How to Use Substack Notes to Foster IRL Collaborations: The Filmstack Case Study
Why time, consistency, and real relationships beat growth hacks every time
In that spirit, this week I’m putting on my marketing hat and taking a break from writing about film to explore audience building via Substack’s Notes feature and how Filmstack has been fostering community within the Substack network.
made a call to the community to help Filmstack build more resources, and I've volunteered to cover the marketing end of things. This is not one of those growth hacking posts, authentic community and audience building requires time, consistency and long term investment.Building Community Through Digital Connections
I love that I've gotten into this cadence of meeting one new person from Filmstack each week. Last week I met with
to chat about , a cool distribution platform for filmmakers. This week I met with community builder and producer , where we had a great conversation about our business goals and the Filmstack meetups he's hosting on the west coast. Next up I'll be chatting with musician and filmmaker , whose writing I've been really enjoying lately and who is organizing the first-ever Filmstack east coast meetup in NYC next month!All these connections wouldn't have been possible without this platform. We're all reading each other's works and subscribing, but we're also regularly engaging with each other on various Notes and getting to know each other informally that way. I think this aspect of community building within the Substack network is one of its stronger value propositions, which is why I'm always a bit taken aback by the recurring sentiment from folks in other parts of the app who really dislike the Notes feature and see it as negative social media encroachment on a platform that was formerly much more dedicated to individual writers.
For those of you who only read my newsletter via your inbox and don't actively use the Substack app, the Notes section is basically like Old Twitter. The Notes section is where you build your followers, these are people who use the app or desktop version of Substack, whereas your Subscribers might only ever see your posts in their email inboxes. I was an early adopter of Twitter back in the 2000s. Back then Twitter was much more localized, and it's how I ended up meeting and becoming IRL friends with a bunch of Philly locals!
Back in the day, social networks were actually SOCIAL. You built communities and met people. It wasn't about daily content creation or chasing the algorithm. I can imagine people who came to social media much later, once these platforms were monetized and more established, have a totally different perception of how anything deemed a social network functions. The all consuming and dominating algorithm doesn’t help much either, but this is why taking things offline and off-platform is key to authentic community building.
Notes vs. Posts: Understanding the Marketing Framework
Earlier this week I wrote a quick Note about how I think about the functionality of Substack Notes within the marketing and audience building framework:
I'd say Notes is where you build an audience by gaining new followers and subscribers in order to grow your open rate and newsletter readership.
Posts are where you speak to your owned newsletter audience.
In marketing terms, Notes is the lead generator!
The metrics differ because the use cases for each are different. If not for Notes, how are people building their newsletter audiences?
Are you doing this off-platform on other apps that now downrank external links?
Jon brought up something key in our conversation: some people on Substack probably don't have any goals yet for their publications here. They came here to write first and foremost, and all this other stuff seems like noise. Even when I first joined in December, my only goal was to establish a consistent writing practice. I wanted something to keep me accountable and to have an outlet while I job searched so that I didn't lose my mind. The regular writing practice helped me regain my confidence. I wrote a bit about that in my post about being laid off.
I'll say I saw meaningful growth in my followers and subscribers once I started to use Notes more. My first 12 subscribers were folks that I know IRL and folks who follow me on Instagram. I'm currently close to 300 subscribers and I've been posting pretty much 3-4 times a month regularly since last December. There's been a marked difference in engagement on my posts (likes, comments) in the past few months as well.
The Substack app's Notes section is very active on Mondays, specifically in the morning itself, so if you want to promote an older post, that would be a good day to do it. Fridays seem to be very slow on Notes, but whatever I've posted on Fridays gains traction throughout the weekend and into the next week. Engagement is pretty steady mid-week.
As I mentioned in that Note, a lot of other social platforms have downranked external linking. X specifically seems to hate Substack for some reason. It's difficult to get people to click out of Instagram. From what I’ve heard people have found some traction on BlueSky. LinkedIn is one of the few external platforms that does a good job of driving traffic here—this post is one of my most-read due to inbound traffic from LinkedIn.
