Category: Social MediaCategory: Social Media

This morning Cara Alwill and I had a lovely chat on Substack Live, and we covered so many wonderful topics:

Sending the email (don’t wait on algorithms): take matters into your own hands are start reaching out to other creative people, and maybe send more newsletters!

“If people are unsubscribing from you, it means you have a point of view.” — Cara Alwill

Scrappy vs. polished: the world has enough “optimized” text, it’s time to go feral.

Building your own team before anyone hands you one: start working with people in the early stages so you can sniff out the creeps later on.

You are the lead magnet: Forget the niche, you are the reason someone reads.

Just do the thing: Stop announcing, stop planning every little move, and start making.

“There’s a fine line between inspiration and procrastination.” — Cara Alwill

From my interview with Julie Laufer and her Be Cringe Podcast (edited slightly for readability), on the difference between hoping the algorithm smiles upon you versus putting your hope in the work you’re doing.

Spend a sliver of the time you waste on social media on your art and your craft. That way, when people do notice what you do — maybe 75 people, maybe a hundred — they turn their heads because you’re genuinely that good.

That’s what you want. Not constantly promoting. Just being undeniably good at the thing.

Yeah, yeah — “be so good they can’t ignore you.” Easy for Steve Martin to say.

But challenge accepted.

Be so good that you can have the conversation. Be ready for the opportunity, in all the ways it might show up — not scrambling to make 12-second clips hoping the algorithm throws you a bone.

The hope is in the work.

Reach out to some people just outside of your orbit. Ask to be on a podcast. Talk with someone about a collaboration. Do things that are lot more fun than trying to entertain strangers on platforms that don’t exist to send you free traffic.

Watch the full interview here.

Matthew Ferrara comes from the real estate world, and often challenges the notion that social media is the most important thing in the getting the word out. From “Why This Simple Sales Move Outperforms Social Media Marketing:”

The National Association of REALTORS® most recent survey asked 173,250 buyers a simple question: Was social media the main method used to find your real estate agent?

1% said yes.

But 37% were referred by a friend, neighbor, or relative; and another 29% used the same agent they worked with the last time.

You can not deny the foundation of “referred by a friend, neighbor, or relative,” across all business and creative fields. We make big transactions and small deals based on trust, and in the year 2026 referrals still carry a lot of weight.

Saw this while walking around Portsmouth, NH, from the “Public Poetry Project.” This is run by the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program, where they organize submissions from poets to be featured in businesses around town.

There are people who would love your work and they aren’t even on social media – they might just be out walking around town!

Scott Perry (who I met via Seth Godin’s Akimbo workshops years ago) and I love talking about escaping social media, something he’s achieved after my incessant nagging over the last few years during his Creative On Purpose membership calls! Hah!

Escaping social media requries leaveing behind the idea of trying to reach everyone. It’s not about volume, it’s about the right people coming into your orbit.

Before we worry about marketing or growth, Scott says we need to ask, “who are you, what are you good at, where do you belong?”

Do we belong on crowded apps, mashing our creative round pegs into algorithmic controlled square holes for the likes?

Or do we belong in places more suitable for the work we’re trying to make?