I was asked “What does online presence look like for a producer who has a busy schedule?” on Substack Notes, and I figured I’d share the answer with the world wide web, in hopes it may be helpful to someone.

I think the online presence for any creative professional is trust building. Day in, day out, how do you put on display the things you know, the ideas you connect, the people you work with? And do that in a sustainable way?

Because if you start making 30 second polished vertical clips to get shared on platforms for people that just love scrolling 30 second clips, that might get eyeballs, but does it earn trust?

Or does having an archive of work, a body of things you produced, arranged in a refined manner in your corner of the internet, work better? Something that maybe doesn’t “get eyeballs,” but is hand delivered as a link to people who matter. Something passed around from people who know, with a “you gotta check out the work this person is doing” nod.

So I’m hinting hard at the “have a good website” angle, of course, but I think that more aligns with where artists can land, and soak in what you’re doing, and how you operate. Fill it with the occasional nice video talking about your work, a collection of albums you worked on, ideas you’ve discussed with people in and around your creative orbit… make it as cozy as the studio space you’d like to share with an artist, rather than frantically handing out flyers on a busy intersection.

The strategy of “post often, in many different places” just creates new work for you to keep up with.

Think of the four comments on the IG reels that you need to acknowledge.

Three on Shorts, maybe 12 folks on YouTube. Hurry, heart those comments!

Five people left comments on your blog post, there’s two email replies from the newsletter that are 4+ hours old, six comments on the Substack, 12 comments on the Substack Note, four more on the second Reel you posted at 12pm, then four more comments on the YouTube shorts after dinner.

And I didn’t even mention DMs.

This isn’t “engaging your audience,” this is a part time job pulling levers and pressing buttons in the casino machinery of social media.

Had a great conversation with photographer Noah Kalina today, about a variety of creative subjects.

We talked about his recent love for building websites to host his creative work.

“I use Claude code, but it has just been like this giant unlock for my creativity — and mostly in service of it. It’s like all of these pictures that just do not feel like they have a home anymore on the internet.

Of all of the sites we’ve been through — for me, it’s 25 years on the internet — I’m no stranger to seeing sites come and go and moving on or whatever. But now it really just feels like it’s all scattered and blown up.

There is no real one place anymore. But what does feel good is your place, your website. For me, it’s noahkalina.com, and then I’m making subdomains off of that.”

On the withering away of social media, and the return to personal sites:

“With the destruction of like social media as we know it, or at least the change in it, I think there’s nothing better now than feeling like, oh, let’s full circle back to our personal websites and like make them interesting

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I just make these up as I go along, flowing from one idea to the next (need to do another “get our photos off the cloud” meet up again).

I’ve definitely been influenced by reading Cory Doctorow’s book ‘Enshittification,’ about getting away from the megacorp tech companies, and this Focus Escape Pod is a proper step in that direction.

On Wednesday, March 25 I’ll be hosting a 90 minute Zoom call, and there will be a “cohort” on the Discourse platform (not Discord), too.

It’s not like I’m the super best instructor guy for this. Sure, I’ve been noodling around on the web since the mid 90s, but there’s people who know more than I do about all this, which is why I’m asking them join us and help folks understand a little bit more about HTML, uploading files, DNS, and all that fun stuff. We’re gonna make the “scary stuff” a lot less scary.

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“We have a problem,” I was told by the manager of the Platinum selling band we had in our studio.

The artist wasn’t comfortable with the writer I assigned for this interview.

This drops in my lap after a morning of pre-production by the studio team.

I didn’t know the back story, but something was stewing over an article from years before. In that moment, I laid it out; my writer is a professional, we’re all here to do a job, and we can either proceed as planned or cancel the whole thing.

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On Tuesday, March 3rd at 10am EST I’ll be talking with artist, photographer, website builder, fog enjoyer, Noah Kalina on Substack Live.

I believe you can get a reminder if you sign up here, but I still don’t know how anything works on Substack.

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Starting an email list is so hard, even Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway can’t figure it out. In 2026!

These two have started Resist and Unsubscribe, and they’re no luddites. And you know they’re surrounded by smart people!

That’s why it’s weird to me (in 2026) to share a very important message on a platform where probably 95% of their audience won’t see their next post.

“Hey, we’d boycott Instagram too if we could, but we need it to get this message to you. Share this message widely on Instagram, encourage your friends to repost, get everyone on board.”

Every smart phone ships with an email app, but not everyone is on Instagram. I can’t watch a single video on Scott’s profile because I don’t have an account.

In Scott’s post “The Algebra of Resistance,” the Resist and Unsubscribe has gotten a lot of traffic, but without an email sign up form no one subscribed for future updates.

Building a base of supporters is one thing. Reaching them with your next message is another.

On Wednesday I hosted a talk about Breaking Up With Gmail. During the call we agreed that it’s not “all or nothing,” just a little less of the dumb shit. I’ve still got my Gmail account (from 2005), but it’s a place-holder account for occasional client work and such, and I’ve been paying for Fastmail (referral link) since 2014. Progress, not perfection!

On Thursday morning I did a Substack Live with artist Mel Mitchell-Jackson and we talked about internet platform burnout, leaving stable jobs to pursue creative work, big social media numbers that don’t convert to actual sales (500,000!?!?), the importance of building trust, and why it’s so hard to make art when also trying to please the algorithms; watch it here.

Then on Thursdays Escape Pod Zoom call we did a “show and tell,” where everyone got to talk about what they do, and what they’re up to!

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