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Gillian McMurray's avatar

This is wonderful information. I have only been here a few weeks but have been disappearing under an avalanche of wonderful newsletters. It is great to know I can turn off the emails and still read them on the app.

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Claire Venus ✨'s avatar

Yes it’s lovely - like a little ebook of your faves rather than admin to manage!

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Hilda Scheenstra's avatar

Thank you Claire for sharing these tips and the Canva template! 🙏

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Dan Ehrenkrantz's avatar

My birthday was a few days ago. As often happens, I received a bunch of Happy Bday wishes on Facebook, a platform I almost never use. I commented on each one with a copied and pasted response:

Thanks! I’m not on Facebook much these days but I do enjoy connecting. Every few weeks, I publish a short newsletter article. If you want to stay in touch more regularly (and you don’t already receive it) go to https://danehrenkrantz.substack.com . Lately, I’ve been doing a series exploring world wisdom on anger. I’ve looked at insights from philosophy, psychology, and religion. My latest article gave a brief recap of what I’ve learned so far in this series and then took a look at Jesus overturning tables in the Temple. If you sign up to receive my newsletter, and perhaps comment on the content if you feel motivated, it’s a better way for us to stay connected than Facebook. No pressure!!

Result? A number of new subscribers.

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Sonya Mallett's avatar

Amazing Canva template Claire and perfect timing, I think I’ll use this later in the week 🤎

You’re comment on Substack being blocked on IG is interesting, I’ve shared my Substack post today how I’m moving away from IG and I’ve had the most views, likes, comments and saves to any post for weeks, plus I’ve shared the Substack link in Stories and again a huge uptake on views??

I do love your feedback on referring to your account as something other than Substack, from some of the comments there’s a lot of people that haven’t heard of it ☺️

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Claire Venus ✨'s avatar

Yesterday I had way over 100 more story views than usual and people were finding my pinned posts - it was odd! 😆

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Kristi Keller 🇨🇦's avatar

Claire, I'm not on IG but still, I never knew this! I had no idea that it would block Substack content!

Also, I published this one a few weeks ago about a different (unique) way of promoting your Substack out in the wild. It struck a chord with lots of readers!

https://open.substack.com/pub/unstackit/p/promote-your-substack-without-social-media?r=2qffbg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Claire Venus ✨'s avatar

Thanks love - I'll link it. x

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Seth Werkheiser's avatar

Ooooh, good question. Zero idea if IG scans our AUDIO, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. I've seen people beep out certain words, I guess for fear of tripping up the BAD WORD detectors or whatever.

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Claire Venus ✨'s avatar

Bad word detectors lol - oh my it’s like a mad puzzle isn’t it - thank goodness for Substack!

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Amy I Beeson 🐝's avatar

I wrote something for you is a stellar piece of copywriting

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Michelle Lester's avatar

So interesting- I hadn’t realised Insta (so presumably FB, too) blocks Substack refs so I’ve literally just gone back to a share on FB and edited out all references. And the Canva template is fab - there’s a wee typo there (‘subscriber’ instead of ‘subscribe’) - but I’ll definitely credit you. You’re a wonder!

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Claire Venus ✨'s avatar

Ooops thanks I've edited that.

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Melissa Scala's avatar

I might suggest creating a Pinterest Pin to add to your Substack, that way if someone wants to save your issue to their Pinterest you already have the optimized Pin there. I have been sharing my stories to Pinterest regularly and gaining traffic there.

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Claire Venus ✨'s avatar

Can you break down the process for me Melissa?

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Melissa Scala's avatar

I am trying to grow an audience over on Pinterest because it is a massive search engine that I want to be found on. I create 2-3 pins in Canva for each post (changing up the title and images) and schedule posts right on the Pinterest website. Each pin can work well on different boards on Pinterest so you really can re-purpose. If I consistently share pins, my views go up and up. I have fallen off posting in recent months and am getting back on track, but there were months I was getting 30K views as a couple of pins went semi-viral. Sometimes I will use the Pinterest Pins graphic right on my Substack article and share to Pinterest right from there using my Pinterest extension. As I am getting back on top of this, I am planning to write up a Pinterest post to share on Substack.

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Claire Venus ✨'s avatar

Oh brilliant - please let me know when you do so I can share.

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Melissa Scala's avatar

FOR SURE!

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Rachel's avatar

Oooo that's a great idea about using another name for it when sharing elsewhere! I have a monthly newsletter via Flodesk, and a blog on Wordpress, so use those words already. I'll have to come up with something that works for my substacks.

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Sharon Thompson's avatar

Really helpful.

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Claire Venus ✨'s avatar

Thanks Sharon. I'm glad. x

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Jezz Lundkvist's avatar

I can confirm that people at Blue Sky still thinks this place is bad... So better not use the word.

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Jess's avatar

This might be a very big question and a can of worms - but would you say it's possible to grow on Substack without using other social media platforms? I'm wanting to move away from other social media platforms (apart from Facebook, which I believe still values community)...

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Claire Venus ✨'s avatar

YES! I’ve grown solely here Jess! I brought a mailing list of 350 and the rest 8k is from being here for two years! I’ll teach you everything I know? ✨✨

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Jess's avatar

Oh absolutely! Spill the Substack growth tea!

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Leanne Shawler's avatar

Thank you for the Canva template. It’s been more than six weeks since I’ve posted on IG, but if I ever do, an updated Canva post might be it. At least they’ll know where to find me should they come looking.

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Lara Sheldrake's avatar

Loooooveeeeeeee

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Kerani Arpaia's avatar

Oh thanks for the tips Claire! I’d suspected that IG might hide substack related words, but wasn’t sure. Gonna change my CTAs on there!

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