Category: Social MediaCategory: Social Media

I closed my Twitter account on June 3, 2023. Over two years ago now.

Could I have grown my email list by a few more people over those two years? Met some more great people? Had some posts go viral and then be discovered by a few more folks?

Sure.

But I firmly believe that in the two years that I haven’t checked Twitter (or Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn), I’ve become a better person.

When you’re not spending multiple hours per day scrolling, you’ve gotta find something else to do. I’ve gone on walks, ran up mountains, hosted many Zoom calls with amazing people. Written more newsletters.

I believe those ideas are better than the ideas that come from staring at my phone for 4+ hours a day.

If your a musician, you could write better songs. A painter, make better paintings. A photographer, make better photos.

It’s building the audience before you’ve fully built who you were to become. If I went viral two years ago, it would have broke me. Today, though, I feel more sure in what I’m working on than ever before.

 

A question I got via my Email Guidance offering:

Q. I saw you’ve been posting casual stuff (on Substack Notes) and I’m curious how you… justify that against an anti-social media ethos? That sounds like an argumentative question but I mean it in earnest!

A. If I post on other social media platforms, I need to get people from those services over to Substack in order to subscribe to my newsletter. With the casual energy I expend on Substack Notes, I get maximum value in return – as in, it’s just one or two clicks from gaining an email subscribers.

Substack is a tool that I use for now. Someday that will change. But for now, today, I can swap my time and energy “engaging” there because I know I can replenish that energy by building my email list.

Am I playing the game? Absolutely. But I am guarding my energy. I don’t rely on Substack Notes to “get the word out.” I am writing the answer to this question on my own website first, before I put it on Substack Notes (if I even do at all).

I am playing the game on my terms.

That’s a little catchphrase I came up with: When you hit send, it’s not the end. Maybe I invented it, maybe someone else did—but it’s true either way.

Right now, it’s summertime—open rates are down, comments are down, “likes” are down. But when you hit send, that doesn’t mean you’re done. Especially if you’re on Substack, you have the direct URL for every post you send. Sure, it lands in inboxes, but that’s just the beginning.

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According to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan at this years Cannes Lions International Festival, “YouTube Shorts is now averaging 200 billion daily views.”

On one hand, that 200 billion daily views is temping because we could start posting videos there and maybe get seen by some of those people.

On the other, we could skip it entirely and focus on the people already in our creative orbit. The people who read our posts and subscribe to our newsletter and listen to our music. Instead of chasing more, what happens when we chase impact and richness with the people right there in front of us?

People are getting tired of all the notifications from news apps, even to the point of uninstalling them from their phones. This from The Guardian:

Too many alerts could cause problems for the whole industry. The big smartphone software operators such as Apple and Google have routinely warned publishers about sending too many alerts. This has led to concerns that these platforms could further restrict or mediate their notifications in the future.

You couldn’t accuse most artists from sending too many emails. The general vibe is “I don’t wanna be too spammy.” So then many in the creative world end up sending once a month, or even more infrequent.

There is a balance to be found – for your personal bandwidth, and what your audience will tolerate. Everyone is different, and every audience is different.

But keep the “alert fatigue” in mind – it’s not that what you’re sending is too much, but you’re message, your post, your invite – it’s easy to get lost in the unending torrent of everybody else’s updates.