Writing and Reading on the Substack app...

Unpacking the mystery of the social network using the app

“Oh the app is a whole new experience, I get it now”

EDIT - I wrote this article BEFORE Notes and Chat were a thing here.

A comment from one of my friends and clients on downloading the Substack app and using it.

Earlier this year, I taught a masterclass called ‘Get Creative with Substack’ (replay available). I’m pretty geeky about this space because it’s really the most creative space on the internet for me - I just 💜Substack!

I’m super passionate about it as a tool to communicate with your audience and grow your readership.

If you haven’t downloaded the app yet you’re missing so much of the experience of what the Substack platform is and can do.

I actually don’t read the emails in my email inbox at all. Not because that isn’t valuable but because it’s a busy enough space already and I don’t have emails pushed through on my phone anyway.

Alnmouth Beach

Here are my top three reasons to use the app as a reader;

1. It’s calm and spacious - Although Substack isn’t social media, the app is an incredible social media detox tool. It honestly re-wires your brain away from the dopamine hit and into deeper connection to folks who write here. I would really recommend deleting all the social media apps from your phone and diving in to what Substack has to offer. Just try it for a weekend - you’ll see what I mean.

2. It’s easy to use - and easy to find things lovely things to read from your subscribers or via the explore page or by seeing Substack recommends.

3. You can make friends - we are so used to communicating through written text on our phone and you can add emojis if you like too. 😬

   Commenting/ chatting on open comment threads and finding/ building community. Remember when you would post a wordpress blog and the comments were crickets? Yeah it’s not like that at all.

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

And as a writer…

I don’t write in the app but you can. I just like to write in notes in my phone and that syncs with the laptop and I post from there. I often just write in my journal or straight onto the desktop platform too.

Any downsides?

Just a couple…

• Staff picks (of articles/posts) are only available on desktop and I’d like these on the app so I can see them where I read all my Substack articles.

• The 'big writers' have a big presence here and lift each other up/ feature each other a lot. That’s not to say there’s not space for all of us it just feels a bit ‘head girl/ head boy’ at times after being here a year and seeing the same names. I’d like to see lots of folks featured/ recommended and interviewed by Substack with a range of different sized accounts/ purposes for being here.

• The categories are just a HUGE long list of Substacks and you have to do a little digging to find out whether these folks are ‘active’ or not. I found one I was really interested in last week only to find that she hasn’t posted since 2021.

• There are sometimes glitches - it’s all fine in the end but things do happen in tech.

Hope that was useful to you and if you’d like you can click here for more articles on Slow Lived Growth on Substack and over on my Substack Tips tab.