How Substack Newsletters Fit into EdTech Public Relations

Have you been wondering what a Substack is and why people are so enthusiastic about it??

For starters, Substacks – like blogs – are a medium for conveying your thoughts to a specific audience. The difference between Substacks and blogs is that a Substack newsletter includes a distribution system and subscription method baked into the site. Content appears on a Substack website pre-pended with your custom name. All this is free unless you engage the paid subscriber features.

The more significant benefit for Substack over blogs is the potential to tap into an established audience who already uses the platform. Axios reported in February 2024 that Substack now has 3 million paid subscribers, which represents steady growth since 2021. As with any social platform, likes, reshares, and engagement boosts visibility and potentially, recommendations. I’ve subscribed to several this way.

Who publishes on Substack?

Axios reported in March 2023 that there were 17,000 writers “earning money on Substack.” That could mean anything. I know some who make $40 a month and have heard reports of others making “thousands”. Thought leaders and subject matter experts use Substack to demonstrate their deep expertise in a particular area, typically by summarizing recent news or by expanding on trends in their area.?

Many Substack authors are former or current journalists who can write whatever they want, whenever they want without it being filtered by an editor or limits of word count. This is extraordinarily powerful for those of us seeking depth about our contact’s interest. In the case of reporters, some may have been covering a beat for years.?

The advantage for public relations pros is that reading a reporter's Substack (or blog or website) helps in getting to know them better for story pitches. Remember, the best pitches need to match a reporter’s beat—a fact that is very often missed, especially in the spray-and-pray approach we see coming from AI-generated pitches and press releases or just plain shoddy PR (If you’d like my opinion on how shoddy PR has wreaked havoc on the reporter/PR agent relationship, just ask. I’ll happily share!).

In addition to reporters, there are thought leaders, industry analysts, podcasters, company executives, and academics. You name the topic, there’s bound to be a specialist writing about it aggregating important news on the topic.

How does one find a GEM on Substack?

You don’t need to publish on Substack to subscribe to those of interest. At Pando Public Relations, we specialize in PR for edtech companies in K-12 education, higher education, training, and workforce development, so I’ve listed several of our favorites below. Most are completely free, or for a small fee offer limited access. Support as many as you can because this kind of reporting is very worthwhile and quite often dynamite (and it’s a valid business expense, too).

I already have several favorites but wanted to give readers an idea how to find Substacks connected to reporters, so here’s what I did. At Pando, we use MuckRack as our media database, which I queried for “Substack” under “bios and titles”. It surfaced thousands of reporters who write on Substack. Further narrowing that list to include education beat reporters brings it down considerably. By far though, searching on Substack.com is the easiest and most effective.

If you work in education, training, or workforce development, consider learning about Substacks by viewing these recommended below.

The Cheat Sheet

The Cheat Sheet epitomizes all that I love about Substacks. It is witty, entertaining and short. It’s published religiously on Tuesdays and Thursdays by Derek Newton. It gets into data and issues that I would never find among the countless traditional news outlets I read each day. And finally, the author knows this topic probably better than anyone on the planet.

Readers of this article may have little interest in academic integrity and cheating (although anyone in education should be concerned because cheating is a significant issue). As Newton often writes, this topic doesn’t get enough attention in the mainstream media so he created The Cheat Sheet to fill that gap. This is where Substacks shine: giving voice to topics that need to be written about but simply are not covered by traditional media.??

If you happen to work in the education sector - K-12 or higher education - then this is a MUST for subscribing.

ETCH

ETCH is about funding and acquisitions in the edtech industry. It’s not fancy stuff but it is a comprehensive summary about the deals in the business sector where our team works so it is essential to us. After reading so many, I feel like I know Mr. Tower is a get-to-the-point-kind-of-guy because his text is straightforward, no frills, and tight. He adds insights from his considerable expertise in the M&A and funding business. He follows people moves and product launches, and adds his insights to recent business news.

Another point to make about Substacks evidenced in ETCH is archives. If you are data mining for stories, this is where you can find the goods. A search of any Substacker’s archives surfaces stories and research on that topic.?

