Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
Had a nice live chat with Sarah Fay today on Substack – and actually uploaded to YouTube for once.
I really enjoy these sorts of live chats, because I get to talk about stuff I’ve loved talking about for like… decades. LOVE. I love this nerdy stuff. This media outlet stuff. This creative journey, and how it aligns with the machinery of the internet.
From ‘3 Ways to Amplify Your Creator Gravity,” by Alice Lemee:
LinkedIn posts and Substack notes and Skeets (that’s Bluesky for the uninitiated) are not dense. They extend your reach, sure, but they’re more like your planet’s atmosphere—thin, easily dispersed, and quickly forgotten.
Instead, you need density. When I say dense, I mean something that doesn’t have a 24-hour life cycle and can’t be plucked from the top of your head.
Love this bit from ‘When Fashion Brands Curate Better Than Museums,’ which goes along with the bit of wisdom we learned from Olivia Rafferty, about looking outside of your industry for inspiration (listen to that here).
“Meanwhile, museums are out here filming awkward TikToks and selling tote bags that say “Support the Arts.”
Meanwhile, Gucci drops a film series directed by Harmony Korine and it’s sold out before you even hear about it.”
Replace museums with “bands” or “authors” or “photographers” and drop in whatever cookie cutter / color by numbers marketing dreck they’re producing.
What a great piece from Coco Mocoe:
Podcast hosts with 10,000 followers on Instagram (who barely post) can sell out theaters. Meanwhile, TikTokers with 5 million+ followers sometimes can’t get anyone to show up to a meet-and-greet. Why?
One of my mentors, Jamie Gutfreund, said something that stuck with me:
“No one hate-listens to a podcast.”
I started repurposing my video interviews into podcast format (you can find them here), because I know some of my readers enjoy listening without watching, so they can wash the dishes or go for a walk.
But yeah – large numbers on a quick-hit platform don’t always translate to a longer-form audience.
Subject line: u up??!
From address: lens boi
This is hilarious, and so thirsty it works.
I’m sad when I click to listen to someone’s latest offering and I’m left with a long narrow list of digital music streaming providers and download partners.
Now, a “landing page” with lyrics and photos and other “on brand” delights would be so appealing, and it’s not that hard in 2025.
But instead, a legion of talented music makers are content to do what everyone else is doing, sending their adoring fans to faceless corporate data collection services instead of pulling them further into their own creative world (and capturing a few email addresses in the process).
I tried hosting my interview videos as a Substack Podcast, but I realized something in the process – all media uploaded to Substack (video or audio) can’t be embedded on your own site. You’ve got to either uplpoad the video to YouTube (meh, Google), or in the case of the podcast… well, you’re out of luck.
So that’s why I moved things to Transistor. Yes, I have to pay $20/mo for it, but if that’s the price I need to pay to keep my interviews from disappearing if the Substack platform goes away (or gets bought by Elon Musk), then it’s a good investment.
This started by me posting on Substack Notes, a screen shot of a bunch of folders filled with my digital photos dating back to 2002. I explained how I got all those photos extracted from Apple Photos (formerly iPhoto), and into their own folders. Then how I backed them all up via Backblaze.
This got some traction, so I wondererd if people would be interested in hopping on a Zoom call and talking about it. I set up a landing page using Tally, and got over 30 replies.
From there I set up an event in Luma, and emailed those folks, and as of writing this I got 29 people signed up to attend.
It’s on Thursday, March 20 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT. If you wanna come, register here.
- This is definitely not for the hardcore photographer crowd.
- This is for the casual iPhone / photographer who just happens to have a jillion photos scattered everywhere and you’re looking for a temporary support group to figure things out together.
I figured out an okay system to get all my iPhone photos off my device and stored on an external HD, again, all backed up via Backblaze (which backs up two external HDs and my laptop for $9/mo).
Because of this, I was able to cancel my yearly Google subscription for more photo storage (I was using it to back up my iPhone photos), and cut my iCloud to the .99 cents per month plan.
Thursday, March 20 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT. Register here.
It’s been so amazing to see people updating their websites. This from Zach Sprowls:
“The idea of a website HQ is not original to me. I got it from Seth Werkheiser over at SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB. His ideas, encouragement, and the community he’s building over there have been invaluable. Thank you, Seth!”
And then this from Menka Sanghvi:
“Totally echo Zach’s words. I have built my new website HQ too, and it even has a “microblog” where I go to first, whenever I get that strong impulse to share on social media! Thanks Seth.”
Just look at their incredible micro-blog set up!
I mean it – we’ve dumped years of text and photos and video onto these social media platforms. It’s no wonder no one visits our websites – we’re not updating them!
Filling out websites with everything we’ve been giving away for free to social media is a great start. Set up your own Twitter-like feed on your own site. Make it easy to publish new things on a platform you control!
On a group call today we got talking about an influx of subscribers, and instead of trying to replicate that to get more more more, we talked about ways to get closer to those subscribers. One at a time if needed.
What brought them in? What resonated? How can you meet them?
Can you take 100 new subscribers and find people willing to dive in? Hop on Zoom call?
Maybe it’s “just” 20 people, but those 20 (or 10 or 5 or one) can change your life.
Making more content isn’t always the answer, like Scott says here. Seek more (and better) conversations, and see what happens.
