Podcast Hosting on Substack? My Pros and Cons so far

7 months into my monthly pod-blog TheFormat, here are my take-aways: the good and not so good.

My friend

Angela Hollowell

was the first friend and fellow producer who enthusiastically introduced me to Substack. She was really excited about an app that allowed her to grow her email list and actually delivered her content to her subscribers (unlike IG, Facebook, and LinkedIn algorithms). It also allowed her to set up paid monthly subscriptions and create a beautiful, branded site for her content.

“If patreon and medium had a baby, it would be substack” I told friends.

On top of all of this, it supported podcast hosting! WOW.

I had to try it out.

I love creating new brands, so I got to work brainstorming the name and premise of my new substack channel. I landed on “TheFormat.” I often think and talk philosophically about how media is changing and how various new and old media “formats” rise and fall with popularity and new technology. As an independent podcast producer, I think it’s important to share my perspective of the medium and my expertise. I set up interviews with people I wanted to learn from or get to know professionally and started turning it into content for my brand, Chorus Studios. “TheFormat.” would explore this new, popular format of podcasting.

So how is it going? Here are my top take aways.

Big Ups 👍 for Publishing your Pod-blog on Substack:

1. Built-in promotion and networking via email and in-app

   1. Once you join the substack community, both in-app and your inbox, substack will start recommending publications and articles for you. As a substack producer, this means there are more opportunities for users to discover my content - especially if they follow other channels with similar content or topics to mine. About 30% of my subscribers found me organically through substack!

2. Opportunity to take advantage of “Recommendations” and good discoverability

3. Supports video and audio versions of your podcast for simple, one file distribution

4. Monetization

   1. Opportunity for your followers to support your work financially with a low monthly donation - similar to patreon.

5. RSS feed creation

   1. When you create a podcast on substack, substack will create an RSS feed for you. You still need to go into your setting and make sure your podcast is connected to Spotify, Apple Podcasts etc, but they make this process quite easy.

6. One place for all of your media formats

   1. Promotes a combination of media simultaneously - written, video, audio, podcast. I wanted a platform where I could try out various written summaries or snippets from my podcast interviews. It’s so awesome that my followers can come to this one place to find both the full podcast as well as written content focusing on various topics (key take aways for example) from that longer podcast.

7. Beautiful design and fairly easy-to-use site setup

   1. It took me a few days to set up my new website for TheFormat. on substack but it was easier than creating a website from scratch using other platforms like wix or Squarespace. I appreciate the ability to apply your unique brand colors, logo and imagery to the site.

8. Learn and connect with likeminded professionals

   1. When considering which community to host your blog, reputation matters. So far, substack has a lot of edu-tainment or professional adjacent content that lends itself well to the content I am producing. I’ve made some great new connections to fellow podcasters and media professionals through Substack.

Not so Ups 👎 for Publishing your Podcast on Substack:

1. Does not automatically distribute to nich podcast platforms

   1. Unlike other podcast distributors like Transistor.fm, Substack does not automatically suggest you connect your podcast to platforms you may not have heard of like Deezer or Playerfm. If you want to do this with your substack podcast, you’ll need to take the RSS feed to these platforms on your own. It is possible, it’s just a bit extra work.

2. Mobile version of podcasts don’t have links to Spotify, Apple etc as it does on the web app

   1. Ok this is my biggest pet peeve. While the web app version of the podcast episode page does have buttons to “listen on spotify, apple podcasts” etc, the iPhone or ios app does not. WHY!?! I have to add the links in the text of the episode show notes so that folks who have the app can find links to listen elsewhere… now that I’ve just written this out I realize that this may be because they don’t want users to leave the substack app to listen to the podcast elsewhere. Yup, that’s probably it. Here’s a screenshot from my iPhone of what I’m talking about.

      

3. Paid versus free podcast episodes is clunky and confusing to me

   1. Admittedly, I haven’t released any “paid only” episodes yet so I will probably understand this better when I do. Somehow, paid podcast access is sent to a separate feed than the free podcast access. If someone is following the podcast on spotify but upgrades on substack from free to paid, I think they would need to follow a new link to find the correct version of the podcast on spotify. Ofcourse, if you are listening in the substack app this is easy but if your listeners are on other platforms this can be a confusing experience.

4. Podcast Stats leave much to be desired

   1. I usually use transistor.fm to distribute my podcasts and, well, they don’t have the best analytics but it is much more specific than those offered by Substack. I would love to see more analytics, such as which episodes were listened to during specific dates, on substack.

5. What makes Substack great is also, in another way, a weakness

   1. Substack is fun and interesting because it combines so many types of online platforms - it’s a blog, a blogging network, a podcast streaming and distribution service, AND it has social media features like chat, restacks, and comments.

      1. Similar to how Instagram is trying to be youtube, snapchat, tiktok and a photoapp - substack is doing it all and, as a user and producer, its confusing. I’m still asking myself, which way is the best way to promote my content on substack? Should I chat all of my subscribers? I will say, email newsletter aspect is a huge bonus. Even though I don’t have thousands of followers here yet, I already feel loyal to the platform because I can almost guarantee most of my subscribers will at least see my content in their inbox.

Where I’ve Landed for Now:

As with anything you do with your business, the most important question to ask is “What are my top goals with this project?”

Right now, my main goal for TheFormat. is to build community and have people who I could work with listen (or watch) the podcast - to build my credibility and thoughtleadership as a podcasting professional within my industry. Secondly, I want to use substack to try out different ways of creating written content from my podcast content. Thirdly, I want to stay abreast of new technology and experiment with this new hybrid platform.

My main goal right now is not to have thousands of listeners or become a well known podcast host. I’m open to it! But it’s not my main goal. Therefore, I’m ok with having a smaller but more focused listener base. I also really enjoy and appreciate the email list building and networking functionality built into the platform.

If you are going to produce content for yourself and it’s going to time away from paying work, I think it’s important to enjoy it and to find it useful to your growth as a professional. So far I’m really enjoying this platform and that in of itself is really valuable to me!

Other substack podcasters! Please comment your top pros and cons to hosting your podcast on substack in the comments below! I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Cheers!

-Flo, Chorus Studios