Substack Notes is a new space where you can publish short-form posts and share ideas with other writers and readers on Substack. We rolled out the product this week to all writers and readers.
Commonly asked questions: How is Notes different from Chat?Where do my notes show up?When I post a note, how are my readers notified? And more.
If you posted your first note but haven’t let your subscribers know yet, now is a great time to do so. After you send your first note, you will see a template in your dashboard to announce to your subscribers that you are using Notes. Checkout great announcements from Colin Meloy, Larry G. Maguire, Karen Christensen, and Ted Gioia.
Hey writers! We're excited to see so many of you in Notes. Over the next few months we will continue to iterate and grow the product together.
The Substack team is signing off today but we will be back next week at the same time. In the meantime, we encourage writers to stick around after the hour and continue the conversation together.
I'd say there are several issues with Notes thus far:
1. It's hard to keep track of your own notes, as there isn't a menu for them. I find it cumbersome to constantly click on my profile, where the Notes are interspersed with my stories.
2. I think there should be more separation btw Notes and other parts of the interface. For instance, I want to be able to follow writers' notes without subscribing and not receiving notifications every time a note is posted. There are way too many notifications now to keep track of.
3. I'm confused - do 'likes' and 'comments' in Notes count towards the posts when they are linked in notes? Like, if I get a comment in Notes, is it duplicated in the post comments and vice versa? Because that's the impression I'm getting due to the aforementioned lack of separation.
4. I feel that Notes seem to be most beneficial to writers with already established/large subscriber bases. More needs to be done to even out the algorithmic playing field for smaller-tier writers.
Well done on Notes! Do the team have plans to boost notes or promote less known Stackers via the new feature? Noticing a lot of the big writers are very visible, makes complete sense - all in all Notes is fab!
As someone just starting recently on Substack, how do I get any visibility to my Notes?
I post, but nobody sees them. In my home feed I have large accounts I have not subscribed.
It seems if you have a large account, you get boosted, but if you have a small account how do you reach your target audience?
There seems no method for searching notes or tagging. So I can't find others having conversations on topics that I write about and they can't find me either.
I'd to post a challenge to the Substack algorithm team: rather than only boosting the writers with massive subscription bases, can you help boost the ones just starting out or with lower subscription numbers, as well? Otherwise we're always fighting an uphill battle no matter how good or insightful our content is. Perhaps the algorithm could base it on the type of content, or even a lottery system where random accounts get a little boost from time to time.
Would love others' thoughts on how to help the algorithm be a little more democratic!
I strongly dislike the Bestsellers thread. Subscribed makes sense -- though it feels a little redundant -- and Home has been, thus far, very interesting (the most interesting part of Notes for me, right now), but Bestsellers is just a pure firehose that rewards the writers who need the exposure the least. I'd love to see that thread disappear.
I'd also love to see a thread that boosts writers who have smaller subscriber numbers -- a reverse of the badge system, basically. I realize Substack as a company makes less money from those writers and it doesn't behoove you to promote them in anywhere near the same capacity as the "bestsellers," but it would go such a long way -- I believe an astonishingly long way -- toward building goodwill in the community.
If I can be forward enough to offer advice to people just starting off on Notes, I’d like to make a suggestion. The content you see in your feed is restricted to the people to whom you have subscribed and the people with whom those authors (the ones you’ve subscribed to) interact. So, if they reply to someone it’ll show up your newsfeed. Several people have mentioned that they are seeing posts from large publishers that they don’t follow and they believe this is because Substack is promoting their content. I believe it’s because someone you DO FOLLOW has replied to one o their posts.
My recommendation for people who are concerned about a lack of visibility is that they use the desktop version of Notes and start following the Notes of people who have made a comment or post that has interested them. The more frequently you follow the Notes of other people, the more content will appear in your newsfeed, and it becomes more likely that something will elicit a comment from you. When you interact with someone else’s post it gives you more visibility and new people will discover you, your Notes, and ultimately your newsletter.
