How To Cross-post Your Way Into Other People's Inboxes
Collaboration not only helps you GROW but it can help you take a week off of the content hamster wheel!
I have to hand it to my fellow Substackers for inspiring almost all the tips I get to share here. If none of you ever asked questions I’d never know which answers to highlight.
Our superstar question-asker this week is
. She messaged to ask if she could “borrow” one of my posts for her audience. We had a quick chit-chat via DM and it turned out she had no idea how simple it is to cross-post.Substack has given us an actual tool for it….it doesn’t have to be all “copy & paste,” the manual labour way 😁
Simple steps for cross-posting
First things first, EVERYONE on Substack has a setting in their dashboard to turn the cross-posting feature on or off. I suggest having it turned on. Keep reading to find out why.
Here’s where to find the ON/OFF switch: Dashboard » Settings » Privacy….
If you have this switch toggled ON it enables others to cross-post any of your posts to their Substack. But don’t worry, they can’t just steal your content and repost it. Substack makes them ask for your permission first. You’ll always be notified when someone wants to cross-post your content.
When the switch is toggled ON, your posts will have an extra little feature under the three dots (where you’d normally go to edit), as shown in this screenshot:
In my experience, a writer will approach you via DM to personally ask permission before ever using this feature. It’s common courtesy. The feature just makes it easy to teleport your post to their Substack.
Also, don't worry because when they use this feature to transport your post, your byline and profile go with it. Nobody else gets credit for your content.
Why would you want others to post your content on their Substack?
For starters, it gives you full access to a completely different audience! You might be a brand new discovery to their readers.
As with restacking and sharing - collaboration and teamwork are how we grow here!
And the biggest bonus? If you cross-post someone else’s content onto your Substack, YOU get to take the week off from coming up with new content. I love that part the most because who doesn’t want a break sometimes?
So far I’ve had the privilege of cross-pollinating audiences with several writers including
, , , , , , , and several more.A guest post I accepted from
a while back turned out to be one of the most popular posts to date on my dog publication. And months later, another writer asked me if they could share Sam’s guest post on their Substack.See? It all works for the greater good!
**BEST PRACTICES TIP: Don’t just randomly ask anyone for cross-posting opportunities. Try to make sure your content styles and topics fit each other’s audiences**
Have you had any great experiences cross-posting or guest posting with your fellow Substackers?
Have you used the cross-post feature before? If so, did you experience noticeable growth from collaborating?
I'm still saying, yours is one of the stacks where I read every post. I recommend it to everyone beginning a Substack account. Keep going, please!!
I'm so glad you did a post about this. I love the opportunity to cross-post. I'm planning on doing it with a Substackland friend. I recently guest-posted, and decided not to do it as a cross-post, because I was writing a piece outside of my primary subject matter. And writing something different was fun, too. People need to know about this. Thank you for sharing it here!