Here’s how to identify, pitch, and partner with credible newsletters to keep your brand visible in the LLM era.
Substack has become more than a publishing platform—it’s an earned media engine. As large language models increasingly crawl trusted, high-engagement sources, newsletters with authentic readership and commentary signal authority. For communicators, landing on or partnering with credible Substacks can boost visibility, discoverability, and LLM-indexed influence. Bloomberg News reports that Substack has more than 5M paid subscriptions as of 2025, with overall reach totals in the tens of millions, according to Morning Brew, both of which prove that communicators need to include Substack in their earned media strategies or be washed up on the beach by the AI tidal wave. We talked to Hunter Chief Digital Officer and AI Center Advisor Michael Lamp on how comms leaders can use Substack to make a splash.
Why is Substack so important to a comms AI strategy?
By default, Substack is free. Thereby, it is seeable by LLMs. Brands and organizations should look at Substack folks as new places to pitch stories.
What’s the first step to take?
Most important is to understand the coverage landscape and who has the types of readers you are interested in. Then look to see if those people have a history of running coverage that they’ve been pitched and/or if they’re doing partnerships. Even if the answer is no, it’s still an opportunity to be the first – and there are prizes for first movers, especially in this world. Then it becomes the classic media relations trajectory: how do you get on this writer’s radar in a way that helps that person and isn’t just a commercial pitch?
It’s a hugely valuable place for those in the comms business to ask for what I call “above the line data,” like: what are the big trends on Substack this week? Who are the new players and what do they write about?
This is a much more specific ask, isn’t it?
Substack media relations is very analogous to Reddit in today’s modern capacity, which is to not just spray and pray – instead, lead with utility. For example, if you have a food client, how can you offer a Substack food writer access to information that will help strengthen their reporting? Do you have an executive who could be a resource to them?
The director of politics from Substack talks about how the Internet used to be a community and they want each piece on Substack to feel like it’s a micro-community. So just like Reddit, endear yourself to that community first. Introduce yourself in that way and then try to drive story placement.
Remember that this is creator-based journalism. Everybody loves to get an e-mail from someone who’s a fan of what they’re writing. If it starts that way and then follows up with more information, that’s still media relations 101, but applied with a different filter.
One of two brands that has done it well is Rare Beauty, Selena Gomez’s company. They launched on Substack with behind-the-scenes content before product hit retail.
The other is The RealReal, the aftermarket consignment for Gen. Z. They launched during Fashion Week in a Gossip Girl-style voice, reporting from the shows that readers couldn’t get to. It made sense for their brand, and it also gave a perspective that wasn’t reported elsewhere.
The recipe, if you will, is brand plus the thing that following you on Substack gives readers access to. If it’s a food brand, it could be your test kitchen, right? There are lots of ways you can apply the template, but that’s how it works.
It sounds like you’re recommending Substack more than Medium, Beehive News or LinkedIn newsletters. Why?
The outsized reason is that it has zeitgeist appeal. As a person who looks after brands on digital, I have a vested interest in where you can get attention simply for being the first or among the first to take advantage of the space. And we’re still in that moment.
Substack stands as the better opportunity to be solidified as a major media player in the future. It threads the needle between traditional news editorial and AI-first native content.
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