You can only follow the Notes of other people through the Desktop version. Find the heart icon on the far left side of the screen at the bottom of someone’s post or comment and look to the opposing side. When you see the three dots, click there, and then choose See More from Username. That will allow you to follow their Notes, but does not subscribe you to their newsletter. You might want to do that as well once you get to know them, but I like starting with their Notes first.
I'm enjoying Notes so far! I've added some new subs, I've found some cool new Substacks, and the conversations in my comments section seem to be more lively. One suggestion, though. It would be nice if Notes was integrated into the data dashboard. I'd like to see how many times a story is "restacked." I assume that data is currently included in shares, but it would be nice to break it out. Also, it would be cool to see Notes as the subscription source when you're looking at attribution. That would help a lot because it would give me an idea of how much time I want to invest in Notes. Thanks, Substack team!
In a reply below I mention the idea of user-defined tabs (besides the default Home, Subscribed, and Bestseller tabs), using keywords from the newsletters. I'd love to have tabs for science writers, entertainment critics, recipes, and so forth. Here's the reply: https://on.substack.com/p/office-hours-notes-74/comment/14637136 Thanks!
I was part of the Beta program. Notes is beyond awesome. Getting visibility happens when you post on there and connect with other writers. It's less about spotlighting and more about connection and community. It's about subscribing to the newsletters you like and restacking quotes from them to share with others. That said, it's also about sharing the amazing work you're doing. I discovered so many great Substacks and hope that continues! I'm happy to field any questions though I'm hardly an expert on the backend.
As a new Substack writer, and someone who never played with Twitter much - how can I Add the most value for other Notes users and for myself? Should I focus on getting subscribers to my Substak so they can see my notes, or are there easier ways to gain visibility? I'm interested in helping others, sharing ideas, and collaboration.
I’m planning on using Notes to meet more people and share the occasional photograph or short form content. I think Notes just made everything more vibrant!
Correct me if I'm incorrect, but Notes looks like a separate thread of thoughts and messaging, separate from our main content, that does not get emailed but instead lives exclusively in the sidebar on our dashboard. It feels like yet another thread we have to manage -- in addition to social media for example. Is this accurate? What do you all think, esp. those using Notes and seeing success?
One thing I love about Notes is the ability to upload photos to complement stories you've published. As someone who also enjoys taking photos, it's always tough to choose the ones that'll make it into the newsletter. Now, I can share the newsletter as a note with up to six additional photos.
I was a skeptical going in, but so far Notes has proven a great way to connect with other writers, boost their work, and find new Substacks. Great energy in the crowd as well.
I must say, Notes is a BLAST! I feel like the landscape of interesting Substacks has just opened up for me and I can discover new things more easily. I am finding it a bit hard to stay on top of notifications. Can the app ding your phone when someone sends you a note? Also, if someone clicks "See more" from me, but hasn't subscribed to my newsletter, will I be notified that they added me to their see more list? I'd love to know how many people are following me and also get a chance to follow ppl back!
I'd love for replies to have a default "@username" so you're aware that you're replying to someone specific and not posting your own standalone post in the app.
Yesterday, I ended up accidentally replying to a writer who I've never heard of / am not subscribed to / isn't connected to anyone I know or subscribe to. My post was about my own thoughts on the public vs. subscribed feeds and not wanting the ability to block on public feeds. My post didn't show up in my Notes feed, so I thought it just glitched and didn't post. Turns out, I'd mistakenly posted it as a reply to a specific person who I had never even heard of but who had somehow shown up in my feed. I didn't know that because it didn't @ that person. The result was that person immediately going Twitter-esque on me and putting words into my mouth, and their friend instantly jumping in to attack, too. Good times.
I explained that I hadn't meant to direct it at them personally and ended up just deleting everything, but these are the sort of interactions that make me absolutely despise social media and never want to use it again.
Please make it more apparent when you're replying to someone, as opposed to making your own post, to avoid mistakes and childish outcomes in the future.
