnight. It’s not instant. So that would be my number one first thing over everything.

Rich: All right.

Tracy: Don’t give up too early.

Rich: Now, I understand that you have a quiz that our listeners can take to better understand what type of creator they might be on Substack. Where can people check that out?

Tracy: Yes. The link is substackstrategy.com/quiz, and I love this quiz because I’ve been helping people create content for a long time, but once I got on Substack and it was this closed little environment, I could see what types of people started to show up and also what they struggled with and what they needed help with.

So I designed the quiz around these three types, and it’s really cool because everybody who takes the quiz writes back to me and goes, “Oh my gosh, this is so accurate. I can’t believe that what you’re saying to me is exactly how I feel,” or, “It’s exactly what I struggle with.”

So it’s really great, and it doesn’t necessarily have to only apply to Substack. Usually, it applies to people just getting started building an audience with their expertise and where they are in their journey and what they naturally are drawn to being like and doing online and what they struggle with. And so I think it’s a really enlightening little experience to take.

Rich: All right. If people want to learn more about you, Tracy, learn more about how they can succeed on Substack, where can we send them online?

Tracy: Yeah. Go to Substack and find me. I’m The Second Act Strategist on Substack, so you can find me there, or you can find me on my website at substackstrategy.com.

Rich: Awesome, and we’ll have links to that in the show notes. Tracy, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today.

Tracy: Thanks so much, Rich.

Show Notes:

Tracy Friedlander is an online business strategist who helps experts get known for what they know and build a business around their ideas, with a particular focus on growing audiences through Substack. Find her on Substack, visit her website, or take her creator quiz to discover your natural approach to building an audience online.

Rich Brooks is the President of flyte new media, digital agency offering branding, web design, and digital marketing located in Portland, Maine. He is also the founder of the Agents of Change. He’s passionate about helping small businesses grow online and has put his nearly 30 years of experience into the book, The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing.

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