I appreciated your comparison between "liking" the content vs. "liking" the person. I do think the line between the two is often thinner than we realize. I'll admit to "liking" a post that I haven't read or finished just to show support to a writer I LIKE. :-) And I expect some people do that with my pieces, too. But for the most part, whether it's wise to do this or not, I equate likes with engagement. If someone likes a post, that says to me they read it and didn't hate it. And those are both good things for me to know. Likes becomes problematic when they're the sole force driving a writer's visibility. This is where it gets yucky, IMO. When writers need to court "likes" just to have their work show up in front of new eyeballs, that's a sign of a broken system based on the popularity of individuals and not necessarily the quality of the work. It's the same on Amazon, where you have to attain an absurd number of reviews just to appear in search results. It doesn't actually matter what those reviews are. People could be writing stuff like "good corndog" or "I love my new washer/dryer" and it would still give that writer a boost. That just makes no damn sense.
I did read this whole post, btw. And I also liked it. 🙂
Yes! Human curation and recommendation works much better in my experience. When likes are incorporated into algorithmic suggestions it all becomes a race to the bottom. Algorithms are always susceptible to manipulation: a human recommendation is much harder to game.
If a like means you like something, what does no like mean?
My readership remains more or less constant. Not the number of subscribers, but the number of people who read what I write. I get a like "every now and then". Some, I know, are given out of politeness. But what about the non-likes?
I believe that if you challenge the reader in a certain manner, by tapping them on the shoulder yourself, rather than blaring in their face, it is possible to touch a nerve that keeps them coming back but stops them liking what you write. Like a good Sunday-morning preacher.
In a discussion on Notes recently, someone asked whether they can check whether their welcome e-mail gets read. Clearly, no one can check whether any e-mail gets read, and this seems to have escaped them (I advised them to let me know if they find out differently, and I would advise the FBI). In the past, you inserted an ad in a newspaper or put up a hoarding and waited to see whether your sales increased. If they did, you attributed it to the hoarding or the ad, because you had nothing else to attribute it to.
But, in my own case, I get a feeling that it's the lack of likes that is the mark of success. I preach a lot. But to no one in particular.
Actually, businesses do track whether you have opened an email. You can tick to get an emai open receipt when sending your own personal or business emails. This functionality has been available for a couple of decades.
Substack statistics do tell the writer how many of their readers opened the email vs how many read the newsletter in the app.
The only caveat being that 'email open' tracking has always been quite wobbly, and has become VERY wobbly in the last few years since Apple started restricting it on their devices.
Very true, though whether that matters will depend on what someone writes and their specific type of audience. Some (lucrative) audiences will be heavily iPhone/Apple-skewed.
Apple has always been a walled garden. There's nothing wobbly about email tracking initiated by a user or business on any other platform, and the user is unaware, unless they're on Lotus Notes, or until they realize they keep getting emails from a particular source because they've consistently opened emails from that source. Anyone touting a business tracks, it's how they know how to pitch their follow up. This is anyone from tier one multi nationals to little YouTube producers selling courses.
More than 20 years of simple and pretty robust tracking. It works.
It's only in the last couple of years that Apple have changed how privacy works on their devices. Open rates have always been quite a soft metric, though. It's more useful for businesses to look at things like click-through-rate or actual sales/action impact after a newsletter is sent.
In the context of Substack, I suppose that means subscribes, paid subscribes, shares and so on: actions that are directly measurable and less prone to inflation or under-reporting.
For Substack, I'd always assumed that the data is a blunt instrument, but useful way for writers to know if their subscribers are still engaged, and whether they are predominantly reading on email or in the app.
Open rates are a legitimate measure, which is why Substack writers often cite their results or seek comparison with other writers. It's passive reader feedback, in that regard.
I've read down what looks like a fairly fast and furious rally (style McEnroe-Nastase) and will now wade in with "new balls please".
I'll confess I later spotted the "track" option, and it's not unusual for me to either miss something in the set-up of something or for changes to be made to a section that is really there to "do this before you start". If that's so, the changes in there should really be made a bit more obvious. Like "We changed it."
There is a lot in Substack that is - pardon the expression if you're Chinese - Chinese. What is "Top"? Is that the most read (no, it's not), the most opened (no it's not), the most commented (could be, but does that make it top?) or what? How does a delivery rate interact with an open rate? What does a discrepancy tell me? And what can I do about it anyway?