A fan of notes. I really like the quick thoughts, news, and research that I can share throughout the day. Let's create a thread to connect with those in the same field. I'm in the entertainment space: podcasts, books, TV, magazines, short form content, and more.
Am I wrong in observing that the cross-posting feature has been replaced by this 'restacking' thing leading to Notes? I haven't tried it yet because I don't want to go down that rabbit hole.
If so, this seems short-sighted, as I have no intention of following links to or from Notes, whereas I will likely read an entire piece that comes to my inbox from a trusted source.
In fact, I have no intention of using Notes at all. I have enough distractions from my writing and reading already, plus a job and a life. I understand that I "should" use it to self-promote like everyone else, but there was a reason I never used Twitter, either, and I fail to see how this is more worthwhile.
OK, I like Notes. I do agree with a lot of the comments about how it can be expanded and help writers with smaller followings. BUT, I am tremendously impressed by this interface, how fun and easy it is, and I have a hunch the launch was moved up because of "pushback" from a certain other social media owner. And if I'm correct in that assumption, this is even more impressive. I would like to know the difference between chat and notes. And, I want to be able to invite my friends on that "other site" to come to Substack without the pressure of having to write a newsletter. Can we form Notes groups? Can we allow searches for friends? Can we have themed notes? Like "Nevada Education," and all my teacher peeps and better ed advocates can come over? These are just questions. I'm sure you have a long list of things you are planning. Let me reiterate: GREAT JOB.
I understand the appeal of Notes, in that it’s like Twitter but nicer…but I didn’t come to Substack because I was looking for an alternative to Twitter. I came because I like to write (and read) newsletters. I like sending them out to people who have asked for them, and getting just the ones I want in my inbox, as opposed to checking another app. I do like discovering new writers via other writers but to be honest, i don’t subscribe unless I know I’ll read it regularly and I can only read so many, so I actually don’t go looking for new ones.…and I definitely don’t care about popularity in choosing the letters I want to read, and notes seems to boost the big guys…so I guess it’s just not for me! Which is ok, as long as using it doesn’t basically become mandatory, you know?
I want to learn more about how the substack algorithms determine what can and can't be seen. On the faq it says that subscribers + subscribers of people who recommend you see your notes, but I also see notes from other people sometimes. How is it determined what this 'other' pool of notes is that you see?
Will there be any metatagging (i.e. hashtags) to curate notes within a broader conversation or community? How can I use Notes to amplify my newsletter among a specific audience?
I am noticing that there is an emerging trend in Notes where authors are using as a way of broadcasting their subscription numbers. I have to say I find this tiresome.
I have been noticing that a lot of people are posting hashtags with their notes. It appears that these are not actually a feature of Notes. Anyone have any insight?
So many ‘smaller’ writers here are asking about how to get visibility on notes, it’s quite simple really, reply and respond in thoughtful ways to the notes that interest you, and you will be seen.
Thanks for Notes! Small is beautiful! I'd love to see more discoverability for smaller stable publications driven by new super-innovative Substack algorithms.
Hey all — This doesn't answer all the questions I'm seeing here (not even close!), but this morning I listened to the founders discuss Notes (and Twitter's response) on the podcast "On with Kara Swisher" and highly recommend. Here's a link: https://pod.link/1643307527/episode/123c7903f9603cff877c706585b6fc7b
Q1: Will there be a separate app for Notes? How do you plan to grow the platform or it’s feature while it’s a nested feature in a app? If it is staying put does that mean there won’t be any big feature updates like audio rooms or something that would require more screen real estate?
Q2: Did the rollout go according to plan mostly? How was it behind the scenes? Were there any moments that you knew it was going to be ok or it had worked, or the other way around?
Q3: Was there any analytical or data anomalies that stood out? Like time of interactions, avg length of note, etc.
Q4: Are you doing this all in house or do you contract the work? What about for help desk?
Q5: ETA on swapping out the subscribe button for a follow notes button and put the subscribe in ellipsis or even make it a setting so the user can choose which button is displayed?
