Your Friday Email - Substack Tips - Notes, Growth and Creating on your terms
Substack Notes, growth, creating for you and your audience away from a lifetime of internet noise
A piece of me
This post lives in my ‘Slow Lived Growth on Substack’ section.
You can read more like this by heading over there. My plan is to publish new posts there most Fridays.
Think of it as a few small library shelves next to a small open window on a sunny day. You can hear gentle bird song, no traffic and a giant squishy mustard coloured sofa with cosy pink coloured scatter keeps you company as you make time to read. In reading, you get to know yourself better and then… well then you decide.
Showing up and Shutting Down - A Trip Down Online Memory Lane
There are a thousand and one options when it comes to showing up online.
It’s like a 24hour news stand of sweeties from every decade shouting at you to buy into the multidimensional rabbit holes. Your ticket into a multi-sensory wonderland.
So when Substack gave us just one more place to show up (Substack Notes) a lot of us felt overwhelmed in the invitation.
I remember POB, later My Space - I had one. GULP. I remember friends re-united and how excited my mum’s generation was about it. I remember “Welcome to AOL”, I remember creating a facebook account, watching ‘The Social Network’, joining twitter in 2009, starting instagram a few years after that. I remember when Facebook ‘changed’ and I couldn’t do it anymore. I remember trying different wordpress themes to better represent who I am and hating them all. I remember opening Linked In and thinking I better up my game. I remember writing LONG emails to my friends when I was meant to be working 15 years ago.
I remember starting here on Substack last April. I remember my first paid subscriber.
Let’s take a minute
If the internet started again - like a totally blank slate, brand new started again…
If you had ALL the knowledge you have about our internet (which you do) and all the online places to show up existed (which they do).
What would you do differently?
How to use Substack Notes
Ok so I’m 10 days into using Substack Notes and I've read lots about Substack's intention with it.
One of the brilliant things about the team here is they LISTEN to our feedback and change things as they are building and developing the network and the functionality.
For example, just this week (7 days after Notes launched) they've given us another filter to choose from so now we have 'HOME', 'Subscribed' and 'My Subscribers'. That is FAST implementation by anyone’s standards.
They’ve also taken away the functionality to ‘restack’ a comment out of context so our comment spaces are lovely little safe havens again to talk deeply about our lives.
Because this section is about Slow Lived Growth I’m sharing these stats.
One because I want to be relatable - I’m not a person with a huge audience on the internet I’m just me in my little cottage by the sea passionate about creativity and sharing our voice.
And two (the most important part) because it always helps to have a ‘why’ behind your writing/ sharing…
More on my goal and intention setting here…
What I’ve learnt
Let’s talk - I’ve missed talking! Substack want to encourage conversation in Notes. It’s not the water cooler esq. office chit chat…more the deep and meaningful, the conversation that spans multiple messages with multiple opinions backwards and forwards. I actually cringe when I think of how many instagram posts I’ve shared with no response… but it was ok over there because you could SEE in stats people were looking. Just feels sad and a shame really - no judgement.
It’s ok to self promote - You can share your work (older and new). Writers and readers are showing up to find Substacks to follow and people to learn from, engage with and be online pals with.
You don’t have to ‘do notes’ - there are other ways to grow and connect on Substack. If you want more on that I have a masterclass and course you can buy here.
You don’t have to show up there everyday. We know this don’t we, but sometimes we think we should be everywhere online all the time especially if we work for ourselves. We have time, there is so much time. Cosy up with your personal goals and show up in an intentional way for you the way that works for you.
It’s personal
Notes is a great place for me but if I’ve learnt if I show up there I can’t show up on instagram as well - it does something to my brain and sucks me too far into my phone. Not only is that just not good for me but I want to be present - being present is amazing! Life outside of our phones is beautiful and precious and passing us by.
So my strategy going forward is;
To use Instagram Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays then delete the app from my phone.
To use Notes the rest of the week. I’ll be lifting up other writers, sharing quotes, photos and some of my archive posts to reach new audiences and make new connections.
To have weekends off. No time on any social media or social media inspired platforms.
How about you, have you figured out what you want to do with Notes here? Is this post useful? I want to share my thinking and make sure it’s of service to you.
Perhaps you're flying the flag for Substack away from ‘typical social media’ too?
Claire x
Thanks for being here at Creatively Conscious.
If you’re NEW here or if you haven’t had chance to visit yet I’ve got an intro thread where people are introducing themselves and bringing lovely drinks - it’s here - ‘Let’s Cosy Round the Fire.’
For more in depth musings, spiritual connects and creative experiences you can become a paying subscriber. You’ll get access to the back catalogue of ‘Big Dreams begin with Me’ posts which share the (very honest) behind the scenes of how we have built our life on the Northumberland Coast.
I share how we balance working part time with raising our family, insight into my funded work and lots of creative ways in for you to connect to your centre and set up quiet ambition to stay slow lived in a world that is often the polar opposite.
For £7 per month or £70 for the year you’ll get access to all archive and at least two new posts a month plus invitations to online meet ups inspired by our community too.
I’m so grateful for all your shares and support.
It really does mean the world and helps me to live and work my dream and step fully into my heart centred life.
Really enjoying reading about your experience on Substack 😊. Your course sounds awesome!
I've been dipping my toe in and out of Notes--I like it a lot, but I haven't seen a lot of engagement, so I'm feeling a little unsure of how to best connect and engage with my audience and potential readers. I'm not sure if the posting more route is the way to go or not...I guess I'm going to try to keep being authentic and seeing what happens!