I was only commenting on the statement that it's impossible to track emails, when it's been possible to track email open, or email delete without opening, for more than two decades. (These days it's s even possible to add tracking to know if someone has opened an SMS. Obviously for people who want to torture themselves.)
Whether people have read, absorbed, or given any thought to the thing they opened is, of course, a whole other thing.
It is such an interesting question (I 'like' that you posed it! See what I did there). Likes seem to have picked up a bad press on Notes - to the extent that I second-guess myself now and I have been occasionally been nudged out of my inclination to appreciate something in that way (I'm a little annoyed with myself for being influenced this way). The wider point about how folk connect with your output is where 'likes' play such an important part in the hierarchy of 'connection'. Funnily enough, I have a non-Substack newsletter where 'likes' aren't possible so you are reliant on folk pressing {reply} on the email and saying something specific. Thank goodness they do!
Excellent writing.
PS, your sketches are amazing. Lucky you, good at words and drawing!
Thanks! I'm confident in my writing, but still feel very nooby with the drawing. Getting there, though!
It's fascinating how something such as a 'like' can become a cultural hot topic. I doubt anyone expected it to have some a complex impact on society when it was first introduced . There's also the unpredictability: as Erica mentions above, if people 'like' something only a few seconds after you send it out, you can assume that they haven't actually read it yet: so what does that like mean in that context?
Usually when I send something out (and to be fair, my stuff is short form) I run for the hills and take a stroll away so any immediate likes pass me by. But I totally get the point. That sort of reaction trivialises things and means nothing. Actively seeking to offer and receive comments ... and, heaven forfend, have conversations like the one you sparked. Humans chatting - putting the ‘social’ into social media!
A Like may just mean, "I saw that." A comment is true engagement. Let's take this newsletter as an example. I don't always remember/bother to click that little heart. My feedback means more. Positive or negative, a comment takes more than half a second to compose.
This is my first day (first hour) on Substack. I enjoyed your first two videos that introduce Substack and thought I’d look further. That’s when I read this bit on the “like” button -- well-written, informative and thought-provoking. Thank you.
I think the closest that the more “traditional” market has gotten to the like feature is Kindle Unlimited (and I’m guessing Nook’s equivalent). This is where authors can see the pages readers are flipping, and know where they stop in their books, or whether they finish it.
I have mixed feelings about the like button. I've tried to encourage people to hit "like" as they read my serial chapters, but haven't seen a consistent stream of that. I've focused more of my efforts on getting people to comment on my non-fiction posts.
Also, It is a travesty that I haven't motivated myself to set time to play Return to Monkey Island (I played the prologue last year when I bought it).
I am quite free with liking SubStack posts if I enjoy it and don't find anything that I overly disagree with. I hit that heart icon as a notification to the writer that 'I read it.' Straight-forward and good because I don't always have something to put into a comment.
On the otherhand I am sparing with my likes, or I think I am, on Notes. While it could mean the same as the long form like, 'Hey, I read it', I think it is more meaningful to read someone's long form work and restacking and commenting is a better metric to engagement on short form posts. (Someone subscribing from Notes is even better regardless of if they liked or commented on a Note.)
Simon. Each day, when I check Notes, I have an overwhelming sense of entering a safe place filled with friends - whether knowing everyone or not. Those little red hearts are fun and all but seeing writers post their work - well, that’s the best. It is better than the morning paper.
For me, it's all about recognizing that there are parallel tracks.
On track one is my writing, which is pure and personal. It's art, and it's not something I'm willing to bend to become more popular; these are the things I want to say each day.
On track two is my growing audience. If I'm interested in having a conversation with more people, i will need to "play the game" and interact with them.
The like button is, IMO, the "gateway drug" for folks to interact more deeply. I do appreciate the feedback, and I tend to get more likes when a piece seems particularly good to me, but engagement at a more meaningful level is the ultimate goal.
Finding that balance between making the art that interests you and the pull to 'build your audience' is a hard one, I'm finding. It didn't used to be, because I mostly assumed that 'building an audience' wasn't really possible in any kind of useful way. But going the newsletter route has indicated that I was perhaps wrong about that: I've had just enough success for it to not be financially useful, while also requiring that I take that side of things more seriously.
