I Posted the Same Content from Substack to Threads and Bluesky

Here’s what happened.

Two months ago, I started repurposing my short-form content from Substack to Threads and Bluesky.

If you think about it, repurposing makes sense. You get more eyeballs on your content. In this case, it should have been three times as much. But things don’t always go according to plan.

My strategy was simple. Copy-paste the content I published on Substack to Threads and Bluesky, with no changes and almost no engagement with others through comments.

Here’s what happened.

Substack

I started on Substack around September last year but didn’t publish much in the first few months.

Since then, I’ve gotten 711 followers and almost 500 email subscribers.

When it comes to organic reach, Substack is king.

Even my first few notes (that’s what they call a post over there) got a bunch of likes. Currently, it’s my main source of email subscribers. And it’s not uncommon for my notes to sometimes get 50+ likes.

Threads

The content I post on Substack is reposted on Threads without any changes.

And guess what?

It works pretty well. I’ve had a few posts that started to gain some traction. It’s important to note that most of the time, what works well on Substack will work almost as well on Threads.

I posted my first thread on the 11th of December, 2024.

And it got zero likes.

But I kept reposting, and some posts did great.

Here’s an example 15 days after the first post.

So far, I’ve gotten 30 followers on Threads. It's nothing crazy, but my posts (threads) get views, which matters more than followers. A bunch of posts crossed the 50 views mark, and a few were even above 500 views.

If you post content on Substack, repurpose it on Threads too. It takes a minute, and it’s worth it.

Bluesky

Bluesky was funded by Twitter in 2019 as a small and independent social media platform. Until last year, it didn’t get much attention.

It got a boost in popularity when people started looking for alternatives to X.

Usually, when you start posting on a newer platform, you get an advantage in reach. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Bluesky was a big disappointment for me.

After almost two months of reposting content on Bluesky, I got:

• 5 followers (a few are bots, for sure)

• a few likes here and there

• overall, nothing

The algorithm on this platform is not great. It won’t give you exposure like Substack and Threads. Or maybe the topics I write about are not that popular there. I don’t know, but I cannot recommend writing on Bluesky.

I stopped posting there because the other two platforms work better for me.

Conclusion

This was a fun little experiment, but it’s clear who the winner is.

Substack performed better than the other two by far. I did have a slight advantage on there because I started a few months earlier. But even without that, it’s still a great place to write.

Threads is a decent app for online writers too. I’ll keep reposting my content there. The algorithm likes to show your content to others even if you’re just starting.

On the opposite, Bluesky didn’t work at all. The engagement and reach were almost zero.

Talk to you soon,

Peter