Category: FacebookCategory: Facebook

What percentage of your Substack subscribers have a ★★ or lower activity rating? For me, it’s 65%. Maybe I’m a horrible newsletter writer and that’s why no one reads my publication?

Or maybe Substack greased the wheels to drive subscriptions and give the illusion that they’re a coveted source of enthused readers? This is straight from the social media playbook as detailed by Cory Doctorow’s concept of Enshittification:

First they lure users onto their platforms, then attract businesses who might profit from this newly formed public, and then finally squeeze both for their own profit. Tech giants lure users in with convenience and then degrade their services over time, draining profit at the cost of user experience. In the meantime our public squares have turned somewhere between the mall and a dumpster fire, that is unfit to deal with the problems of our times.

I was looking for a free place to start a newsletter back in 2021. The Recommendations feature rolled out in early 2022. I got lots of subscribers from that! Then Substack Notes came in April of 2023 – like Twitter, but “nicer!”

The subscriptions flowed like water, like a fire hose!

Until it didn’t. I used to get 25+ new sign ups a day, but as you can see above (that 65% of my email audience if dreadfully unengaged), what did that really get me?

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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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Thank you Mary Thoma, GeorgeAnn, Richard Schulz, Michael Maupin, Ken Seals, and many others for tuning into my “live office hour video” on Substack Live.

I don’t know what to call these. Do they need a name? I just know I like going “live” and helping people out. Shooting the breeze, talking about our lived experiences. It’s a joy, really.

Eventually Mary Thoma dropped a great question in the chat: she’s got a Substack newsletter, and has 4,000 followers on Facebook, and she’s worried about losing that audience she’s built over there on Meta.

I riffed on how only a small fraction (maybe 100–300) are actually seeing her posts, and so you need to do what you can to move your biggest fans off it.

“The vault is still open,” I said, meaning she can still reach those folks (I wrote about this here).

So today you can ask (reply to, DM) your biggest fans to join her email list, which is something she can actually own for years and years. You can build a sustainable career with an email list!

I talked about how I had around 2,300 Twitter followers but only 20 or send ended up subscribing to Social Media Escape Club.

Some people just wanna be on social media!

Mary mentioned that her Facebook audience, “wants to know what I’m doing but doesn’t want to read,” and I said, “Later. Bye.”

I’m not trying to be harsh, but maybe I am! If you’re writing a memoir, then people that wanna scroll on FB for three hours a day might be your target audience!

That’s when Mary mentioned she has 600 newsletter subscribers.

Oh, well then.

So then I mentioned that maybe her energy is better spent “watering the garden” of her 600 current subscribers than chasing strangers. And I think that’s true for a lot of us.

Write the best newsletter you can for the people who signed up for it, and then some of them will the marketing for you.

You don’t need everyone. You need the right people, and you’ll find them (and they’ll find you) by committing to the work you’re meant to be doing.

Full replay below:

If you’re posting updates on Twitter exclusively, well, not all your fans are on Twitter.

Not all your fans are on Instagram.

Not all your fans spends three hours a night scrolling TikTok.

Lots of your fans check email, though.

• Prospective employers email them when they get the job.
• Banks email them when the direct deposit clears.
• Merch companies send them tracking info when their vinyl ships.
• Ticket companies email them receipts to your shows.

Everyone’s checking email.

Remember, social media employees want to stay employed. They get raises and promotions by keeping you on their platforms.

Writes Sara Eckel:

“Social media companies don’t want you to go out and have fun with your friends—they want you to look at pictures of your friends having fun without you.”

I remember a conversation I had with a show promoter years ago. They weren’t able to reach everybody with their Facebook Events like they used to, and they wanted my advice.

I told them to start an email list. Our phone call ended soon after.

Meanwhile, Sprout Social (one of the biggest social media management platforms out there) has said “brands see a median engagement rate of 0.064% across all industries” on Facebook.

Not even 1%, hell, not even 0.1%.

That’s 0.064% that can be bothered to click “LIKE.”

So yes, you can say “I’m just gonna stick to posting on Twitter and Facebook, show up or don’t.”

But think of who can’t even show up because they don’t have an account on either platform.

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