Sometimes, we should take a step back from the complexities and appreciate the simplicity of the 'like' button when used as a genuine response to someone's written work. It's a way of acknowledging and appreciating the effort and creativity that goes into sharing ideas and stories.
Sep 11, 2023·edited Sep 11, 2023Liked by Simon K Jones
When used in the context of chapters, the "like" button is my savior. I can use the easy example of my Beyond the Wizard Substack where we are slowly working out way through every PD (Public Domain) Wizard of Oz Book. Right now we are nearing the end of Book 3 and will start book 4 immediately after.
As a way to "track" our progress and let each other know what we aren't reading the chapters alone, when we are finished reading a chapter we click the LIKE button. If there is something we actually liked or didn't like, then we drop it in the comments section. Every 1st of the month I send out the Oz Gazette that includes a snapshot of the chapter count from the first chapter. If you look at Book One you can see each chapter receiving upwards of 50+!
In truth, I started out using this "tactic" as a means to game the system and show a bunch of Likes. But when getting to book 2 I found myself falling behind dramatically. The reason is I wasn't giving myself incentive like everyone else had. Also, I created an "L. Frank Baum" account in order to associate each chapter to him instead of myself. Now that we are reading book 2 I am using my own personal account to Like each chapter because I quickly realized how using this Like system is actually helpful for me as I catch up and keep pace with everyone else. Turns out my two chapter per week idea isn't as easy to keep up with as I thought!
To make my long comment short, I am a proponent of using the Like button when it comes to chapters and for tracking. My only real issue with it is if I send out a chapter that is 3k words and I receive Likes within seconds/minutes of it hitting subscriber inboxes. I know that it's impossible for it to have been read and a conclusion met that they "Liked" it in that amount of time. Otherwise, by all means I think there is a time and a place for the Like button.
I also agree that we as writers should not give any weight to the Likes we receive and don't receive and instead put that amount of caring towards the comments instead. But as with all things, even comments should be read and listened to with a very small grain of salt. I see now why more popular writers will spend less and less time looking at review/comments when they reach that level. It can be exhausting and soul crushing after a time. So, enjoy whatever comments and Likes you get now as there may come a time in your writing career when you will have less and less time to do so. I'm trying to live my writing life like that now.
I've already hit a point this year where keeping up with comments (especially on posted Threads) is a real challenge, in terms of time. A nice problem to have, but it's very clear how engaging with readers doesn't really scale very easily. At least, not if you still want to have some time leftover for writing. :D
Likes are an important part of social signalling, something we do all the time in the real world without thinking about it. I agree with your distinction between liking a person and liking a thing that person's done – the former can become toxic, the second is a useful heuristic not just for the creator but for their audience too. Social proof – that is, seeing that other people are doing the thing we're thinking of doing – is massively important. I know some people say they aren't persuaded by large numbers of likes, but subconsciously your brain has registered them and will consider that information in future. So I'm largely in favour of likes, used well.
That awareness (or lack thereof) of what influences us I've always found fascinating.
I've worked in and around marketing most of my professional career, and I have a sense that I'm not influenced by advertising often because I'm too conscious of it. I have no idea if that's actually true, though. I suspect it influences me far more than I realise.
Things that impact on us are too many and too chaotic for us to properly assess what's going on, I suspect.
Complex topic. We'll see if I remember to come back to it later.
Short form - I try to mostly ignore the "Likes." I fell into the trap of letting them determine my own feelings towards my work, which is, ultimately, for me.
I appreciated your comparison between "liking" the content vs. "liking" the person. I do think the line between the two is often thinner than we realize. I'll admit to "liking" a post that I haven't read or finished just to show support to a writer I LIKE. :-) And I expect some people do that with my pieces, too. But for the most part, whether it's wise to do this or not, I equate likes with engagement. If someone likes a post, that says to me they read it and didn't hate it. And those are both good things for me to know. Likes becomes problematic when they're the sole force driving a writer's visibility. This is where it gets yucky, IMO. When writers need to court "likes" just to have their work show up in front of new eyeballs, that's a sign of a broken system based on the popularity of individuals and not necessarily the quality of the work. It's the same on Amazon, where you have to attain an absurd number of reviews just to appear in search results. It doesn't actually matter what those reviews are. People could be writing stuff like "good corndog" or "I love my new washer/dryer" and it would still give that writer a boost. That just makes no damn sense.
