Our discussion today focused in two key areas: 1) How a publication is different from a publisher (it's not as obvious as it would seem) and 2) How a Tags and Sections are different.
After yesterday's session, I had the pleasure of a 1:1 meeting with @Celia Lewis who wasn't able to attend the session. Working with her helped me better understand this change Substack has made in how publications work. As I shared in the video, it's clear that Substack's onboarding workflow now allows new accounts to publish even without a publication.
After my conversation today with Celia, I explored the Substack support system and discovered the most succinct summary of the changes.
Essentially, this means they've created a "lite" way to publish. "With a Substack profile, we offer a simple publishing experience. If you prefer to publish to a separate website with advanced features such as a welcome page, customizable branding and emails, or sections and tags, you can create a publication instead."
From my perspective, this is a good thing. It was much too hard to get from adding comments to writing articles. I think it's much easier now and am delighted to welcome new subscribers.
It's always a good meeting if the attendees come away motivated to act. Immediately after the meeting I created a check list for my posts. 1) Alt text for images 2) tags (always include genealogy) 3) SEO 4)publicize (for me that is Facebook, my blog, and sometimes personal invitations to those researching the same family or area) 5)Download a copy to keep in my personal files. Is there anything else you think I should add the the list?
6) Go to Secret Draft Link, copy the link and open it in a separate browser window, possibly even mobile to see how it looks, make changes if necessary.
7) Go to Social Preview, double-check what will appear when you share the post in Facebook, for example. Note the headline and the description. This will come from the title of your post and subhead. You can have it be different (and more descriptive) this is where you'd make the change.
8) In the preview section, double-check your preview image. Substack will grab the first image in your post. If it's in portrait mode (a 1:3 aspect ratio, for example) it may look awkward when shared... heads cut off and the like. Consider modifying the image in Canva or something so that it's wider than it is tall by adding a blank background. (3:1 for example) You can leave the original image in the post, but upload the variation here.
9) (Particularly if you found it necessary to change the Social Preview, and yes, you mention that...Deborah) Go to SEO, tap the down ⌄ and make any changes to the SEO details — here it most importantly includes changes to the URL. Again, this will create a default based on your title, but often you want to make it shorter or reference part 1, for example. Keep in mind that the URL will also provide search engines guidance on what the post is about.
Gosh... there must be a 10th item 🤔
❦ — ❦ — ❦
Finally, while I don't know if this is true, but as part of our ongoing campaign to get our benevolent overlords at Substack to recognize "Genealogy" as a home-page category, (that row of topics across the top,) I'm encouraging folks to include Genealogy as a tag even if they don't plan to use it in the organization of their website. 🎉
By the way, kudos to those of you who were present for today's meeting. As the meeting concluded I had a “Mrs. Potatohead moment” as one of my spiffy new earbuds went flying across the room... then the other one went in the other direction.
That was funny enough, but what you may not know is that about 10 days ago (during my Projectkin.org/kathys-corner event) I had a catastrophic software problem that sent me to a software update on my iPhone (which is also my webcam) that sent me on a 7-day search for a solution to my lipsync.
Whew... I'm back and my tech is solid (well, it is now). I share all that so you know that I come to my long-winded summaries of how things work honestly... usually because I was there when it went 💥 lol.
Kudos to today's gathering that made it downright fun. Sometimes I'm relieved when it isn't recorded too. 😉
After yesterday's session, I had the pleasure of a 1:1 meeting with @Celia Lewis who wasn't able to attend the session. Working with her helped me better understand this change Substack has made in how publications work. As I shared in the video, it's clear that Substack's onboarding workflow now allows new accounts to publish even without a publication.
After my conversation today with Celia, I explored the Substack support system and discovered the most succinct summary of the changes.
If you find yourself helping someone else with Substack, a quick review of this post might be helpful: support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/29152946791188-How-can-I-publish-on-Substack.
Essentially, this means they've created a "lite" way to publish. "With a Substack profile, we offer a simple publishing experience. If you prefer to publish to a separate website with advanced features such as a welcome page, customizable branding and emails, or sections and tags, you can create a publication instead."
From my perspective, this is a good thing. It was much too hard to get from adding comments to writing articles. I think it's much easier now and am delighted to welcome new subscribers.
It's always a good meeting if the attendees come away motivated to act. Immediately after the meeting I created a check list for my posts. 1) Alt text for images 2) tags (always include genealogy) 3) SEO 4)publicize (for me that is Facebook, my blog, and sometimes personal invitations to those researching the same family or area) 5)Download a copy to keep in my personal files. Is there anything else you think I should add the the list?
Great list, Deborah! I would add to that with:
In the post, under Settings »
6) Go to Secret Draft Link, copy the link and open it in a separate browser window, possibly even mobile to see how it looks, make changes if necessary.
7) Go to Social Preview, double-check what will appear when you share the post in Facebook, for example. Note the headline and the description. This will come from the title of your post and subhead. You can have it be different (and more descriptive) this is where you'd make the change.
8) In the preview section, double-check your preview image. Substack will grab the first image in your post. If it's in portrait mode (a 1:3 aspect ratio, for example) it may look awkward when shared... heads cut off and the like. Consider modifying the image in Canva or something so that it's wider than it is tall by adding a blank background. (3:1 for example) You can leave the original image in the post, but upload the variation here.
9) (Particularly if you found it necessary to change the Social Preview, and yes, you mention that...Deborah) Go to SEO, tap the down ⌄ and make any changes to the SEO details — here it most importantly includes changes to the URL. Again, this will create a default based on your title, but often you want to make it shorter or reference part 1, for example. Keep in mind that the URL will also provide search engines guidance on what the post is about.
Gosh... there must be a 10th item 🤔
❦ — ❦ — ❦
Finally, while I don't know if this is true, but as part of our ongoing campaign to get our benevolent overlords at Substack to recognize "Genealogy" as a home-page category, (that row of topics across the top,) I'm encouraging folks to include Genealogy as a tag even if they don't plan to use it in the organization of their website. 🎉
By the way, kudos to those of you who were present for today's meeting. As the meeting concluded I had a “Mrs. Potatohead moment” as one of my spiffy new earbuds went flying across the room... then the other one went in the other direction.
That was funny enough, but what you may not know is that about 10 days ago (during my Projectkin.org/kathys-corner event) I had a catastrophic software problem that sent me to a software update on my iPhone (which is also my webcam) that sent me on a 7-day search for a solution to my lipsync.
Whew... I'm back and my tech is solid (well, it is now). I share all that so you know that I come to my long-winded summaries of how things work honestly... usually because I was there when it went 💥 lol.
Kudos to today's gathering that made it downright fun. Sometimes I'm relieved when it isn't recorded too. 😉
(Visualize Mrs. Potatohead.)