I’m officially in “Not My Business” Season, for which I owe a debt of thanks to Olivia Rafferty for describing how I’ve been feeling most of this year.
This isn’t just for Substack authors- it’s for every creative person.
Social media made us believe we must become graphic designers, video editors, sound engineers, interview hosts, SEO experts, copywriters, and about a dozen other things in addition to the thing we do.
Experts will have you believe that if you tweak your About page a little bit more, focus on SEO, or make better thumbnails, then success is just around the corner!
Not my business.
Sure, there are some “best practices,” but the bar is low (ahem, a website and an email list). We’re not here to chase lowest common denominator tactics, we’re here to shift culture and change the world, right?
Imagine spending more time on things that rejuvenate your soul instead of cosplaying as an overworked social media manager.
Instead of learning how to navigate all the new features that Meta has set up on Instagram, imagine becoming a better musician, photographer, or artist.
Spend most of our non-day job hours honing our craft rather than becoming part-time “content creators” while expecting full-time results.
There’s a screen time app, but where’s the guitar time app, or painting time app? Imagine if we tracked our creative practice and saw that we spent three hours a day writing. We’d celebrate that, wouldn’t we?
We don’t need more subscribers; we need more heartbreak, laughter, and / or deep metaphysical talks about the afterlife in cemeteries on rainy evenings.
That’s the business I want.
Let’s stop worrying about growing our audience. Open your contacts app and reconnect with the people who came into your life but you stopped talking to because you felt just posting on social media was enough.
Get in the business of building connections instead of shouting.
We’re talking about art here, people. We’re not selling USB cables or homeowner insurance, we’re channeling the divine, spending time in the fog, smelling the flowers, jumping in puddles, and walking around museums.
In a recent newsletter titled “Backstage” (which went out to 10,000+ email subscribers) Tegan from Tegan and Sara wrote about putting out a live album. Maybe release it on vinyl, CD, and cassette, “with a booklet with photos from the tour.”
Then goes on to say:
“Maybe we should hold some stuff back, I suggested, and keep the stories and recordings and photos for that. It would be nice to have images and videos that no one has seen. For social media, for the booklet. Right? Or maybe it doesn’t matter; we share so much content (we = everyone) at this point, who even remembers what’s been posted and hasn’t?”
The Tegan and Sara Instagram has 470,000 followers, and the last nine posts got an average of 3,444 likes, meaning 0.7% of their fans liked any one of those images.
Two of those posts have over 100 comments. That’s 0.213% of their fans that left a comment, and that’s on a good day.
Mind you, Tegan and Sara are a Grammy-nominated indie pop duo who’ve been making music for over 25 years.
I’m not saying don’t be on social media (well, maybe I am); just lower your expectations of actually ever reaching 10% of your followers.
Understand that posting an IG Reel to your 3,500 Instagram followers will probably be seen by just 250 people, and if 1% click a link, well, that’s a solid two people that might see your offering.
A friend of mine deleted his social media accounts in 2017 or so. He’s played drums for 30+ years; that’s all he wants to do, be a musician.
He joined some bands he found on Craigslist, did some recording gigs with friends on the internet, played a lot of local shows, learned a lot of covers, and made a few bucks.
He just wanted to play drums, you know?
We talked on the phone recently, and he told me of a “secret” group he’s in, with a bunch of other local musicians. They meet once a week and jam and hang out.
This didn’t happen overnight, but now my friend is in multiple local bands, and playing drums all the time with great people. He’s never been happier.
All without a Twitter account or posting crowd shots on Instagram stories.
Tegan and Sara were here before social media, they’ll be here when it’s gone. The creator economy existed long before Zuck and Musk showed up. There was a time when we didn’t speak of our work as “content.”
“Make cool stuff, show it to your friends,” says Rick Rubin. Friends, family, fans. You get the idea.
But if a platform doesn’t let you show your cool stuff to your friends, ask if it serves you anymore. If not, it might be time to rethink things.
What if the people receiving your emails forwarded it to friends? What if they copied the text from it and posted it on social media? What if your words traveled from the inbox into Facebook group chats and meeting rooms?
When was the last time you sent a newsletter that got 10 replies?
If none of those things happened — not even close— maybe getting more subscribers isn’t the answer.
From social media to Substack Notes, people post in the void. No comments, likes, or engagement of any kind.
Hey, sometimes things don’t work!
Your “questions to everyone” or “open invites” have good intentions, but after a dozen or so attempts, it’s time to reassess your strategy.
Stop asking “everyone” and start actually asking people.
➡️ Reply to someone else’s post. Go into the comments section of another post, or another Tweet, and reply there. Be the person that people love seeing in the comments section by being insightful, gracious, and / or funny.
➡️ Email someone directly in your network. If you’re hoping those people even see your original post and take the time to reply is a long shot. Instead, reach out and ask them. Say you’re looking for their insight for an upcoming post.
➡️ Invite someone before inviting everyone. If you’re just getting started in hosting video hangouts, live sessions, or workshops, consider inviting a few people you know directly. See if you can get three people to commit before announcing to “everyone.”
➡️ Go beyond “just sharing” and make it a big deal. Make a whole post about it. Go deeper than typing “THIS,” and explain why this piece resonated. Don’t just “curate your feed,” rolling the dice hoping that 10% of your audience might see it. Take the time to write about something (or make a video or an audio snippet), and share it directly with your audience in an upcoming newsletter (where 99% of your subscribers will see it in their inbox).
“Yeah, but Seth, I just want to post my thing and go do other things,” you might say.
Well, you see the results that “just posting” gets you.
Also, how can talking to your fans, audience, and readers be a waste of time?
Setting a timer for 15 minutes and communicating with real people five days a week will probably get you more results than the hour you spend making one Reel for 153 “people” to see (and which will never be seen again after 12 hours).
Does it scale? Fuck scale, do the work.
The strategy of “just posting” ain’t working, and it’s not going to get any easier to reach your fans in that way as we roll into the second half of 2024.
If you’re already posting images on Instagram, you’re sitting on newsletter material whether you realize it or not. Reusing those images in email isn’t cheating or lazy, t’s just practical, and like I say, most people never see your social media posts anyway.
My buddy Bill sent me this email from Tapehead City that did this perfectly: the same cassette photos from Instagram, dropped straight into an email, with no fuss or overthinking.
The small additions matter, too. Don’t just copy and paste. Add a sentence, a bit of context, an extra detail. The feed gets the quick bits; the newsletter gets the extended version. Same work, more mileage, and a better payoff for the people who actually signed up. This is how email quietly becomes the main event instead of an afterthought.
If you want people from Instagram to subscribe to your Substack, understand that you are competing with an app built by a company with over 60,000 employees.
The motivation of Meta employees is to keep you scrolling, engaged, and plugged into their ecosystem of products – Instagram, Facebook, DMs and messages.
Your fans on social media are navigating an unending fast-food drive-thru experience, sitting comfortably in their vehicle, all while algorithms serve them as much content as they want through their digital window.
That’s what you’re up against, so trust me when I say the following ain’t gonna cut it:
“I’m writing on Substack now. Click the link in bio to sign up.”
“I’m starting a newsletter. Sign up to get updates.”
“Hey, social media sucks. Sign up for our email list.”
Like the Merovingian says in The Matrix Reloaded, “this is not a reason, this is not a why.”
