Substack Just Made Networking 10x Easier
A brand new feature finds you creators worth connecting, here's how to use it
Howdy, Wealth Writers🤠
Substack just shipped a new feature for you! :D
It makes networking & finding fellow creators to collab with 10x easier.
What you'll learn in this article:
✓ What’s The New Feature?
✓ How To Use It To Grow Subscribers
✓ Why You Shouldn’t Trust The Feature 100%
✓ How To Make The Outreach A Piece Of Cake
Let's goo! 🤠
What’s The New Feature?
The feature is called Creator Match, and you find it in your Creator Tools inside your dashboard
The interface looks like this:
3 Reasons why this feature is goated
It only surfaces matches where there's mutual opportunity, meaning your audience overlaps with theirs and theirs overlaps with yours.
Matches get a star rating from three to five stars, Substack won't even surface anything below three.
Each match shows the estimated new subscribers you could gain and what the other creator could gain.
Timo, this feature seems cool and all, but what should I actually do with it?
How To Use It To Grow Subscribers
A well-matched creator is someone who could realistically recommend you back, someone whose audience actually wants to hear about your work, and someone your own readers would probably enjoy too.
That opens up two things:
1. Recommendation swaps
You land on each other's recommended list and start sharing subscribers over time.
2. Collab posts
Co-written articles, livestreams, or podcast episodes to introduce both audiences to each other.
Neither of those happens from a cold DM to a random big name. They happen when the size and topic overlap are close enough that saying yes is an easy call for both sides.
But wait before you reach out to everyone on your list, the Creator Match filter doesn’t tell you the full story…
Why You Shouldn’t Trust The Feature 100%
The tool ranks matches by subscriber count and overlap, it doesn't tell you a thing about how engaged that person's list actually is. A highly-rated match with a big but sleepy list is worth less to you than a lower-rated match whose readers actually comment and reply.
Before you message anyone, spend two minutes on their Substack, and check if their “big” audience is also an engaged one.
After you did this quick vibe check, the hardest part happens…
How To Make The Outreach A Piece Of Cake
Timo, What if I find the perfect match and don't know what to say?
That's normal, and it's the part that stalls most Substack Newbies.
Finding a match takes 1 minute, writing a personalized DM that doesn't sound generic is the hard part, so let me give you 2 options to make this whole procedure easier. :)
1. Use this template, and spend 15 minutes figuring out the details
“Hey, I just read your piece on [specific topic] and the part about [specific point] completely changed how I think about [X]. Do you find that most of your audience struggles with this too?”
2. Use this prompt to create a personalized DM in 1 minute
Right here, paid subs see the Personalized DM Prompt. Upgrade to get access to the prompt and many more paid subs benefits👇
Your Action Plan
1. Open your dashboard and check out the Creator Match feature yourself
2. Check their last posts and skip anyone whose posts show low engagement
3. Use the message button to open a DM with your best 2-3 matches this week
4. Pitch something specific in the ongoing conversation: a recommendation swap, a co-written post, or a guest post
Next Steps
I wrote a few articles related to the new feature, so if you are still thirsty for knowledge, go read them next. :)
Subscribe now for weekly value bombs like the one you just read + FREE access to the 5-Day Substack Side-Hustle Sprint
See you next week, :)
Timo Mason🤠
Terrific information I am beginning to understand how the Subtack rocks.
So I’m looking at my Dashboard and do not see the Creator Match feature listed?
Does that mean my Substack is too small or too new??