Substack's New Tags Have A Feature I Wish Medium Had, And Here's Why!

Now tags can let you go deeper, or wider. Your choice!

Linda Caroll

May 26, 2023

Happy Friday,

Have you seen the new tags feature on Substack?

It rolled out in early May and it’s pretty cool.

Now you can add tags to Substack posts, the way we do on Medium.

In the past, tags on Substack were only applied to an entire publication. By adding them to posts as well as the publication/newsletter, we can help readers find the content they want to read.

1. You can choose your tags in advance

If you go to your settings, there’s now a tags section. You can pre-select tags that you want to use on your posts. Wordpress does that, too. You’ll notice that all the tags in the example are sub-topics in a niche? We’re going to talk about that in a minute. :)

2. Then, you add them at the bottom of your Substack posts…

Right before publishing, when you’re choosing post settings, you’ll see tags at the very bottom. You can type in tags manually, but if you’re preselected tags in your settings, you’ll be able to just choose from the tags you already set up. If you use Wordpress, it works pretty much the same!

3. On Substack, you can add tags to your navigation!

That’s a feature Substack offers that Medium doesn’t. Again, it works pretty much like Wordpress. Every tag becomes a “page” filled with posts designated to that tag. So if you’re a food blogger, you can add tags for subtopics, like desserts, or breakfasts. Or keto or whatever. You’ll notice that each tag automatically gets a url.

I wish Medium let us add tags to the nav, probably for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of people are going to use tags the way the example shows. For sub-topics to their primary topic. And that’s probably the smart way to use them.

But then there’s writers like me.

Who can’t seem to stick to a topic.

I do better at that on Substack than I do on Medium. On Substack I write about one topic. Writing online. I do that because when I set up this publication, tags were applied to the publication, not the posts.

But on Medium? I write about several topics. If Medium let me put tags in my nav, it would probably look something like this:

History / Writing / Design / Marketing / Feminism / Photography

I could add more — baking, gardening, plants, social justice, poetry, etc.

The only reason I don’t write about more topics is because there’s just not that many hours in the day, week or month. It’s a factor of time, not interest. lol

How I write?

—It’s not how Medium wants us to write.

—It’s not how Substack wants us to write, either.

—It’s not how the whole world wants us to write, for that matter.

The world wants us to pick a niche.

And I get it. I know why they all want that. It’s not about us. It’s for the benefit of the reader. So the reader can “know” what you’re going to talk about.

To be fair, I experience some of that.

One of my readers on Medium told me she follows me for my history posts and she wishes I’d post them more often. Another reader said the same thing about my posts on the mechanics of writing. Just last week someone told me they followed me because of all the things I’ve taught them about ChatGPT.

Which, ultimately, means that my audience exists in chunks.

There are the people who want to read the feminism posts. And some that want the history posts. Or the writing posts or tech posts, etc.

I’m okay with that.

I just wish Medium let me add them to nav, so people could find the content they want to read a little easier.

I’m probably never going to be the person who only writes on one topic.

It’s not how I write and it’s not how I read, either. When people talk about the same thing all the time, I tend to tune out after a while. I like the people who are like roman candles, and you just never know what they’re going to come up with but you never feel like they are boring or keep saying the same thing. . Maybe that’s just me. But I guess I’ll probably be making some changes here soon.

How about you — do you use tags to go deeper?

Or wider?