Love notes but wish/hope/pray the Substack folks will figure out how to group things by subject categories. Too many notes for me to read. Making it possible for people to identify notes topics of interest would boost engagement.
Question 1: Is their going to be a way to insert a link using the Mardown method or a button in the iOS app? Having Bold and Italics has been awesome since I use markdown for all my note taking and writing.
Question 2: Without algorithmic choices is there going to be any way, other than 2 degrees of relationship, for smaller creators to be discovered by others? I know our Timeline isn’t meant to become a bunch of people you do not care about. At the same time we do not want it to be like shouting into the Blue Void either. We don’t want to be drowned out by the big creators. I think their is a solution here that is more nuanced than a comment can give Justice to. Wonder your take.
One thing I like a lot about Notes is how your notes get seen by the subscribers of other substacks that recommend you. Presumably, those would be the readers with overlapping interests, so the odds of them subscribing to you are probably higher than for random others.
Not sure if someone mentioned this or not, but it would be nice to know how well a Note is doing in terms of engagement? Maybe it's too early for that but just a thought.
I think Notes could be improved with a mechanism that discourages endless scrolling.
Sure, scrolling is how folks discover more notes to read, but we also know that endless scrolling isn't good for anyone.
This seems like a classic opportunity for a creative constraint. The question would be how to disincentivize scrolling in a way that adds instead of subtracts value.
I wonder if the Substack team considered non-endless scrolling in designing Notes…?
Hi there! I've noticed that some people have their substacks listed right under their names when they post to notes. Is that something I can do in my profile settings, or is this something you "earn" by number of subscribers, or...? would like it to be clear that I not only subscribe to various newsletters, but that i also write one!
I’m sure with a community of right-minded and right-thinking people we will make Substack and its new features like notes very useful and interesting. Frankly, I’m still feeling a little lost and swallowed but love it when any of you reach out!
I really like Notes! The challenge is I'm a small, niche account. I write about slavery in Massachusetts and New England, so my audience is specific and it's difficult for me to build engagement on any social media platform. I need strategies to build engagement on Substack Notes beyond spamming my links to the "Home" timeline. Does Substack have any plans to perhaps boost "little guy" accounts through Notes? Or is my ultra-nice Substack relegated to obscurity? 😂
I had hoped Notes would be a direct-to-subscriber email tool, as a way of showing appreciation to the 6 per cent of my readers who are paid subscribers. I don't want to paywall, or hide archives, or write lengthy special content for $$ subscribers. I think there's some utopian thinking behind making Substack more of a "community," but there's definitely a wall between boomers like me who tend to find Notes to be just more clutter to navigate away from, and those younger digital natives who like all these shiny new things, and may even know how to make better use of them.
I'm trying to decide if my subscribers really WANT more interaction, and at the same time, whether I have capacity to manage more of it. I've been a little too busy to digest the Notes info that's come to us so far, so forgive me if the answer to this is buried somewhere or, worse, really obvious. :D Here are my questions. Insights on any or all would be much appreciated.
>>> It appears when we launch Notes, that all subscribers get an email notification. Does that mean they also get notifications when there are new comments?
>>> How does discoverability actually happen, or improve?
>>> I noticed that a larger account to which I subscribe had hundreds of comments. So, people are talking amongst themselves and the author/OP is left to decide where or how to engage. What an investment!
I joined the conversation late today, and someone may have already asked this question, but how exactly does Notes help promote your Substack? I feel a bit overwhelmed--getting on Substack was a huge step, and now Notes compared to Twitter, etc. Is Notes best used to promote your own content in short form format? I have seen folks recommend books, websites, just say hello on Notes, and it was not that intuitive to me. And yes, I am not a full fledged social media person--do FB but not one of those who cross promotes diligently on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube etc. Many thanks! Anu http://anuprabhala.substack.com
Hey writers! We're excited to see so many of you in Notes. Over the next few months we will continue to iterate and grow the product together.
The Substack team is signing off today but we will be back next week at the same time. In the meantime, we encourage writers to stick around after the hour and continue the conversation together.
See you in Notes!
