How to Use Substack to Accentuate Your Gaming Channel
Substack is a great platform to use for a newsletter, but can it help you build a gaming brand? There are a lot of folks who have grown quite an audience using Substack across a variety of industries. So, it’s feasible that you could accentuate your gaming content with a newsletter.
That is, as long as you’re willing to write and update your readers on a regular basis.
The best part is that you could monetize the content to make even more money outside of your YouTube or Twitch channels.
7 Things You Can Do with Substack for Gaming
While it’s primarily an email marketing platform, Substack has helped a lot of creators who don’t necessarily have the time or money to create a full-sized, branded website. You can easily just create an account on Substack and start writing.
Email marketing is still an exceptionally powerful method of engaging a variety of consumers. In fact, about 88% of users will check their email several times throughout the day. Not to mention that the return-on-investment for email is one of the highest of any marketing method.
Since you can distribute the link virtually everywhere, you can amass a following quickly if you’re consistent with publishing new articles. And that’s one of the keys to succeeding on Substack – consistent and regular content.
So, what can you do to help boost your gaming content on Substack?
Sharing Gaming Updates
Although it functions mostly as an email platform, Substack has a few blogging-like attributes. In this case, I’m talking about creating posts that users can read. These posts are emailed directly to followers but are also saved on your profile, much like a blog roll.
This means you can make regular updates to your gaming content while simultaneously targeting email subscribers and new visitors.
You can write about your favorite game, gaming genre, developers, or even share more information about yourself as a creator. Just keep in mind why people would want to subscribe to your newsletter in the first place and give them more of that.
Adding Videos to Substack Posts
You can upload or record videos directly to Substack posts. However, Substack recommends a maximum of 1440p, which is much lower than the 4k most people use on platforms like YouTube. Still, you can easily share funny or interesting clips with your readers while directing them to your gaming channel.
You’ll still want to use video platforms like Twitch or YouTube to manage your content. However, small segments of the best gaming clips could keep people interested in your Substack while sending potential viewers to your channels.
One idea would be to share bloopers or comedic clips as monetized “special” content, and I’ll go over that in a moment.
Additionally, you can use YouTube videos directly in Substack. All you need is the URL of the video and paste it into a post. Substack will automatically embed it into your content, allowing subscribers to watch the video.
Including a Gaming Podcast
Substack gives you the power to add an “audio” file to your posts. This, essentially, gives you a platform for sharing a gaming podcast. In fact, you can upload the same file you use for Spotify and many others.
You can also choose to create a podcast directly in Substack instead of adding audio files to your post. In this instance, you can choose to include those who already follow your account or create a specific section for your podcast.
Get popular enough, and brands will throw all kinds of money at you for advertising. That is, as long as you’re producing a show gamers want to hear while marketing it well.
Monetizing “Special” Content
Substack gives you the ability to monetize “members only” content. These are posts that are shared only to those who pay for a subscription and can include a wide range of content types.
If you’re not sure if followers are willing to pay for this special content, you can offer “pledges” in your posts beforehand. This gives you an idea of what people are willing to pay and whether your idea is sound.
Pledges in Substack are essentially “promises” that someone is willing to pay a certain amount if you decide to low your content behind a paywall.
The monetized content can include never-before-seen videos, paid podcasts, and anything else you can think to include. If you also run a store using Fourthwall or Streamlabs, you could include promo codes and discounts for those who are members of your paid Substack.
Sharing on Social Media
Once you have some publications under your belt, share the links on social media. You can either share the post itself or the homepage of the gaming Substack quite easily on platforms like Threads or Bluesky.
In reality, most of my writing subscribers have come from sharing the link on YouTube and Threads. But where you share your link is completely up to you and your primary audience.
A lot of creators will add their Substack URL to their public profile on social media. The more locations people can see it, the more likely you’ll accumulate some subscribers.
No one will read your posts if they don’t know it exists.
Chatting with Followers
Want to engage your followers even further? Why not start up a chat? This gives your followers the feeling of being able to connect to you on a more personal level. It can also turn an occasional reader into an ardent supporting fan.
You can start conversations regarding anything and get the opinions of your followers, fueling the chat. For instance, why not ask what everyone’s favorite RTS game is and why it should be Star Craft? Or, build a community around Valheim sharing and mods.
The bottom line is that there is a lot you can do with the chat section for gaming in your Substack.
Adding to a Blog as a Newsletter
Perhaps the most common method of using Substack is as a newsletter for an already-existing blog. My author blog has the sign-up form for its Substack in the right sidebar of the site.
One of the biggest reasons to build a newsletter with Substack instead of a different plugin is that it doesn’t add anything more to your blog. There are plenty of newsletter plugins for WordPress. But why use the hosting resources of your site when your newsletter is hosted somewhere else?
It helps with performance while keeping resource usage lower.
You can also create pop-up windows to prompt visitors to subscribe to your Substack. So, there are plenty of ways you can market the newsletter on a blog.
Substack is Indexed by Google – ish
Although Substack removed the necessary elements to index and track your site through Google’s Search Console, the pages are indexed by the search engine regardless. This might take a bit longer than if you submitted a sitemap for a blog, but Google does crawl Substack regularly.
In fact, a lot of my writing posts are available on Google. And I’ve read several articles from Substack posts from search terms.
This means that if you practice good SEO content writing, you have the potential to grow your list of subscribers from the content you produce. The more people you have subscribed, the greater the chances of monetizing your community to help you pay some bills.
Writing good content that people search for on Google takes a bit of practice. It mostly comes down to offering the best information for a search query as well as providing it in a casual and authoritative manner.
My point here is that Substack is often indexed by Google, giving you access to a much wider audience than just those who watch your stream on Twitch or YouTube.
Be Consistent
The best piece of advice I can give anyone is to be consistent with publishing content on Substack. People are following your account for a reason, and making sure you’re providing the same quality content in a timely manner will keep them reading.
If you wait too long to engage an audience, your newsletter posts could wind up getting deleted, unsubscribed, or marked as spam.
So, how often should you publish gaming content from your Substack account? Start with once per week – same day, same time. You can easily schedule posts in Substack.
There’s nothing wrong with experimenting with what days and times work best for the most engagement. But as you gain more and more subscribers, you probably don’t want to experiment too often. You could inadvertently alienate your current audience.
Always keep an eye on your analytics to see what works and take note of what doesn’t. You can use the basic metrics of Substack, or you can connect your Google Analytics account to your newsletter. This will give you deeper details on who is reading what.
Community Building is Vital for Success as a Creator
If you want to succeed as a creator, building a strong community around your brand is essential. These are the people who will continue to support you, whether it’s by watching your videos and streams or buying the merch you post.
You build a community by engaging those people, which means being responsive and interactive. The most successful creators go all-in with their audiences for a reason.
Substack gives you a variety of tools to help cultivate that audience, whether you’re a gaming creator or a self-published author.
Don’t be afraid to branch yourself outside of live streams and gaming videos. You can tap audiences of all kinds by exploring additional options that accentuate the content you create.
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