I, Gabby, am dialing in on this gorgeous Sunday in NYC while nursing a cold on the couch to educate all of our subscribers on the Substack app world. When I talk to my friends about how I use Substack (the amount at which I use it and how I find new writer to follow and/or subscribe to), many share they don’t even know Substack had an app.
Most of you probably subscribe to us because you are loyal friends and get our emails weekly in your inbox, reading from there. But there is a whole, wide world of amazing writers, storytellers, fashion editors, etc. who live in Substack and the app is truly inspiring.
These days, I rarely have Instagram downloaded on my phone unless I’m re-posting a story (to stay relevant for my followers, which I feel like is slightly important as a single, almost 32-year-old) and spend my social media phone time dedicated to the app.
Read on for an intro on how you can use the app! Download here.
First, the Substack app home page (and desktop home page for that matter) looks a lot like Twitter to me. I haven’t used Twitter probably since I launched my account in 2011, which has a hilarious picture of me dressed up from a dance at Taft. I don’t know my log-in and thus can’t even read the things I use to Tweet. LMK if it’s really bad.
These (bad) screenshots are what your homepage would look like. The banners at the top will be your newest/most popular reads from people you subscribe to. When you scroll down, that, to me, is where it resembles Twitter. Here is where people you follow (which is different from subscribing to) and subscribe to can be highlighted. A followed person could be someone like Mishmosh, where they are active writers, or just half of Mishmosh, aka Gabby Michnoff, who isn’t a writer on her own. My Gabby Michnoff page just likes or shares posts from other writers and if you follow that page, my likes and “restacks” would come up on your home page. Through following me or Mishmosh, you get to see their activity on your home page. I use this to find new writers, quotes or posts I want to read, follow or subscribe to.
If you don’t want to doom scroll (which I will actually say is okay on Substack because you are reading as you’re scrolling!), you can go right to your Inbox in Substack, which can be filtered by “All”, “Paid”, “Save”, or “Media”. I find this breakdown helpful - every week I look at my paid posts to remind myself to get the most out of what I am paying writers for on Substack. If I notice I’m consistently not interested in certain paid content, then I end my paid subscription and allow me to explore someone else’s paid content!
You can also search about anything in the Substack app. I often use this when I am preparing to write a new post and want to make sure I’m referencing posts from my community, or am just looking for something as simple as Halloween inspiration. You can use the search bar and filter by people (Gabby Michnoff), a publication (Mishmosh), or posts.
Article view in the app is also very different from your email! The pictures will show up the best in your app versus email or even desktop as they’ll be the right size and show the full picture (sometimes when we make a gallery, parts of the pictures are cut off unfairly). In the left photo, you see the intro of the article, which highlights the title, subtitle details, article author’s personal page (consider this a “person” from the search directions) and then the publication (“publication”). At the bottom of the screen you have the opportunity to “like” a post (if someone followed you they could see that you liked a post on their home page), “comment”, “restack” (which also would show up on someone’s home feed) or to share it.
At the top of the screen, if you clicked the three little dots to the right, you’d get the picture I shared on the right. I’m not sure what display settings do, but I use the “save” button a lot (which then adds an article to your “saved” folder in your inbox). This is what I turn to when I’m on the subway, waiting for a friend at a restaurant, etc. and want to read an article I was previously interested in but didn’t originally have time for.
The last app feature I’ll highlight is the chat function. This is so great for inspiration or crowd sourcing. Not every publication has a chat and some are fully blocked for paid subscribers, but it’s worth checking out! In the fashion ones, I’ve asked questions about gifts for new moms, look at people selling items, found new fashion Substack blogs to follow, and so much more. You can see the “inside” of
’ chat where people always ask tons of questions and, by the replies, you can see it’s a super engaging community.Feel free to refer back to our intro post here, which highlights a few follow/subscriber favorites of ours! My newest favorites are
, and . My list keeps growing!Anyways, I hope this was helpful! Enjoy your Sunday :).