I'd say there are several issues with Notes thus far:
1. It's hard to keep track of your own notes, as there isn't a menu for them. I find it cumbersome to constantly click on my profile, where the Notes are interspersed with my stories.
2. I think there should be more separation btw Notes and other parts of the interface. For instance, I want to be able to follow writers' notes without subscribing and not receiving notifications every time a note is posted. There are way too many notifications now to keep track of.
3. I'm confused - do 'likes' and 'comments' in Notes count towards the posts when they are linked in notes? Like, if I get a comment in Notes, is it duplicated in the post comments and vice versa? Because that's the impression I'm getting due to the aforementioned lack of separation.
4. I feel that Notes seem to be most beneficial to writers with already established/large subscriber bases. More needs to be done to even out the algorithmic playing field for smaller-tier writers.
Well done on Notes! Do the team have plans to boost notes or promote less known Stackers via the new feature? Noticing a lot of the big writers are very visible, makes complete sense - all in all Notes is fab!
As someone just starting recently on Substack, how do I get any visibility to my Notes?
I post, but nobody sees them. In my home feed I have large accounts I have not subscribed.
It seems if you have a large account, you get boosted, but if you have a small account how do you reach your target audience?
There seems no method for searching notes or tagging. So I can't find others having conversations on topics that I write about and they can't find me either.
I'd to post a challenge to the Substack algorithm team: rather than only boosting the writers with massive subscription bases, can you help boost the ones just starting out or with lower subscription numbers, as well? Otherwise we're always fighting an uphill battle no matter how good or insightful our content is. Perhaps the algorithm could base it on the type of content, or even a lottery system where random accounts get a little boost from time to time.
Would love others' thoughts on how to help the algorithm be a little more democratic!
I strongly dislike the Bestsellers thread. Subscribed makes sense -- though it feels a little redundant -- and Home has been, thus far, very interesting (the most interesting part of Notes for me, right now), but Bestsellers is just a pure firehose that rewards the writers who need the exposure the least. I'd love to see that thread disappear.
I'd also love to see a thread that boosts writers who have smaller subscriber numbers -- a reverse of the badge system, basically. I realize Substack as a company makes less money from those writers and it doesn't behoove you to promote them in anywhere near the same capacity as the "bestsellers," but it would go such a long way -- I believe an astonishingly long way -- toward building goodwill in the community.
I've already gotten a few subscribers after posting my first notes. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.
If I can be forward enough to offer advice to people just starting off on Notes, I’d like to make a suggestion. The content you see in your feed is restricted to the people to whom you have subscribed and the people with whom those authors (the ones you’ve subscribed to) interact. So, if they reply to someone it’ll show up your newsfeed. Several people have mentioned that they are seeing posts from large publishers that they don’t follow and they believe this is because Substack is promoting their content. I believe it’s because someone you DO FOLLOW has replied to one o their posts.
My recommendation for people who are concerned about a lack of visibility is that they use the desktop version of Notes and start following the Notes of people who have made a comment or post that has interested them. The more frequently you follow the Notes of other people, the more content will appear in your newsfeed, and it becomes more likely that something will elicit a comment from you. When you interact with someone else’s post it gives you more visibility and new people will discover you, your Notes, and ultimately your newsletter.
You can only follow the Notes of other people through the Desktop version. Find the heart icon on the far left side of the screen at the bottom of someone’s post or comment and look to the opposing side. When you see the three dots, click there, and then choose See More from Username. That will allow you to follow their Notes, but does not subscribe you to their newsletter. You might want to do that as well once you get to know them, but I like starting with their Notes first.
I'm enjoying Notes so far! I've added some new subs, I've found some cool new Substacks, and the conversations in my comments section seem to be more lively. One suggestion, though. It would be nice if Notes was integrated into the data dashboard. I'd like to see how many times a story is "restacked." I assume that data is currently included in shares, but it would be nice to break it out. Also, it would be cool to see Notes as the subscription source when you're looking at attribution. That would help a lot because it would give me an idea of how much time I want to invest in Notes. Thanks, Substack team!