I did read this whole post, btw. And I also liked it. 🙂
Yes! Human curation and recommendation works much better in my experience. When likes are incorporated into algorithmic suggestions it all becomes a race to the bottom. Algorithms are always susceptible to manipulation: a human recommendation is much harder to game.
If a like means you like something, what does no like mean?
My readership remains more or less constant. Not the number of subscribers, but the number of people who read what I write. I get a like "every now and then". Some, I know, are given out of politeness. But what about the non-likes?
I believe that if you challenge the reader in a certain manner, by tapping them on the shoulder yourself, rather than blaring in their face, it is possible to touch a nerve that keeps them coming back but stops them liking what you write. Like a good Sunday-morning preacher.
In a discussion on Notes recently, someone asked whether they can check whether their welcome e-mail gets read. Clearly, no one can check whether any e-mail gets read, and this seems to have escaped them (I advised them to let me know if they find out differently, and I would advise the FBI). In the past, you inserted an ad in a newspaper or put up a hoarding and waited to see whether your sales increased. If they did, you attributed it to the hoarding or the ad, because you had nothing else to attribute it to.
But, in my own case, I get a feeling that it's the lack of likes that is the mark of success. I preach a lot. But to no one in particular.
Actually, businesses do track whether you have opened an email. You can tick to get an emai open receipt when sending your own personal or business emails. This functionality has been available for a couple of decades.
Substack statistics do tell the writer how many of their readers opened the email vs how many read the newsletter in the app.
The only caveat being that 'email open' tracking has always been quite wobbly, and has become VERY wobbly in the last few years since Apple started restricting it on their devices.
Most people with a mobile phone don't have Apple. Nearly 22 percent in the world have an iPhone. So, nearly 80 percent don't.
Very true, though whether that matters will depend on what someone writes and their specific type of audience. Some (lucrative) audiences will be heavily iPhone/Apple-skewed.
I wouldn't ever trade my four figure sum Android for a four figure sum Apple. 😁
Apple has always been a walled garden. There's nothing wobbly about email tracking initiated by a user or business on any other platform, and the user is unaware, unless they're on Lotus Notes, or until they realize they keep getting emails from a particular source because they've consistently opened emails from that source. Anyone touting a business tracks, it's how they know how to pitch their follow up. This is anyone from tier one multi nationals to little YouTube producers selling courses.
More than 20 years of simple and pretty robust tracking. It works.
It's only in the last couple of years that Apple have changed how privacy works on their devices. Open rates have always been quite a soft metric, though. It's more useful for businesses to look at things like click-through-rate or actual sales/action impact after a newsletter is sent.
In the context of Substack, I suppose that means subscribes, paid subscribes, shares and so on: actions that are directly measurable and less prone to inflation or under-reporting.
For Substack, I'd always assumed that the data is a blunt instrument, but useful way for writers to know if their subscribers are still engaged, and whether they are predominantly reading on email or in the app.
Open rates are a legitimate measure, which is why Substack writers often cite their results or seek comparison with other writers. It's passive reader feedback, in that regard.
I've read down what looks like a fairly fast and furious rally (style McEnroe-Nastase) and will now wade in with "new balls please".
I'll confess I later spotted the "track" option, and it's not unusual for me to either miss something in the set-up of something or for changes to be made to a section that is really there to "do this before you start". If that's so, the changes in there should really be made a bit more obvious. Like "We changed it."
There is a lot in Substack that is - pardon the expression if you're Chinese - Chinese. What is "Top"? Is that the most read (no, it's not), the most opened (no it's not), the most commented (could be, but does that make it top?) or what? How does a delivery rate interact with an open rate? What does a discrepancy tell me? And what can I do about it anyway?
No idea.
I was only commenting on the statement that it's impossible to track emails, when it's been possible to track email open, or email delete without opening, for more than two decades. (These days it's s even possible to add tracking to know if someone has opened an SMS. Obviously for people who want to torture themselves.)
Whether people have read, absorbed, or given any thought to the thing they opened is, of course, a whole other thing.
