The Power of Community Building on 'Substack Notes'
And other goodies to help you stay creative on Substack (#4 ✨)
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”
Brene Brown
Hi petals,
How’s your week on Substack been?
Looking to enhance and add sparkle to your Substack experience and stay connected to yourself, your writing and your readers? You’re in the right place! ✨
Welcome back to ‘Stay Creative on Substack’, a regular post series. The idea behind these posts is that they encourage you to throw away the heavy old rule book and stay creative on Substack!
If you’re new here Hi, I’m Claire, an Engagement Consultant and Mentor and it’s my aim to co-curate and share tools, people and the behind the scenes magic that makes Substack what it is!
Stay Creative on Substack is akin to an interactive magazine, a weekend supplement if you will. You can take your time, skip bits, save it for later, write a to do list - it’s your space and will land in the best possible place for you and where you’re at in growing your Substack!
We play the long game on Substack. We learn, we craft, we create, we hone, we learn some more. There’s time we have so much time!!
There are 5 parts to this post;
Substack Newbies
My Substack Growth ‘Tip of the Week’
Coffee and Creativity - for depth of connection, strategy and more
Workshops, offers and more from me and others
What’s new on Substack from team
1. Are you NEW to Substack or to this space?
Substack is part blog, part mailing list, all community. It’s a wonderful place to create with built for writers originally and the best thing about it - you own your own data here1. You don’t have to use all the platform’s settings or even understand them. Create first, faff later - that’s worked for me!
You might also like my ‘Stay Creative on Substack’ youtube playlist.
I created a FREE 5 day mini course to get you started on Substack; sign up here for the journalling download straight to your inbox.
2. Substack Growth Tip of the Week 🤓
Make friends with Substack Notes
Use Notes, use it often, use it to grow your community here. Lean into authentic expression, what feels good - the platform is shaped by us - there are no rules…
Let me know what you think about Notes in the comments? What are your blocks and challenges? Does it feel good or hard… I’d love to chat more…
Do I think you HAVE to use Notes to grow your Substack? Nope! But if you want to….
My 5 top tips on using Notes in a way that feels good;
Don’t just restack a writer without an tag or additional note/comment it doesn’t really get seen or much engagement this way…
Do introduce your thoughts and invite conversation in with your shares and notes and what you have to say…
Try not to feel overwhelmed; yes it’s busy but it’s also very generous and inviting on Notes; try chiming in with your thoughts in relation to someone else’s Notes first?
A Note can be it’s own stand-alone thing or point folks to a post or a podcast or someone else’s work…yes you can self promote… you’ll get a sense of how to do that…
You can use photos in Notes… so bring in some of your personality/ creativity to accompany the writing if you feel like it… others can reply with photos too… pets are popular… I’m not sure what happened but they are! 😉
Notes can hang around for over a week - it’s like social media was BUT way more generous than it’s ever been (in my opinion)!!!
Some examples of Substack Notes I loved this past week;
This note from
invited us to talk about when and how we write…This note from
invited us to share more about where we’re from in the world…If you’d like more support on how to use Notes you can watch my video here. NB - I recorded this earlier in the year and now the ‘my subscribers’ tab is no more…
3. ☕️ Coffee and Creativity
💌 🤓 ✨ To sign off or not to sign off…
I can’t remember when I started adding my name to my posts… I’ve always felt like I was writing you guys a letter so probably pretty early on.
Are you writings essays, articles, blogs or newsletters?
If you write ‘blog’ or ‘letter style’ Substack posts here and want to put your first name2 signature at the end here’s the size of file that works both on desktop and on the app. You can make a copy of it if you’re signed into Canva.
This was created by my incredible VA
- thanks Sophie!
Top Tip - Make a copy of the canva file, set a timer for 10 minutes and have a play with the signature fonts or a photo of your own handwriting… don’t do this in place of writing, do it if you have extra time or when you have writer’s block?!
I’m not going to use a signature like this simply because I don’t feel it adds anything to my work or style but I know some of you LOVE them so here you go! ✨
4. Workshops, offers and more…
Two opportunities for you;
- Illustrator and Writer Licensing Meet up
Illustrator
and I are hosting a curated chat open to illustrators and writers who want to explore the potential of licensing illustrations for others on Substack! Come join us? Sign up here. It’s free and open to both mine and Adam’s subs. It’s happening in November and we’ll share a recording with our members. - Going Paid here on Substack - Workshop Recording…
The second most popular question I get asked after ‘How do I grow my Substack?’ is how do/ should I go paid? Here’s the recording of my workshop on that very topic with my BEAUTIFUL community. I’ve also included a video on how to preview your paywalled content and how to create coupons in your settings. Come join the conversation?
- Remember there’s 10% your annual subscription here at for another couple of weeks. Use this code.
Want more personalised support?
Substack is NOT always an easy platform to learn but it’s totally possible IF you lean into it being a long game and stay true to why you’re here.
Upgrade to my paid community here or take my advice and book a meeting with
- she’s the strategic Sherlock of your Substack - it’s advice and guidance built from her 500 strong paid community - trust me on this!
5. Whats NEW From Substack?
Paid subscriber notes… what a LOVELY thing! ✨ Little notes of support from your biggest fans! More on that and on your new post stats insights below…
If you value or enjoyed this post please forward to a friend, re stack it or leave me a heart - I’d love that! 💜
See you back here for #5 in a couple of weeks - let me know in the comments what you’d like to learn and read about next time?
If you’re a member I’ll be back in the membership chat on Mon, see you then! Come join the conversation and let us know how your week on Substack has been?!
Remember it’s YOUR Substack, your way… you have time, there is so much time…
Sending sparkles for your weekend ahead,
Claire x
PS - here’s that link again for my workshop on being paid for your work here. - Remember there’s 10% your annual subscription here at
for another couple of weeks. Use this code.✨
You own your audience email addresses and can take those with you wherever you go.
I wouldn’t sign your actual full name signature just for security purposes.
I do enjoy Notes and all of the lovely conversations to be had but I’ve taken a step back from there in recent weeks. I needed to be more present in my real life and I needed to focus on my writing. So now, I only go on Notes twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. I know everyone is different and some can go in and out of Notes all day but I need that boundary right now 💛✨
Thanks so much for this article as I am defined struggling with the substack platform. Here now for six months. All my subscribers are my own - non paid! But I read about community, where I feel so alone. Two days ago another writer started following me. That a first and I was very happy. Still I can’t find my genre, since I meanly see people who blog. I write essays or more stories, only once a month. I am from mainland Europe. I do feel that’s also a different vibe as UK or USA. But mainly, how do I get I contact with other writers. I don’t see a message or an email adres. Does anybody sees or reads my posts?
I feel so invisible. Do have to say I don’t post in notes every day. I don’t want to be on the app every second. Also Don’t understand what my category is. And so on.
I’ll be taking your tips with me. So thanks so much for this article.
So many things more. I think I have to find some sense of community . It’s just hard. Especially when everybody celebrates it. I appreciate every answer or even a like as recognition that this post was read!
Love from Berlin.
Amber