In a reply below I mention the idea of user-defined tabs (besides the default Home, Subscribed, and Bestseller tabs), using keywords from the newsletters. I'd love to have tabs for science writers, entertainment critics, recipes, and so forth. Here's the reply: https://on.substack.com/p/office-hours-notes-74/comment/14637136 Thanks!
I really like notes but hope that most writers use it for more than crosspromoting their own posts and fishing for followers.
I was part of the Beta program. Notes is beyond awesome. Getting visibility happens when you post on there and connect with other writers. It's less about spotlighting and more about connection and community. It's about subscribing to the newsletters you like and restacking quotes from them to share with others. That said, it's also about sharing the amazing work you're doing. I discovered so many great Substacks and hope that continues! I'm happy to field any questions though I'm hardly an expert on the backend.
As a new Substack writer, and someone who never played with Twitter much - how can I Add the most value for other Notes users and for myself? Should I focus on getting subscribers to my Substak so they can see my notes, or are there easier ways to gain visibility? I'm interested in helping others, sharing ideas, and collaboration.
I’m planning on using Notes to meet more people and share the occasional photograph or short form content. I think Notes just made everything more vibrant!
Correct me if I'm incorrect, but Notes looks like a separate thread of thoughts and messaging, separate from our main content, that does not get emailed but instead lives exclusively in the sidebar on our dashboard. It feels like yet another thread we have to manage -- in addition to social media for example. Is this accurate? What do you all think, esp. those using Notes and seeing success?
So far I'm loving this new feature and a big thanks to the Substack team for being so great!
One thing I love about Notes is the ability to upload photos to complement stories you've published. As someone who also enjoys taking photos, it's always tough to choose the ones that'll make it into the newsletter. Now, I can share the newsletter as a note with up to six additional photos.
I was a skeptical going in, but so far Notes has proven a great way to connect with other writers, boost their work, and find new Substacks. Great energy in the crowd as well.
I must say, Notes is a BLAST! I feel like the landscape of interesting Substacks has just opened up for me and I can discover new things more easily. I am finding it a bit hard to stay on top of notifications. Can the app ding your phone when someone sends you a note? Also, if someone clicks "See more" from me, but hasn't subscribed to my newsletter, will I be notified that they added me to their see more list? I'd love to know how many people are following me and also get a chance to follow ppl back!
This seems like an interesting way to stay engaged with an audience while working on new material.
I'm also excited about being able to reach and discover more writers and readers!
I'd love for replies to have a default "@username" so you're aware that you're replying to someone specific and not posting your own standalone post in the app.
Yesterday, I ended up accidentally replying to a writer who I've never heard of / am not subscribed to / isn't connected to anyone I know or subscribe to. My post was about my own thoughts on the public vs. subscribed feeds and not wanting the ability to block on public feeds. My post didn't show up in my Notes feed, so I thought it just glitched and didn't post. Turns out, I'd mistakenly posted it as a reply to a specific person who I had never even heard of but who had somehow shown up in my feed. I didn't know that because it didn't @ that person. The result was that person immediately going Twitter-esque on me and putting words into my mouth, and their friend instantly jumping in to attack, too. Good times.
I explained that I hadn't meant to direct it at them personally and ended up just deleting everything, but these are the sort of interactions that make me absolutely despise social media and never want to use it again.
Please make it more apparent when you're replying to someone, as opposed to making your own post, to avoid mistakes and childish outcomes in the future.
A fan of notes. I really like the quick thoughts, news, and research that I can share throughout the day. Let's create a thread to connect with those in the same field. I'm in the entertainment space: podcasts, books, TV, magazines, short form content, and more.
Am I wrong in observing that the cross-posting feature has been replaced by this 'restacking' thing leading to Notes? I haven't tried it yet because I don't want to go down that rabbit hole.
If so, this seems short-sighted, as I have no intention of following links to or from Notes, whereas I will likely read an entire piece that comes to my inbox from a trusted source.