It is such an interesting question (I 'like' that you posed it! See what I did there). Likes seem to have picked up a bad press on Notes - to the extent that I second-guess myself now and I have been occasionally been nudged out of my inclination to appreciate something in that way (I'm a little annoyed with myself for being influenced this way). The wider point about how folk connect with your output is where 'likes' play such an important part in the hierarchy of 'connection'. Funnily enough, I have a non-Substack newsletter where 'likes' aren't possible so you are reliant on folk pressing {reply} on the email and saying something specific. Thank goodness they do!
Excellent writing.
PS, your sketches are amazing. Lucky you, good at words and drawing!
Thanks! I'm confident in my writing, but still feel very nooby with the drawing. Getting there, though!
It's fascinating how something such as a 'like' can become a cultural hot topic. I doubt anyone expected it to have some a complex impact on society when it was first introduced . There's also the unpredictability: as Erica mentions above, if people 'like' something only a few seconds after you send it out, you can assume that they haven't actually read it yet: so what does that like mean in that context?
Usually when I send something out (and to be fair, my stuff is short form) I run for the hills and take a stroll away so any immediate likes pass me by. But I totally get the point. That sort of reaction trivialises things and means nothing. Actively seeking to offer and receive comments ... and, heaven forfend, have conversations like the one you sparked. Humans chatting - putting the ‘social’ into social media!
Secondary thought. Comments>Likes.
A Like may just mean, "I saw that." A comment is true engagement. Let's take this newsletter as an example. I don't always remember/bother to click that little heart. My feedback means more. Positive or negative, a comment takes more than half a second to compose.
Absolutely..
I reckon Like > nothing, and Comment > Like.
And obviously Negative Comment > All Other Positive Things, Which Are Now Irrelevant Because Of That One Guy.
Depends. If the Negative Comment is valid, constructive, and something which can help moving forward, than, yeah, Negative Comment>Positive Comment.
If some twat is being a twat, move on and ignore. Admittedly, it took me decades to learn to not be bothered by a twatting twat, but...
This is my first day (first hour) on Substack. I enjoyed your first two videos that introduce Substack and thought I’d look further. That’s when I read this bit on the “like” button -- well-written, informative and thought-provoking. Thank you.
Thanks for reading, David! And welcome to Substack.
I think the closest that the more “traditional” market has gotten to the like feature is Kindle Unlimited (and I’m guessing Nook’s equivalent). This is where authors can see the pages readers are flipping, and know where they stop in their books, or whether they finish it.
Ah, interesting. I've shifted so few books on Amazon that I perhaps haven't looked into those features as closely as I could have.
I have mixed feelings about the like button. I've tried to encourage people to hit "like" as they read my serial chapters, but haven't seen a consistent stream of that. I've focused more of my efforts on getting people to comment on my non-fiction posts.
Also, It is a travesty that I haven't motivated myself to set time to play Return to Monkey Island (I played the prologue last year when I bought it).
It's not hugely long, so won't eat up your time. I decided to properly commit to it and thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.
I am quite free with liking SubStack posts if I enjoy it and don't find anything that I overly disagree with. I hit that heart icon as a notification to the writer that 'I read it.' Straight-forward and good because I don't always have something to put into a comment.
On the otherhand I am sparing with my likes, or I think I am, on Notes. While it could mean the same as the long form like, 'Hey, I read it', I think it is more meaningful to read someone's long form work and restacking and commenting is a better metric to engagement on short form posts. (Someone subscribing from Notes is even better regardless of if they liked or commented on a Note.)
Simon. Each day, when I check Notes, I have an overwhelming sense of entering a safe place filled with friends - whether knowing everyone or not. Those little red hearts are fun and all but seeing writers post their work - well, that’s the best. It is better than the morning paper.
At its best, Notes feels like a cosy writing group - but international and much bigger. I hope it can retain that feeling!
Me too. So many platforms start out healthy, but the depravities of humanity tend to tip the scales toward 'shout out' misnomers.
For me, it's all about recognizing that there are parallel tracks.
On track one is my writing, which is pure and personal. It's art, and it's not something I'm willing to bend to become more popular; these are the things I want to say each day.
On track two is my growing audience. If I'm interested in having a conversation with more people, i will need to "play the game" and interact with them.
