Category: Social MediaCategory: Social Media

This from Jésabel DC at Config 2026 (this quote at the 1:08 mark):

“Technology wasn’t better in the early 2000s because designers were more ethical or more thoughtful. It was better because they hadn’t yet be handed the business model that rewarded trapping the user.”

She says “in the early 2000s the internet was a place you visited,” and then you went on with your day. I like to say that I just want to visit the internet, I don’t want to live there.

I was asked recently on a podcast interview what I’m running from in regards to social media, and I’m not sure I gave the best answer but I’m still thinking about it (which is why we appear on podcasts and face questions we’ve never been asked before in real time).

But I guess I’m running from one thing – the idea the social media is neutral, when it’s in fact user-hostile, designed and built by people with multiple vacation homes ensuring I spend hours everyday scrolling, engaging, and filling my head with every last drop of drama, turmoil, atrocity, and outrage.

That’s what I’m running from, I suppose. As Jésabel DC says, I am running from “the business model that (rewards) trapping the user.”

It’s none of my business what the kid that sat in front of me in 10th grade science had for breakfast, and people working at social media platforms bought multiple vacation homes convincing us that it is.

Your attention is coveted by the social media platforms, along with the cell phone companies that will gladly take your auto-pay unlimited-plan payments. Heck, Tim Cook is saying iPhone prices are going up.

We don’t need better devices and apps and service plans to keep up, we need better systems and networks to continue making the work we’re called to make.

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.

(more…)

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.

Maybe you tried to do a Substack Live once or twice, nobody showed up, and then you figured it’s a big waste of time. No, screw that, just keep showing up!

When we were talking about this on Saturday (check the schedule for more), and it lines up well with our conversation last week with Sean Gordon, the co-owner of Taffeta Music Hall. They’re not trying to get people to show up for a live stream, but rather live events, like open mics, comedy nights, trivia nights, that sort of thing.

“We’re doing a comedy open mic night the second Wednesday of every month now… the first one, maybe like 10 people showed up. But the comedy… the comics understand, believe me, if anyone understands the growth and success of something, it’s comics.”

If you want to have a regular event where 50 people show up every week, ya gotta start somewhere!

“Those few people that are there, you gotta make sure that they have a good time, and you gotta make sure they come back, because if they’re gonna come back, they’re gonna bring a friend… and then it just kind of snowballs from there.”

Again, Sean is talking about live events, but this applies to live streams, too (and just about everything).

It’s not that no one cares about the thing you’re trying to do, it’s that no one knows! Your job is to just keep showing up, because people can’t discover what doesn’t exist if you quit too soon.

Go live this week, but do more than “just” announcing it once and thinking that everyone saw it. Invite some people personally. Like, individual emails, DMs, or texts. Figure out how to host three people first, to learn and understand how to manage a gathering. Make your mistakes in front of just a few (and probably very understanding) people instead of 20 strangers.

You build trust by showing up, and your reputation is built on the work with the people in the room.