How TikTok creators are bringing their followers to Substack
Own your audience and earn money with subscriptions
For TikTok creators like
and , the Substack app is a multimedia platform where their audiences come together for livestreams, video posts, group chats, podcasts, and written posts, all powered by direct subscriptions. With the Supreme Court debating whether to uphold a TikTok ban in the U.S., we’re making it easy for more creators to join Substack, preserve their audience, and build a loyal community. We’re even offering a $25,000 prize for TikTok creators who creatively inspire others to join Substack and spark a trend.Substack gives video creators, podcasters, and writers the ultimate power: true independence through audience ownership. On Substack, creators own their creative work and mailing list, guaranteeing that they can always connect directly with their community—even if they decide to leave the platform.
If you are a TikTok creator who’s new to Substack, here’s everything you need to know.
How to get started
1. Download the Substack app
When you download the Substack app via the App Store or Google Play, you will be prompted to create a profile and claim a handle. We recommend using the name and handle that most people know you by on social media to make it easy to find you.
2. Connect to Stripe
Substack allows you to monetize your creative work. If you’re coming to the platform with an engaged audience, turn on paid subscriptions. You can decide on a post-by-post basis what to keep free and what to put behind a paywall.
You can also choose to keep everything free, with paid subscriptions functioning like donations to support your work. If you have behind-the-scenes or exclusive content like recipes, reviews, or day-in-the-life videos, you might experiment with free previews of your paid posts. Learn more
3. Post
Substack supports live video and written posts in the app. If you’d like to share long-form video or audio posts, you can do so via the web. Your first post can be simple: a short explanation of what’s coming soon or an example of the content you plan to post going forward, like a recipe, a review, or an episode of your video series. Be sure to include a subscribe button early in the post.
@Faiths Fresh teases her Substack with a coming-soon post:
Nara Smith of Paper Pantry introduces herself and then gets behind the scenes using a flexible paywall:
Live video allows creators to broadcast in real time to free subscribers, paid subscribers, or the wider Substack network directly from the app. For example, @HRH and @Leo Skepi regularly go live on Substack to share exclusive insights with their paid audiences, offering them a direct and unique experience they won’t find anywhere else.
Don’t forget to use Substack’s other features, like Notes, which are short-form posts, images, and videos that the broader Substack network can discover in the home feed. You can also host chats with your subscribers, in a community discussion space where you make the guest list and the rules. It’s like having a group chat or Reddit thread connected to your Substack.
4. Tell your TikTok followers
With the TikTok ban looming, your followers will be wondering where they can find and support you now. When sharing details about your Substack on TikTok, let them know they can connect with you directly on the Substack app.
uses a greenscreen to preview some of the features that people will find on his Substack. He pinned the video to his TikTok so that everyone who visits his profile knows where to find him.
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Add your Substack to your link in bio or Linktree so TikTok followers, old and new, can quickly subscribe. Consider updating the text in your bio explaining what’s on your Substack, like
of did.
As a TikToker with 34,000 followers… You forgot to tell me why I would take the time to post my video over here when I can’t create, or edit them over here. So I still create over there, and then come here and upload the video that I could just post on TikTok?
Or is the entire goal just to monetize my audience? That feels gross.
Also… I didn’t come to Substack to do more videos.
I came to Substack to write. To read writers’ content. And from all of their posts and notes, the reason they all came and stay is because they can WRITE. So this push you have for video and begging TikTokers to come over to change the platform, also feels a little bit like spitting in the face of the people who built Substack to what it is.
It rounds out the platform, with writers now able to post occasional videos to their audience. Don't think it's meant to replace or change it in any meaningful way.
I hope you're correct. However, as a TechWitch of 15 years, a content creator for 10, and an influencer for 5, with a husband in tech and marketing for 17 years...I do not have that much faith in these platforms once they decide to "have all the things".
I've seen way too many go down the toilet when they try to implement everything everyone else is doing instead of focus on what can enhance their original reason for growing so large.
Tik Tok is being shut down because the powers that shouldn't be don't have the control over it to censor inconvenient truth. Their lying narratives are failing so they need censorship. Too much truth about reality is being exposed. Certain people who are above criticism are being rightfully exposed. And the US needs that stopped, that's why Trump was placed back in the Whitehouse. Both candidates are controlled by TPTB and now that they have a permanent divide they need Trump and the right to be all in on antisemitism laws. AIPAC wants tik tok shut down. The ADL, southern poverty law center. Look how fast the protests on college campuses were shut down. With the threat to the protesters never being eligible to get jobs for protesting against atrocities. To know who rules you, simply find out who you're not allowed to criticize!
