Category: CommunityCategory: Community

Hardly anyone knows about your latest project, let alone something you did three weeks ago (or three years).

Send a link to three people and let them know about it. Doing this takes minutes and is probably more effective than posting on socials for 95% of your audience to miss. Send via email, text, or DM. Just be cool about it.

I got this question from Leslie recently:

I recently started on Substack after being inspired by Mad Records’ experiment of releasing music outside Spotify. I have a small following and want to build a community I can keep, even if I eventually move platforms. Connection is important to me, but I’m unsure how to offer value or grow my audience. As I explore Substack through tutorials, I’m seeing a lot of concern about the platform shifting towards social media-style features (ads, algorithms, etc.) that may not be ideal for creatives. I’m feeling discouraged. Do you think Substack is still worth the effort for building a community?

First off, as an artist, you are not offering value or growing an audience, you’re making magic and pulling people into your creative orbit.

Second, yes, Substack is veering into social media territory for sure. But right now it’s an effective tool for letting curious visitors sign up for your email list.

So, all that said, time spent on Substack doing anything to attract any amount of readers is time well spent. Finding fans is one thing, but being able to reach those fans is another. If Substack allows you to build an email list of 10 people, well, you get the email those 10 people for the next several years. Every bit of effort here is worth it because of the foundation you build with an email list.

This week on our weekly Escape Pods, we kicked things off on Monday by talking about letting go of misaligned content and making space for better signals. We explored the tension between short-term platform growth and long-term creative sustainability, and how even small changes (like a new name or format) can breathe life back into stalled projects.

On Thursday, we were joined by my friend and Peabody Award–winning producer Sean Cannon, who traced his path from my little music blog to AOL Music chaos to deep-dive investigative podcasting. We talked about chasing weird stories (Run the Jewels + cat rap, and boxing Ted Leo), and how getting just 5% better each time can transform your work.

Then on Saturday’s Escape Pod Mini, we brought things back to the local level, like flyers on bulletin boards, in-person readings, and rebuilding creative energy offline. We talked about the sting of unsubscribes, the strange dance of asking friends and family for support, and how renaming your newsletter or project might be exactly what opens our next chapter.

If you’d like join our Zoom calls, sign up for a 30 day trial here. That’ll give you time to sit in on a few calls, and even get two free replies of my Email Guidance offering.

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I wrote that we spent years putting our best “content” onto social media platforms, and wonder why no one visits our websites anymore, to which Matt replied:

I keep finding my way back to your site because this premise is so enticing. What do you think are the best “top of funnel” strategies for growth if someone really wants to embrace the your name dot com lifestyle? I’m doing music, so I could imagine focusing more on live shows and pen/paper email list sign ups. But then I wouldn’t have met you!

To think of all the people I haven’t met because I’m not on TikTok, right? Or I didn’t go to that local event last Tuesday! What if instead of hoping for favor with the algorithms we embrace the serendipity?

Frederick Woodruff, on our recent chat:

I will also be moving more of my content on Substack into group meetings and Zoom talks. I want to create an astrological ‘node’ that is relaxed, intimate, and, yes, entertaining. To offer, what Seth called in our talk yesterday, “more realness.” And I’d love for you to be a part of that community.

Any new social media platforms that comes along needs to compete with the “realness.” Back in the day community and relationships were just called scenes, and well, we’re making a few of them in our own little pockets of the internet today.

As Frederick mentions, “relaxed, intimate, and, yes, entertaining.”

The future is real.