Category: MarketingCategory: Marketing

For the last decade we’ve put our best work on social media – videos, images, hot takes – you name it! But with so much time and energy devoted to publishing on so many platforms, our websites and newsletters just became digital brochures; static and boring.

So it was refreshing to hear Natalie Brite on Amelia Hruby’s Off the Grid podcast talking about where we limit our imagination.

“For so many entrepreneurs and micro businesses … this total dependency, where there’s no imagination outside of social media, it’s like my imagination stops at social media marketing and it’s like there’s so many other ways, right?”

I’ve seen this for decades. I was one of the first 3,000 people to sign up for Twitter. I’ve subscribed to a lot newsletters since I began this journey in 2001.

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If you feel like you’re always in “marketing mode,” you need to read “Don’t Market More. Matter More,” from Amanda Natividad, where she talks with Jay Acunzo.

If you’re not saying anything that compels people to seek you out, you were always going to be exposed the moment the pipes changed.

And the pipes are always changing. Jay’s reminder that distribution channels aren’t neutral systems of pipes — they’re ad networks with opinions about what should spread — is something I think about weekly.

While social media platforms may have “worked” for you in the past, they were never made to send you free traffic. Those platforms, the pipes as mentioned above, have changed, and they will always change, and more than likely not in your favor.

Marketing more is a race to the bottom, but mattering more is gonna cost you. It’s time, effort, and energy. It ain’t cheap. But if you want cheap, you make something for everyone, which I’m sure is not what you’re called to do.

Your work matters to you, but it’s hard to convince anybody that it should matter to them.

It’s not that your work is bad, it’s that no one knows about, which is why you should get awareness off your plate, something Michelle Warner talked about with Jay Acunzo – find out what I’m talking about here.

You’ve followed the advice, watched how everyone else is doing, tried all the tricks and trending things, and you hated it all. Just dreaded, it right?

You spent all that time begrudgingly, doing something you despised, then wondered why it didn’t resonate.

The problem with modern marketing is that we’re performing for everybody. We’re sanding off the edges, turning ourselves inside out to impress complete strangers on platforms that are built like casinos for attention.

Wouldn’t it feel so much better if you were just talking to people who got you, instead?

In 2023 I knew I wanted to talk to more people about leaving social media. Not selling courses, or writing a book, but talking to people about leaving social media. I started hosting weekly Zoom calls and I don’t do “marketing” anymore. I just tell people who like my work what I’m doing from week to week.

You’ve done the same thing for years on social media, but your followers missed probably 80% of everything you posted. It’s not that nobody liked your work, it’s that nobody knew about it.

It’s amazing what happens when you can actually reach your fans. Your email subscriber count may be less than your social media follower count, but that’s okay.

Because the truth is this: you can build a fanbase, but if you can’t reach your fanbase, you’re at the mercy of the algorithms, and you don’t want to play that game because it’s a game you can’t win and it never ends.

Instead, send an email once a week, talking about the work you make for the people who’ve signed up and said they want to hear from you.

When you can reach those people, they can support your work, which makes the whole “marketing” thing feel a lot easier.

From Lucy Werner of Hype Yourself, talking about how to get closer to the sorts of people you want to be working with (from one our recent Escape Pod Zoom calls).

“One of my mantras is: put yourself where you don’t belong. Yes, it’s good to have your squad of people doing similar things to empathize with, but I always like to be the only PR (person) in a room full of artists and creatives. That’s my happy space — they’re the people I want to hang out with.”

Lucy did this at a market hall, where people were “selling jeans, or candles, or perfumes, or whatever. And I just sat there with a sign, being like, 15 minutes of free PR or branding advice.”

She said she was busy all day “because we were the only service-based people sat in a market store around product sellers.”

Joi Katskee does a radio show, and on one of our calls she told us how she talked about her program at an open mic night.

I made flyers for Social Media Escape Club, and set them out at a punk rock flea market while selling some old music gear. This led to about a dozen face to face conversations with all sorts of people about wanting to get off social media.

The common theme here is none of us hoped for an algorithm to bring the right people to us, we just showed up.

So if you’ve been thinking that social media is the only way to find your people, I just gave you three examples of meeting people in the real world, one conversation at a time. Instead of chasing follower counts or engagement, find new ways to get around the people you want to work with.

And start figuring that out with other creative folks by joining one of our upcoming calls!

You’ve heard that one way to grow is to get on some podcasts. You did the research, sent out some emails, and got booked for a handful of podcasts.

It takes time to find the right podcast to pitch! To craft the email, and wait for the response. And we can’t discount the anxiety leading up to the call. The Substack superstar Sarah Fay had me on as a guest a few years back, and I was definitely nervous!

But afterwards? Crickets. No noticeable uptick in subscriptions.

All this work, and worry, and it had zero impact in the moment.

Heck, even artist Amie McNee “went on one of the biggest podcast in the world and it didn’t sell any books.”

It’s not that this “strategy” of going on podcasts is “bad,” it’s just how it works. That’s why social media is so alluring; you post something, and at least you get one like in the first five minutes. Instant gratification!

We got to hear this directly on a recent Escape Pod Zoom call, about going on podcasts as a way to grow an audience and how it wasn’t really paying off.

Even if you didn’t get a subscription, you built some trust. People need to see you a few times, hear you, notice you a few times, before they subscribe.

Sure, we’d all love more book sales, or at least more subscribers, but you’re learning how to get better at pitching, booking, and being on podcasts, all of which will serve you for years to come.

In the follow up email conversation with this person, we talked about this trust part, and arrived at this opportunity; reaching back out to the podcast host.

Send a two or three line message to the host a month later. Ask how they’re doing. Follow up on a point that was made during your talk. Mention a recent episode. Keep the connection going, continue building trust with a person who thought enough to have you on their show.

You can keep chasing the ocean of strangers, and doing what the “experts” says, which is spending time and energy trying to impress people who’d rather keep scrolling. It’s an exhausting endeavor that never ends.

Instead, you could flip it, and focus on the few people you’ve already built a connection with.

We talk about this sort of thing every week in our Escape Pod Zoom calls. Join a call with other creative people figuring out the same stuff you’re dealing with. Check our upcoming schedule here.