Category: Social MediaCategory: Social Media

From Charlotte Rubesa of the print-first publication Quiet Media, in an interview with Naive Weekly:

“Social media used to be a fairly reliable channel. It gave us a direct connection with our audience and allowed for organic discovery. If you had 10,000 followers, maybe 80-85% of them would see what you posted and be likely to engage. Over time, it has matured into a professionalised industry and that sense of possibility has warped. Today your visibility is mediated by platforms and the algorithms they design, which results in a culture where we are constantly encouraged to optimise, to chase relevance and “hack” systems, while sidelining those direct relationships.”

Platforms change, and you can either adapt with those changes, choose to stop playing the game, or land somewhere in between.

The audience of people who spend 4+ hours per day on social media is quite different than an audience who wants to buy a magazine (like Quiet Media) for $20, but as Seth Godin says, choose your customers, choose your future.

I recently did a Substack live with Elin Petronella, an independent artist based in Paris who’s been building a creative business on her own terms for the last ten years.

She’s got half a million followers across Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest, and she’ll be the first to tell you that’s not even the point, as she recently walked away from monetizing on Substack, dropped her bestseller badge, and has been focusing on something more sustainable ever since.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t retain ownership this whole time. All the links are always going back to my own site,” Elin Petronella

All those followers across all those social media platforms is great and all, but if you’re not pointing them to something that’s more permanent, or if you’re not giving curious fans something to explore, you’re leaving money on the table.

As Elin explains, she has 200K followers on Instagram, and a single post might still only get 3,000 views. But if you can get just 1% of 3,000 click to your website, that’s still 30 people.

“How are you doing it before you had the idea that you wanted to monetize it? What are you already doing when people are not watching? What is your natural way of creating before you start thinking about eyes watching it or monetizing it? Double down on that,” Elin Petronella

When we start paying attention to how other people are doing things and assuming that that’s the way to do it, that’s where we can get in trouble. Trust your gut. Get back to the things that you enjoyed when you started making the work that you’re making.

I recently spoke with Stanford sophmore Truitt Flin, who leads Reconnect Stanford. From their site:

“We live in a time where people feel more detached from one another and from what truly matters than ever before. Although many factors contribute to this troubling reality, we count ourselves among those who see social media and our collective dependence on it as the chief cause.”

She told me how her and fellow students are ditching social media. Talking with other universities, and high schools. Setting up tables with signs saying “WE DELETED SOCIAL MEDIA,” and striking up conversations with fellow students who are doing the same thing.

She’s talking to fifth graders, and giving them hope that they don’t need to be on socials, and they listen to her because she’s not that much older.

If anyone was going to sniff out the toxic underpinnings of social media, it was going to be the youth, and people like Truitt of Reconnect Stanford are leading the charge.

Another gem from Bradley Spitzer:

“The people producing the most important work right now are not the most connected. They’re the most protected. They have walls around their attention that would strike most professionals as rude, antisocial, or out of touch.

They’re none of those things. They’re just clear.”

Since I’m not on Instagram / Twitter / LinkedIn / etc. I see way less. I am “less connected.”

But I host multiple Zoom calls every week with energetic, enthuisastic folks talking about escaping social media and big tech.

I need to be clear to host those gatherings, as they require energy and focus. By eliminating 3+ hours per day of scrolling, I have the bandwidth needed to be an attentive host.

I am giving my focus and attention to my guests, not giant megacorps.

I noted this comment from Sarah Jo Austin, which perfectly aligns with our Social Media Escape Club vibes:

“I wore myself out last year making IG reels out of my Substack content. I stopped in January, thinking I would go back, but the time and creative energy I’ve gotten back is worth not engaging in IG at all.”

Trying to convince people on one platform to follow you to another (and to fork over their email address) is hard work, and eventually you need to ask yourself if it’s worth the time and energy.