Category: WritingCategory: Writing

I get asked this a lot via my Email Guidance offering, with a few variations:

I do multiple things, how do I bring them all together on my website?

This always reminds me of Seth Godin’s blog.

Everyday there’s a new post. On occaion Seth is working on something new – a new book, and event, something else.

And he writes about it, and links to it.

Yes, there’s a sidebar. But the main event is that big block of text that starts at the top with a headline.

That says “we’re starting here today. Come along for the ride.”

It’s not for everybody, and that’s the point. Your blog is the cool band shirt you wear on the first day of school, or the book you read on the subway, or the shade of green you dye your hair.

You’re not for everyone, but the people that can pick up on those cues? Those are your people.

“You need to trust your members enough to know they can decide what’s best for themselves. You’re not a mommy or a daddy—you’re an adult community leader.”

Wise words from my talk with Kristen Tweedale on how she runs community, but it applies to how you put your work out there, too.

Get people to your site, give them a starting point, and get out of the way.

Rachel Karten speaks with the little joy coffee shop, focusing on their social media strategy, but I think the main point applies to how all of us talk about our work, despite which medium we use.

RK: What advice would you give to a local business that is trying to find success on social media?

CL: Social media is replacing television. And just like in television, there’s the shows you tune-in to watch and there’s the commercials you suffer through. Stop making commercials. Be the show.

Did you see it? “Stop making commercials. Be the show.”

One of the longest running TV shows isn’t about the contents of storage containers, it’s about the stories that weave around them.

Telling people that we have a show coming up is a commercial.

Planning, booking, the travels, the build up, talking to fans, borrowing gear, making the flyer for the show – that’s the story.

We don’t need to start making videos, we need to tell better stories.

Never forget that corporate vultures swooped in and wrecked blog culture with their SEO posts and 13 display ads, and said “wow, blogs suck now!”

Then those crooks rolled out their shiny social media platforms – “wow, so clean! Who even needs a website?!? LOL!”

Now everyone’s ideas and posts were readable, without pop ups or takeover ads. It was bliss!

But the pivot to video (which was based on a lie) got writers fired. Sites shuttered because social media sites throttled links.

We’re learning everyday that maybe centralized kingdoms of power maybe aren’t great.

The decentralized internet is already here in the form of domain names, websites, email lists, and RSS feeds. We don’t need to wait for anyone, we can just decide today where we spend out time and energy.

Veronique put out this wonderful zine, “full of tiny ways to share your zines without using social media.”

There are so many places for us to share our work outside of social media! They might not go “viral,” or be seen by thousands of people, but that’s okay! Social media sold us on the idea that vanity metrics mattered, but as we’re learning they really don’t. Just look at all those people with six-figure follower counts on Instagram with just 19 likes on their posts. It’s rigged!

See all Veronique’s zines here.

The deal with a blog is simple. You show up, and the author says “here’s where we’re starting today.”

You open Instagram, the algorithm says “here’s where we’re starting today.”

Many modern websites say “you decide.”

As Seth Godin recently wrote:

A disciplined menu structure doesn’t limit user choice, it increases it.

Where are we starting today?