In fact, I have no intention of using Notes at all. I have enough distractions from my writing and reading already, plus a job and a life. I understand that I "should" use it to self-promote like everyone else, but there was a reason I never used Twitter, either, and I fail to see how this is more worthwhile.
OK, I like Notes. I do agree with a lot of the comments about how it can be expanded and help writers with smaller followings. BUT, I am tremendously impressed by this interface, how fun and easy it is, and I have a hunch the launch was moved up because of "pushback" from a certain other social media owner. And if I'm correct in that assumption, this is even more impressive. I would like to know the difference between chat and notes. And, I want to be able to invite my friends on that "other site" to come to Substack without the pressure of having to write a newsletter. Can we form Notes groups? Can we allow searches for friends? Can we have themed notes? Like "Nevada Education," and all my teacher peeps and better ed advocates can come over? These are just questions. I'm sure you have a long list of things you are planning. Let me reiterate: GREAT JOB.
I understand the appeal of Notes, in that it’s like Twitter but nicer…but I didn’t come to Substack because I was looking for an alternative to Twitter. I came because I like to write (and read) newsletters. I like sending them out to people who have asked for them, and getting just the ones I want in my inbox, as opposed to checking another app. I do like discovering new writers via other writers but to be honest, i don’t subscribe unless I know I’ll read it regularly and I can only read so many, so I actually don’t go looking for new ones.…and I definitely don’t care about popularity in choosing the letters I want to read, and notes seems to boost the big guys…so I guess it’s just not for me! Which is ok, as long as using it doesn’t basically become mandatory, you know?
Loving Notes! Thank you, Substack Team!
Loving the notes feature. I'm spending too much time on commenting on other people's post though ;)
I want to learn more about how the substack algorithms determine what can and can't be seen. On the faq it says that subscribers + subscribers of people who recommend you see your notes, but I also see notes from other people sometimes. How is it determined what this 'other' pool of notes is that you see?
I'd like to know how are writers planning to use notes for their publications??
Will there be any metatagging (i.e. hashtags) to curate notes within a broader conversation or community? How can I use Notes to amplify my newsletter among a specific audience?
I am noticing that there is an emerging trend in Notes where authors are using as a way of broadcasting their subscription numbers. I have to say I find this tiresome.
I have been noticing that a lot of people are posting hashtags with their notes. It appears that these are not actually a feature of Notes. Anyone have any insight?
I'm liking notes - feels more curated, seems smarter, not full of garbage. Wow! and no ads!
So many ‘smaller’ writers here are asking about how to get visibility on notes, it’s quite simple really, reply and respond in thoughtful ways to the notes that interest you, and you will be seen.
Thanks for Notes! Small is beautiful! I'd love to see more discoverability for smaller stable publications driven by new super-innovative Substack algorithms.
Hey all — This doesn't answer all the questions I'm seeing here (not even close!), but this morning I listened to the founders discuss Notes (and Twitter's response) on the podcast "On with Kara Swisher" and highly recommend. Here's a link: https://pod.link/1643307527/episode/123c7903f9603cff877c706585b6fc7b
Tech Questions:
Q1: Will there be a separate app for Notes? How do you plan to grow the platform or it’s feature while it’s a nested feature in a app? If it is staying put does that mean there won’t be any big feature updates like audio rooms or something that would require more screen real estate?
Q2: Did the rollout go according to plan mostly? How was it behind the scenes? Were there any moments that you knew it was going to be ok or it had worked, or the other way around?
Q3: Was there any analytical or data anomalies that stood out? Like time of interactions, avg length of note, etc.
Q4: Are you doing this all in house or do you contract the work? What about for help desk?
Q5: ETA on swapping out the subscribe button for a follow notes button and put the subscribe in ellipsis or even make it a setting so the user can choose which button is displayed?
Love notes but wish/hope/pray the Substack folks will figure out how to group things by subject categories. Too many notes for me to read. Making it possible for people to identify notes topics of interest would boost engagement.
Love it so far.