Edtech After Dark

More expanded coverage on deals and trends is here in EdTech After Dark by Tony Wan of Reach Capital. He doesn’t publish often enough but I keep the issue bookmarked for backgrounding and summarizations of the deals in education and future of work.

Healthcare Workforce Report (HWR)

DISCLOSURE: Pando produces HWR but it is independent writing from Kristal Kuykendall. Ms. Kuykendall has been an editor at several education trades and she knows K-12 education, higher education, training/workforce development, and healthcare, which she brings to bear in her writing for HWR. This illustrates another advantage of Substacks: combining industries or addressing a niche that few publications can combine. Ms. Kuykendall’s unraveling of the data, grants, and funding programs is something I don’t have time to gather on my own.

HWR is also an example of a sponsored newsletter which may also be a glimpse into what we will see with the most successful Substacks in the future. By virtue of their very specific and curated audience, companies have high assurance the Substacks they sponsor are being read (and their brand is being seen), which makes them attractive branding tools.?

Brighteye Insider

Another VC oriented Substack, Brighteye Insider, is the product of Brighteye Ventures, a venture fund in Europe. They parse investment trends and opine on just about anything related to edtech and venture capital. A lot of the news is about Brighteye’s projects but like HWR or any other media outlet, no one works for free. Brighteye’s insights are valuable to me because my history in training and workforce development is not nearly as long as my history in education. It’s helpful to have an expert break down the latest reports.

This brings me to the other benefit of Substacks: brevity. Unlike this article, Substackers are generally brief and to the point.

BD TechTalks

Here’s another example of an expert tackling one topic exclusively.?

I don’t obsess over AI — or OpenAI’s ChatGPT for that matter — but it is essential for me to keep up with AI news. The BD TechTalks writer, Ben Dickson, is the expert here and so I benefit from knowing where to dive deep. He has pulled together strands of the conversation that a beat reporter at a traditional outlet might not be able to do. Dickson also has a traditional publication here but I prefer the Substack for its curated content.

There are several publications I wish would move to Substack, but have listed here for illustrative purposes and to help promote their work.

Paul Fain’s The Job which is published by Open Campus

The Job is dynamite. Always. Paul Fain was formerly at Inside Higher Ed where he was a stellar reporter. Here, he has free rein and I think his reporting is even better. It’s an example of true expertise in a narrow space. From a PR perspective, reading his work conveys that he is friendly, considerate, and knowledgeable about workforce and higher education. I’ve had the good fortune to talk with Paul several times and I can attest to all of that being true.?

Alexander Russo’s The Grade (hosted at KappanOnline)

Mr. Russo is another veteran reporter of education news. He has published The Grade since 2015, moving from various platforms and supported by several major philanthropic organizations. His coverage of national education news is second-to-none. Not only does? he opine on the best education journalism of the week, but he lends his considerable knowledge with anecdotes and connections between pieces, adding backstory and personal insight.

My favorites are interviews with journalists on how they developed a story. Learning how they landed on a topic and the challenges they faced in bringing it to light is depth rarely seen elsewhere. Sometimes the journalist will explain what didn’t make it past the editor’s desk, or how covering a story affected them personally.?

I wish there were more of these first-person accounts of story construction, which may also be one reason why podcasts are gaining in popularity — having a glimpse into a reporter’s struggles with the topic and the true heart of the story. It is difficult to convey this constrained by word count and a flat page.?

The Lookout - Talking Wildfire

This last recommendation has nothing to do with education but since I live in fire-prone California, the topic of wildfire behavior as an indicator of climate change fascinates me. I also have family and friends who live in high-risk locales (which now includes even suburbanites like me).

Given this context, I started an email conversation with The Lookout author Zeke Lunder and tried convincing him to move to Substack. He is happy with his current platform, but I bring up his newsletter because he does great work and if you want to support citizen journalism, you might consider a one-time donation or subscription. While you are at his site, check out fire behavior videos or any of his interviews with Fire Bosses explaining what it is like to be on the fire line now versus 20 years ago. It is a riveting account of shifting weather patterns over a very short time period.

I’d love to hear about your favorite Substacks or newsletters. Comment on this article or email me at [email protected]. We can also help your company set up a product- or company-focused Substack or a topical Substack about your industry. It's a great way to grow an audience of like-minded people.