I agree… And a lot happens in seven months.
They lied to us about TikTok being a “Chinese based app“ and how they were concerned about “the safety of our data“ and so 3.7 million of us skipped gleefully over to an ACTUAL Chinese app and clicked the TOS without reading it. We don’t read it in English. Why would we read it in Mandarin? Made a bunch of friends, learned a bunch of Mandarin, and found out they lied to us about the Chinese people as well.
Such as: did you know once they buy a house, which averages around $30,000 American, they own it for life? They pay no “property taxes“ and their children can take over that house without penalty. The grocery hauls are amazing (and insulting). Like did you know they are eating fresh food, fresh lobster and crab and feeding themselves and 4 family members for two weeks for under $90 USD? Did you know that they have EV cars that perform better than luxury cars stateside and they only cost $10,000? Same thing they buy the car they buy the tag, and then it’s done. They don’t keep paying year after year.
But my favorite is that with 1.4 billion people… They have .018% homelessness. And 97% have full universal healthcare coverage. So what’s our problem?
All in less than 24 hours. That was on Monday, January the 13th. So when TikTok went dark yesterday, Saturday the 18th… None of us went back to Meta, which is what they anticipated… No, no. 5 million people hung out on Red Note for 24 solid hours.
We are pissed, we are broke, we are awake, and we are petty as shit.
But youll lose your TT followers when USA legislstion shuts Tt down. Are there any other solutions? Move em to Insta, Twitter or Fakebook?
Well. Things change 6 months later.
I still think the “we can do it all!!” approach is stupid for companies. But since data breaches aren’t their actual concern, otherwise Meta would have been shut down a decade ago, NOW if you can’t do YouTube then sure. Post videos on a writing app.
I’ll be honest, I’ll probably do it now as well since my hand is forced. But “posting videos” so you can still post videos will never have the same impact as TikTok. So if we’re hoping to “transfer our audience” and have a modicum of success like we did on the revolutionary app that supports the First Amendment in a way no one could predict, then we’re all about to have a VERY rude awakening.
Exactly!
Sometimes, I will embed a video from TT or IG in a written piece if appropriate.
Well, now that they realize we’d rather skip gleefully to an actual Chinese based app as opposed to go back to Meta, I will also be posting all of my TikTok videos – WITH the watermark – everywhere.
I have four years worth of content. And oddly, some of it from 2021 is more prevalent now.
I don't want Substack to turn in to TikTok. Please, remain pure.
No, I believe they are trying to get your die hard followers to follow you and Substack is amazing for that
Beautiful piece. I love how Substack is available for these creators. Quick question, what is substack doing to help African creators get monetized as Stripe is not available for us yet?
I have 679,000 on TiKTok and have been working for a while to move them over. I will use TikTok to tease articles I write on Substack. For example I broke a story about Michigan lawmakers about to pass some controversial legislation. I made a TikTok telling everyone "I am working on this story now and about to drop it only on my newsletter" I tried promoting my tiktok video but tiktok denied it becuase they said it was political. Be carefull with your wording.
I love Substack!! It's been so nice seeing my bigger audience slowly start to trickle over here to this platform.
tick tock
the clock
runs down
join Substack
own your content,
relationships, voice:
Rise.
Links on TikTok only work after you gain 1k followers so before that, promotion is difficult (but not impossible) to keep TikTokers interested when they can't click a link. I'm at just under 500 and it's going to take a while to get my substack link activated.
How do I join, learn hoops, build my shack and start a life here?
Thanks for the great rundown of the system.
Posted first time today on creative placemaking! Would love to know any feedback!
https://open.substack.com/pub/bonniepowers/p/lets-build-community-together?r=4xlyg&utm_medium=ios
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8FQRwgk/ ✨
🫸❤️🔥🫷
So this is why Substack’s IQ has been diminishing
Hi! I really AM literally asking for a friend who is a new Substacker! She had a mailing list of around 3000+ and when she moved it, or tried to move, over to Substack, she lost around 300 subscribers. ChatBot seems to be on hiatus lately--it always cuts out when I'm asking a ? -- and I would love to help my friend try to regain her missing subscribers. Can you please send me to a link I can share w. her -- or input some info to me? Will much appreciate it, thank you!
Thats not bad..only losing 10% Often its a minimum of a third or more lost when trying to transfer.
Wow, thanks for reply.
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