Category: TechnologyCategory: Technology

In March, 36 people signed up for a Zoom chat about organizing our digital photos, and managing our digital files without cloud services.

Let’s do it again, maybe? Sign up here if you’d be into this!

I don’t publish a paid newsletter, I host weekly Zoom calls with members. Substack’s ability to manage members is very limited, and they haven’t made any meaningful updates to their system in the four years that I’ve been using their platform.

That, along with other folks losing data without any help from the Substack team has made reassess how I want to run my business, which led to moving my paid subscribers to Memberful, who are owned by Patreon.

They were very extremely helpful, getting on Zoom calls with me to walk me through the process and answer my questions, which made the move that much easier. I’ve never had a Zoom call with anyone at Substack. Finding an email address to get the export process started was a challenge, too.

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Mario’s been shipping The Morning Shakeout every Tuesday for almost a decade, and the through-line is simple: doing the work every week is the “trick. It’s not hacks, not social reach, not “growth systems.”

We talked about how having your own website isn’t optional if you want staying power, how platforms come and go but archives and backlinks keep paying dividends, and why consistency beats trying to manufacture viral hits.

Mario’s approach is boring in the best way: show up, write, publish, repeat, and do it long enough that people can’t ignore you, and long enough that you actually figure out what you’re here to say.

Today Substack rolled out Substack Originals to go along with their new media tab in the app, and I got this question from Johnathan Dodson, which I answer above.

I think two things are true here:

1. Video and audio can be a great way to deepen your connection with your audience (heck, it’s what I’m doing right now).
2. You should do it only if you want to do it.

I reference Beth Spencer and the amazing work she does with her drawing sessions on Zoom, but she also makes videos for some of her posts, too.

A video like that brings you just a little bit closer to Beth. If you’re a fan, well, you’re probably a little bit more of a fan after watching that clip, you know?

At the same time, if the thought of talking on camera makes you sick to your stomach, then yeah, it’s probably a good idea to skip making videos. Or find a way to make videos in your own style, like Marcus does with his Probably Riding channel on Youtube.

I love how Marcus shares his love of riding bikes without ever doing the whole “talking into a camera” thing.

Photographer Noah Kalina walks around the woods and answers questions from his audience.

You can even just record small audio clips and upload those right to your posts, and those are wonderful, too! You don’t even need to make a full podcast – single blips of audio are still wonderful!

I don’t think you’ll get left behind by Substack if you don’t start making videos. Just focus on the subscribers you have in front of you today. Those are the people you need to build with, before you ever need to hope to get “promoted” by some official Substack channel.