Most of my views come from my newsletter subscribers, but occasionally if a post like this one is restacked or linked to often within the Substack network, the numbers will flip and the email audience will be smaller in terms of who is reading the post.
Why Notes Are Worth It: The Filmstack Case Study
Some people are put off by Notes but also sad that their posts don't get enough visibility, and feel like the app is failing at elevating long-form writing and falling into the trap of short-form content via Notes. I'll say Substack is a bit at fault because I don't think they make it clear what subscribing versus following means on the app—you kind of have to figure that out yourself. The reason Substack doesn't clarify this distinction likely comes down to their business model. Of course, Substack would rather everyone onboard paid subscribers because that's how they make money outside of receiving investments via fundraising rounds. But even that model is at the mercy of external economic forces and the strength of the labor market, a gainfully employed population can throw an extra $50+ a year to multiple publications. Someone wrote about spending over $1,000 on Substack subscriptions a year!
I don't know about you, but I think it is impossible to subscribe to and meaningfully engage with hundreds of Substack newsletters, although I do love those people who post about printing out every Substack newsletter they receive and reading it like one big zine.
I encourage folks to be open to rethinking or reframing Notes—think of it as a community building mechanism instead of an obligation. Of course, you can always opt out of using it, but Filmstack is a case study in what happens when you embrace community and collaboration as fostered by digital channels. We're all writing the story of Filmstack in real time and building a network that’s aided by our engagement on the platform.
Within Filmstack the momentum keeps building and as
said in our call, Filmstack itself needs its own Substack newsletter to track and document what everyone is doing! Taylor and I are working on a website idea and will share updates soon. Taylor is also creating a PDF explainer on all things Filmstack so people can share these digitally and IRL.Notes are dynamic, they can function as a promotional mechanism, great way to help uplift each other’s works and add to or start a conversation or take a temperature read on an idea.
For me, community and audience building is what I've been doing on digital platforms for over a decade in my career, and I see the value of it once those folks make their way into real life spaces and commingle and collaborate.
Key Marketing Takeaways
Here are the actionable insights from my experience building community and growing my newsletter on Substack:
Strategic Framework:
Use Notes as your lead generator to attract new followers and subscribers
Treat Posts as content for your owned audience (existing subscribers)
Focus on LinkedIn for external traffic—other platforms downrank Substack links
Growth Metrics to Track:
Aim for newsletter open rates above 45% (exceptional newsletters hit 55%+), this rate will vary as your subscriber number grows
Expect slow initial growth—my first 12 subscribers were people I knew IRL
Consistent posting (3-4 times monthly) plus Notes engagement drove growth from 12 to 300 subscribers
Timing Strategy:
Monday mornings are peak activity time on Notes—great for promoting older content
Consider Saturday morning or mid-week newsletters to avoid Monday competition since most newsletters are sent Monday mornings
Friday Notes posts gain slower traction but build momentum through the weekend
Community Building:
Engage authentically in other people's Notes—don't just broadcast
Be courteous about self promotion in the comments of people’s notes unless it relates to the topic at hand
Don’t be shy about restacking and broadening the conversation
Schedule regular one-on-one conversations with other creators in your niche
Think long-term: digital connections often lead to real-world collaborations
Platform Understanding:
Distinguish between "following" (Notes feed) and "subscribing" (email newsletter)
Remember that most other social platforms now suppress external links
Use Substack's internal sharing and cross-promotion features
The key is approaching Notes not as another social media obligation, but as a genuine community-building tool that can drive meaningful business results.
I hope this was helpful. If you want to talk Marketing send me a DM, let’s chat. I’d love to know what you’re working on.
For the record, I do think it’s totally fine and amazing not to have a SPECIFIC goal in mind when getting started.
For me, I just had a general sense that writing would open doors for me, and boy was I right… now I have a relatively consistent practice, I’m eyeing new, more focused goals on the horizon (many to do with lead gen / top of funnel thinking, so this is magically helpful, Swabreen 🪄🔮🦄).
Nyc filmstack meetup details please!