Substack vs LinkedIn: which platform is more effective for building a personal brand
How to be famous and popular
In this article, I’m going to compare two platforms for personal-brand building.
I’ve been on LinkedIn for over 4 years, and on Substack for almost 2. Here are the conclusions, insights, and results I’ve gathered along the way.
First mistakes
My relationship with both platforms started almost the same way: I didn’t really understand what they were, what rules worked there, or how I was supposed to behave.
On both platforms, I didn’t use all the features and opportunities right away.
On LinkedIn, at the very beginning, I used only the “Jobs” tab and sent out my resume without networking.
On Substack, I published long reads and barely promoted the blog through external channels.
LinkedIn: Audience: 1B+ registered members
Geography: 200+ countries and territories
Companies / company pages: ~69M companies on the platform
Industries represented on the platform: IT/Software and B2B, finance, consulting and professional services, healthcare, education, manufacturing, retail/e-commerce, media/marketing, logistics, public sector and NGOs.
How I started building a personal brand
On LinkedIn, I started building my personal brand unconsciously. I noticed that many users:
publish personal stories of success and failure,
share professional advice,
post instructions, checklists, and guides on a wide range of work topics.
Somehow I got pulled in—first I read other people’s posts and timidly commented, then I started writing about copywriting and office work. Later I added my favorite topic—networking—and people loved it too, so I almost stopped annoying everyone with copywriting.
LinkedIn started to feel too small, and that’s when I discovered Substack.
Substack doesn’t publicly disclose the total number of authors on the platform; however, the company reports 17,000+ authors who earn money on Substack (as of March 2024).
Total subscriptions (not unique people): ~35M active subscriptions (as of September 2025)
Paid subscriptions: 5M paid subscribers
Substack was created as an email newsletter tool for writers. You can enable paid subscriptions and monetize your writing—in other words, build and grow your own media project on any topic.
At first, what motivated me most was the ability to monetize content. For some reason, I was sure I could make it work.
Users in not all countries can use monetization, because the platform works with Stripe, which is available only in a certain list of countries.
But even that didn’t stop me. Even though LinkedIn also allows publishing full articles, it seemed to me that most users still prefer short-form content in posts.
On Substack, I wrote about life in relocation, which later helped me turn those posts into a full book. Today, my main blog topics are networking, PR, and events focused on communication and promotion.
LinkedIn is a “rented” platform for a user (the algorithm can change, reach can drop), while Substack is more like your “property” (you can use the email list you build).
How growth works on each platform
Any platform loves attention and activity from users. So if you regularly publish content and engage with other creators, you’ll be shown more often and to a wider audience.
On LinkedIn, your number of connections grows in two cases:
you send a connection request yourself,
users find your post/comment interesting and decide they want to keep reading you.
On Substack, your subscriber count grows if:
you write Notes and they go viral,
your article gets shown to new readers/authors and they get interested in the topic,
you promote your articles on your other social channels.
I’ve noticed that my expert content tends to resonate more with Substack’s audience (for example, Networking Across Cultures: What Really Matters). But people from other platforms mostly come to my Belgrade events roundup (for example, Belgrade Events and Networking Opportunities, January, 12-18).
My results on LinkedIn
Selling services. Even though in most cases I write about networking (80% of my content), clients come for PR support or personal-brand consultations.
Visibility. Sometimes I come to events, meet new people, and they say: “Oh, I read you on LinkedIn.”
Trust. Through content, my network understands what I do, how I work with clients, and what my principles and rules are.
Collaborations. I’ve done 20+ live streams with other experts simply because I write about professional topics. Many experts invited me to their communities as a speaker.
New audience. Thanks to content distribution to people who didn’t know me before, plus live streams with other creators.
If you need help creating content for either platform, DM me.
My results on Substack
An invitation to attend events from one of the organizers.
New audience. My main goal right now is to reach an English-speaking audience. I could translate my LinkedIn content into English, but in that case I’d lose my Russian-speaking audience—the trust I’ve been building for so long.
*I’m not promoting this platform very actively yet, so the list of results is short.
So, which one is more effective?
I won’t give a single definitive answer.
Each platform can be used for a specific goal, and you should measure success by your own metrics. For me, both platforms deliver results, and I plan to keep moving in small steps toward my big goals.
The most important common factor for both platforms is consistency, strategy, and focus. You can’t reach your goal in short bursts: one month you post actively on LinkedIn and write three Substack articles a week, then you burn out because you don’t see progress, drop everything for six months, and come back again for another one-month sprint.
Any goal is a marathon—you need to pace yourself and distribute your energy wisely.