Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
Just Gabrielle Judge, telling it like it is:
The truth is, corporations struggle to keep up with the speed at which ambitious people evolve. Promotions are slow. Raises take forever. But everything else is somehow urgent.
Read more at “I Got a Lazy Girl Job Because I Was Too Ambitious.”
As always, Ash Ambirge bringing the gems:
If you’ve ever been like, ugh, HOW AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO MARKET MYSELF, why not ask yourself a new question: how can I show up & just answer my customer’s questions?????
In the early days of my Social Media Escape Club I’d just answer people’s questions on Substack’s Office Hours threads. I’d even link them to Substack help docs. I did this so well someone from Substack noticed and reached out and asked if I had any interest in joining their help team (no, thank you).
Even for the bigger picture questions, like “how will I live without social media?” I don’t have the full answer for anyone, but I have bits and pieces that I’ve learned from my experience, and how other people have done it.
Sometimes you don’t need the full answer, you just need to the experience of reading and talking to a bunch of people on the same journey.
Your next big break is probably right under your nose. Your next sale, job, whatever.
“Marketers face a choice every day: hustle for new people or serve the ones who care. Activation is much more productive than persuasion.” Seth Godin
The most frequent question I get with my Email Guidance offering is “how do I get more subscribers,” and I never answer it. Instead, we dig deeper into their existing audience, asking “are you 100% that everyone on your current email list knows about your thing?”
And if so – is your website set up in a way that makes it easy for them to support your work?
Oh my, I love The Studio Stool so much.
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.
This sounds about right:
“No one wants to take a risk. Not elected officials. Not 19-year-olds picking college majors. Because in this economy, everything is compliance now. As the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco warned in his essay “Ur-Fascism,” social systems don’t collapse overnight. They erode through small surrenders, through the gradual normalization of compliance as a civic virtue.”
From ‘Compliance is the New American Dream‘ by Kyla Scanlon.
Noah Kalina from “Newsletter #178 – The Chicken Camera.”
“Sometimes the best thing we can do as artists is simply create the conditions for interesting things to happen and then just get out of the way.”
Creating the conditions for interesting things to happen. Yes. That’s why I started my newsletter back in 2021 (here’s the first post). Write about the stuff I want to write about. Maybe other people will enjoy it.
From that, interesting things have happened from Social Media Escape Club.
I did two interviews today:
Being yourself, human marketing and more with Tim Bailey
I’ve found I really enjoy having conversations like this. For better or worse, Substack makes it stupid easy to do a live interview via the app, which means the image quality is superb, and the audio quality is pretty good, too.
“when you’re living according to your values, immersed in nature, and putting your talents toward things that matter to you, life becomes easy.
There is no cognitive dissonance, no exhaustion, no fear, no guilt. There’s peace and ease in everything, and a rhythm to it. The sense of freedom that comes from refusing to wear the itchy mask anymore gives you energy and optimism, which you channel into your projects.”
Katherine Pomfret
Before seeking more (subscribers, audience, fans), seek flow. This is something I bring up a lot through my Email Guidance offering.
Is your website set up in a way that pulls people in? Or is it a bunch of links to third party platforms that seek only to monetize and collect data from your fans?
Does your sales page include comforting and informative videos about what you offer? Or do you only post those sorts of videos on Instagram for just 3% of your followers to see?
Does your store have more than one item (this one from Laura Kidd) in stock?
We want to expand and grow our audience, but stepping back and making subtle changes to our current operations might be a better place to start