Category: Social MediaCategory: Social Media

I’ve been saying we should be get back to blogging and updating our websites for awhile now. Here’s some feedback from a recent Email Guidance client who added a blog to their site:

“Literally within one week (of adding the blog) this led to an invitation to give a talk (you know the old-fashioned way, you introduce yourself to someone cool, they look you up, find your website and boom).”

If someone needs an account to see your work, it’s not really public, so make sure your best work is available for everyone to see on the world wide web.

Someone asked me via my Email Guidance offering about how to get more people to their site without social media, and how to get more sales (I’m paraphrasing), and this is a lightly edited version of my reply:

I’m going to push back on the “growing your audience” or getting more “eyeballs” thing and jump into TRUST, and how we build that online.

Because like, social media sorta made it “easy” to build trust because we could just take our phones and make videos and then people could see those videos and they heard our voice, they saw our face, they saw the expressions, and social media made it possible for us to put on display who we were. That was wonderful. 

And so I go to your website, and I see your many offerings, but I don’t see you.

Sure, I see photos of you, and I see lots of text, but I don’t see you. Who are you? Why should I hit that BOOK HERE button?

If I’m just a random visitor from the internet that happened to come across your site, your site looks just like everybody else’s with great pictures, nice writing, and a book now button. Where’s the trust though?

For me, it’s all about the trust, and I think the video aspect that we got from social media is something that’s so vitally important on our own websites. 

So, what if instead of trying to build all these new ways to get people to our website (that’s not converting), we poured more of ourselves, our true authentic selves, into making videos that fit into the places on our websites that make and build trust? 

I’m not saying we have to become YouTube influencers by any means, but I think even something as low-tech as recording a Zoom-style video that shows people what it’s like to show up on camera with us can go so far in building trust.

it’s scary getting on a Zoom call with someone you don’t know. But it’s easier to get on a Zoom call with someone you do know.

How many of your friends, if they asked you right now to get on a Zoom call, would you be easily to say yes to?

This is where I think the magic lies is moving away from social media, from Olivia Rafferty:

“What I’m really toying with is the idea of quitting Instagram for all of 2026, as an experiment. This kinda frightens me because I want to do another crowd finder this year, and Instagram was surprisingly useful and getting some pledges last time I did it. But I just feel like my creativity and headspace will be the better for it?”

As I’ve spent less time on social media over the last few years, I had time to host weekly Zoom calls with my subscribers.

I am a better person because of it.

If you would have asked me in 2023 to moderate a panel about artists leaving social media, I woulda said no way – I’d be terrified! But now? I’ll do it this afternoon on Zoom, let’s go.

Sure, if I stayed on social media I could have gained more likes, potential subscribers, some opportunities, but I’d have been the same Seth.

Today I am a better communicator, writer, person because I’ve put my time and energy into people instead of platforms.

We work to impress algorithms in hopes they’ll share our stuff, when we should be working to impress our readers so they’ll share it with other humans.

And Dr. Julie Kellogg reminds us; “AND, we must ask people to share our work.”

Even Seth Godin asked readers to share his original ‘Unleashing the Ideavirus‘ PDF back in the year 2000.

I spoke with Steph Benedetto of The Awakened Business today, about focusing your precious time on things that actually work.

Taking an hour to make a video to post on Instagram that 95% of your audience will never see might not be the best use of your time.

• Replying to some emails might take just a few minutes and net you bigger results
• Getting in touch with people who do the things you’re seeking to do
• Sending notes to people you admire might open some doors.

Posting on social media is easy and quick and gets you off the hook – “hey, I did something today!”

But sending one email to somebody is hard, because the person might not write back, or they might let you down.

One is a lottery ticket, but the other has better odds. You don’t need 10,000 likes, you just need a few good people in your creative orbit to change your life.