Frequency: A Few Final Thoughts on Notes
Good morning everyone.
This week I haven’t sent out another video tutorial because… well I got a tooth pulled last Friday so, I’m not keen on talking more than I have to this week. That’s ok though, I should send out these written posts occasionally anyways.
My focus in March has been Substack notes; trying to get the basics in place for you, if you’re new here you can find in these three posts:
Before I end this topic (for now) I wanted to touch on one more thing: frequency.
How much time should you spend on Notes?
There is no set answer to this, it really depends on your goals. Why are you using Substack? What are your main goals with Substack? Is this a new platform for you to share your thoughts and your work? An outlet for your writing? Or are you building a subscriber base so you show a book publisher that there is an audience for your book?
The more important the numbers are to you, the more time you need to spend on notes. I want to caution you against getting caught up in the numbers though. If you don’t specifically need high numbers, try thinking about each of those numbers as a real person.
Lets say you have 200 subscribers and a 50% open rate: you know that 100 people —real people, with real lives; jobs, maybe kids, all the busy-ness of a life—are taking the time to read what you wrote. Imagine you were going to read one of your essays, articles, or poems at a library, and One Hundred people showed up to listen. If you’re like most of us (and not already a well-known public speaker), you would be overwhelmed with gratitude and amazement that this many people would take time out of their day and come listen to your thoughts on a specific topic.
If you can think of your subscribers as real people instead of numbers, it will help you to focus on writing amazing content for these people, instead of finding tricks to up your subscriber count.
With that in mind, its helpful to use notes as a tool to reach people and find your audience and the people you would want to connect with. Use notes as a place to share “what I’m thinking about” and chat with other people who are interested in the same things. Keep your notes authentic, and try not to be too “market-y” but do use some keywords so the Substack AI knows what category your notes belong in.
No, the categories you’ve chosen for your substack are not automatically the categories the substack AI sorts your notes into. You have to use keywords within your note so the AI knows where to put you, who your audience is.
I’m including an image below with a picture of my content calendar for a couple weeks. This is just to give you an idea of how often you can post to notes (if you’re not driving for the numbers) and what a calendar could look like—if, like me, you still need to have a life outside of Substack. After all, it’s real life that gives us the events, ups and downs, ideas, and inspiration to actually write about.
I’ve included my calendar picture to show you it doesn’t have to be fancy and complicated, and you don’t need fancy software or spreadsheets. This is literally a dollar store calendar with pens from Wal-mart. I love colours and colour coding things, as you can see. The most important thing with a content calendar for one person is: Keep It Sustainable!
The bottom line for Substack notes: use it to find your audience, share your content to non-subscribers, and chat with interesting people. Be authentic, show up regularly, and have fun but don’t spend too much time lost in the numbers game—enjoy your real life as well.
this is great advice, Adrienne! I have no idea how these AI algorithms work. Which is obvious, since my Notes get zero responses usually, although I am seeing an uptick in subscribers of late. So something must be happening!!