Question 1: Is their going to be a way to insert a link using the Mardown method or a button in the iOS app? Having Bold and Italics has been awesome since I use markdown for all my note taking and writing.
Question 2: Without algorithmic choices is there going to be any way, other than 2 degrees of relationship, for smaller creators to be discovered by others? I know our Timeline isn’t meant to become a bunch of people you do not care about. At the same time we do not want it to be like shouting into the Blue Void either. We don’t want to be drowned out by the big creators. I think their is a solution here that is more nuanced than a comment can give Justice to. Wonder your take.
One thing I like a lot about Notes is how your notes get seen by the subscribers of other substacks that recommend you. Presumably, those would be the readers with overlapping interests, so the odds of them subscribing to you are probably higher than for random others.
Not sure if someone mentioned this or not, but it would be nice to know how well a Note is doing in terms of engagement? Maybe it's too early for that but just a thought.
I think Notes could be improved with a mechanism that discourages endless scrolling.
Sure, scrolling is how folks discover more notes to read, but we also know that endless scrolling isn't good for anyone.
This seems like a classic opportunity for a creative constraint. The question would be how to disincentivize scrolling in a way that adds instead of subtracts value.
I wonder if the Substack team considered non-endless scrolling in designing Notes…?
Hi there! I've noticed that some people have their substacks listed right under their names when they post to notes. Is that something I can do in my profile settings, or is this something you "earn" by number of subscribers, or...? would like it to be clear that I not only subscribe to various newsletters, but that i also write one!
I’m sure with a community of right-minded and right-thinking people we will make Substack and its new features like notes very useful and interesting. Frankly, I’m still feeling a little lost and swallowed but love it when any of you reach out!
Polinate seems to be the thing with Notes also, flowers can bloom from all newsletters that way :)
I really like Notes! The challenge is I'm a small, niche account. I write about slavery in Massachusetts and New England, so my audience is specific and it's difficult for me to build engagement on any social media platform. I need strategies to build engagement on Substack Notes beyond spamming my links to the "Home" timeline. Does Substack have any plans to perhaps boost "little guy" accounts through Notes? Or is my ultra-nice Substack relegated to obscurity? 😂
I had hoped Notes would be a direct-to-subscriber email tool, as a way of showing appreciation to the 6 per cent of my readers who are paid subscribers. I don't want to paywall, or hide archives, or write lengthy special content for $$ subscribers. I think there's some utopian thinking behind making Substack more of a "community," but there's definitely a wall between boomers like me who tend to find Notes to be just more clutter to navigate away from, and those younger digital natives who like all these shiny new things, and may even know how to make better use of them.
I'm trying to decide if my subscribers really WANT more interaction, and at the same time, whether I have capacity to manage more of it. I've been a little too busy to digest the Notes info that's come to us so far, so forgive me if the answer to this is buried somewhere or, worse, really obvious. :D Here are my questions. Insights on any or all would be much appreciated.
>>> It appears when we launch Notes, that all subscribers get an email notification. Does that mean they also get notifications when there are new comments?
>>> How does discoverability actually happen, or improve?
>>> I noticed that a larger account to which I subscribe had hundreds of comments. So, people are talking amongst themselves and the author/OP is left to decide where or how to engage. What an investment!
>>> How does Notes differ from Chat?
I joined the conversation late today, and someone may have already asked this question, but how exactly does Notes help promote your Substack? I feel a bit overwhelmed--getting on Substack was a huge step, and now Notes compared to Twitter, etc. Is Notes best used to promote your own content in short form format? I have seen folks recommend books, websites, just say hello on Notes, and it was not that intuitive to me. And yes, I am not a full fledged social media person--do FB but not one of those who cross promotes diligently on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube etc. Many thanks! Anu http://anuprabhala.substack.com
I'd really appreciate a way to opt out of "Notes." It's very disappointing that Substack chose forced participation instead.
I left Twitter to get away from constant notifications and "quick react" content.
But now, you, Substack, won't allow me to avoid it.
Please let us opt out.