Notes-in-a-Nutshell 15-minute Overview
Understanding Substack Notes: Your (unbelievable) growth opportunity
In which I also explain Notes Boosts—your immediate path to Substack growth.
Watch and/or get the skimmable highlights below (including inks for paid subscribers to access viral-Notes models):
Substack Notes is unlike any opportunity that writers, creators, and visionaries have had to grow our email lists and attract subscribers and paid subscribers.
The growth potential on Notes is tremendous—dare I say ridiculous. Some writers have gone viral and gained thousands of subscribers from a single Note. One Substack writer got 20,000 subscribers from one Note where she simply introduced herself and her Substack. One of my wonderful clients got 5000 subscribers from one Note that continues to circulate. In the past month, she’s since grown to 9000 subscribers. When we had our first Substack strategy session in November, she had 300 subscribers. Yup, ridiculous, amazing growth.
What is Notes?
Notes is Substack’s internal social media network, separate from your regular Substack homepage, posts, and email list of subscribers.
Think of it like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, but on Substack.
Access it by clicking your avatar in the upper right, scrolling down and clicking “home” or in the Chrome/Safari search bar: [your Substack URL]/notes.
Why Should You Be on Notes?
Growth and credibility. When people see you on Notes, they:
Get accustomed to you
Come to trust and believe in you
See you as consistent, reliable, and an authority
Develop (we hope) an allegiance to you
Understanding Followers vs. Subscribers
Your subscribers receive your posts in their inboxes. Your followers see your Notes (not your posts unless you restack them). Your subscribers are automatically your followers, but you can have additional followers who aren't subscribers.
Types of Notes You Can Create
Fresh Notes: Original content, similar to posting on Facebook
Restacks: Sharing someone else's Note
Restacked posts: Sharing your Substack posts to Notes
Restacked quotes: Highlighting text from a post and sharing it
The Notes Algorithm
For now, unlike other social media platforms, Notes privileges engagement over frequency. This is possible because Substack doesn’t have ads—they’re serving writers, not advertisers.
I say for now because Substack changes fast, so remain a paid subscriber to get the most reliable, up-to-date information.
If you were my client, I would say that you must use our Notes Boost Challenge.
I want “viral” for you—or something like it.
That said, you don’t actually need anything like “viral” to grow, earn a sustainable income, and bring your amazing work to the world. Remember, back in the day having an email list of more than a hundred people made you the boss.
Slow and steady works, too.