The like button is, IMO, the "gateway drug" for folks to interact more deeply. I do appreciate the feedback, and I tend to get more likes when a piece seems particularly good to me, but engagement at a more meaningful level is the ultimate goal.
Gateways are useful.
Finding that balance between making the art that interests you and the pull to 'build your audience' is a hard one, I'm finding. It didn't used to be, because I mostly assumed that 'building an audience' wasn't really possible in any kind of useful way. But going the newsletter route has indicated that I was perhaps wrong about that: I've had just enough success for it to not be financially useful, while also requiring that I take that side of things more seriously.
It's awkward.
It's like having your cake, but finding out one of the ingredients was subbed out for urine.
That's kind of the business owner's dilemma to, if I'm honest.
Sometimes, we should take a step back from the complexities and appreciate the simplicity of the 'like' button when used as a genuine response to someone's written work. It's a way of acknowledging and appreciating the effort and creativity that goes into sharing ideas and stories.
your words and sketches are equally received with an out loud wow of gratitude. thank you for sharing your gifted works
Thank you!
When used in the context of chapters, the "like" button is my savior. I can use the easy example of my Beyond the Wizard Substack where we are slowly working out way through every PD (Public Domain) Wizard of Oz Book. Right now we are nearing the end of Book 3 and will start book 4 immediately after.
As a way to "track" our progress and let each other know what we aren't reading the chapters alone, when we are finished reading a chapter we click the LIKE button. If there is something we actually liked or didn't like, then we drop it in the comments section. Every 1st of the month I send out the Oz Gazette that includes a snapshot of the chapter count from the first chapter. If you look at Book One you can see each chapter receiving upwards of 50+!
In truth, I started out using this "tactic" as a means to game the system and show a bunch of Likes. But when getting to book 2 I found myself falling behind dramatically. The reason is I wasn't giving myself incentive like everyone else had. Also, I created an "L. Frank Baum" account in order to associate each chapter to him instead of myself. Now that we are reading book 2 I am using my own personal account to Like each chapter because I quickly realized how using this Like system is actually helpful for me as I catch up and keep pace with everyone else. Turns out my two chapter per week idea isn't as easy to keep up with as I thought!
To make my long comment short, I am a proponent of using the Like button when it comes to chapters and for tracking. My only real issue with it is if I send out a chapter that is 3k words and I receive Likes within seconds/minutes of it hitting subscriber inboxes. I know that it's impossible for it to have been read and a conclusion met that they "Liked" it in that amount of time. Otherwise, by all means I think there is a time and a place for the Like button.
I also agree that we as writers should not give any weight to the Likes we receive and don't receive and instead put that amount of caring towards the comments instead. But as with all things, even comments should be read and listened to with a very small grain of salt. I see now why more popular writers will spend less and less time looking at review/comments when they reach that level. It can be exhausting and soul crushing after a time. So, enjoy whatever comments and Likes you get now as there may come a time in your writing career when you will have less and less time to do so. I'm trying to live my writing life like that now.
I've already hit a point this year where keeping up with comments (especially on posted Threads) is a real challenge, in terms of time. A nice problem to have, but it's very clear how engaging with readers doesn't really scale very easily. At least, not if you still want to have some time leftover for writing. :D
Likes are an important part of social signalling, something we do all the time in the real world without thinking about it. I agree with your distinction between liking a person and liking a thing that person's done – the former can become toxic, the second is a useful heuristic not just for the creator but for their audience too. Social proof – that is, seeing that other people are doing the thing we're thinking of doing – is massively important. I know some people say they aren't persuaded by large numbers of likes, but subconsciously your brain has registered them and will consider that information in future. So I'm largely in favour of likes, used well.
That awareness (or lack thereof) of what influences us I've always found fascinating.
I've worked in and around marketing most of my professional career, and I have a sense that I'm not influenced by advertising often because I'm too conscious of it. I have no idea if that's actually true, though. I suspect it influences me far more than I realise.
Things that impact on us are too many and too chaotic for us to properly assess what's going on, I suspect.
We all like to think we're not influenced by marketing, but if that were true, companies wouldn't spend any money on it.
Complex topic. We'll see if I remember to come back to it later.
Short form - I try to mostly ignore the "Likes." I fell into the trap of letting them determine my own feelings towards my work, which is, ultimately, for me.