Writer, musician, wizardly guide to platform independence
Noah Kalina used another HUNTERTHEN track for his ambient videos. Stunning shots, ambient sound, and I just love hearing Noah in the woods with the sound of rain and thunder in the background.
Definitely go subscribe to his new ambient channel KALINA.
Before social media, we had the blogs, right? The forums. The websites.
Getting traction meant being mentioned on any of them. You wrote something, someone else liked it, they linked to it.
This was actually my job in 2008 when I was working in Audience Development at AOL.
We had writers who wrote stuff, and then we emailed relevant sites (well, blogs) so they’d hopefully link back.
This was a long process. We were basically fucking cold-emailing the editors of these sites! We had to make reports and shit.
Along comes social media, where “everyone” sort of rushed to because blogs were getting bought up by megacorps, plastered in ads (CPMs were going down down down), and drenched in SEO slop (we’ve had slop now for decades, long before AI).
The thing I’m getting at – was while some folks benefitted from the early social media days – traction, eyeballs, listens, etc. it was inflated. It was artificial. The bubble had to burst, and I think we’re seeing that now.
Things existed before “everyone” was on social media, and now we’re going to have to figure out how to do that again.
We can’t rely on 10,000 people seeing a thing. We need to get 50 people really into what we’re doing before we hit 100.
Fuck a Square Space, fuck a newsletter, fuck a social media platform and just freaking write, preferabbly on your own domain or least something you pay for so you can export yoru work if it ever goes belly up.
Fuck the full-width photos. Fuck the buttons. Fuck the H2 tags.
We’ve spent hours everyday posting and consuming social media content. Now it’s time to get radical. Reverse thrusters and lock in the auxiliary power. Pull the emergency brake and abort, it’s to get back to blogging.
Every new blog post is a signal to the reader, the curious visitor. There is no confusion, there is no navigation, there is THE FIRST POST.
It’s the menu, it’s the directions, it’s the manual – we start here. Today, this first post. This is where we start today.
Don’t like it? Scroll down, there’s another post. Not for you? Take a hike.
I guess I could say this blog is a failure for not landing me some big giant six figure client or whatever, but I’d say it’s a success because it’s fended off any shit-ass hiring manager from hiring a ding dong like me and that’s fine.
This blog is a signal. This is me. This is what you get. And it’s not ever video!
But the blog serves a purpose. Each post is like an email to the universe, a signal saying “this is what you get.”
Some might be curious and dive in. They might even email you.
Otherwise all those busy, cluttered, slow loading square space sites are just bogged down with static photos, text that was written three years ago, and a bunch of buttons to “sections” where it’s just more of the same.
Fucking write on your blog like your life depends on it because I’m thinking right about now it does.
Join me (Seth Werkheiser) for a 90 minute interactive workshop on the endless decisions that come with running a newsletter in 2025.
Should you import your list to Substack?
What should you put in my welcome email?
Which analytics even matter?
Should you switch platforms?
What the heck is SPF/DKIM/DMARC?!
Instead of writing, we’re getting lost hours in CSV files and platform settings instead of actually connecting with your readers.
Wednesday, August 27 from 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM EDT
More info here: https://lu.ma/uqrfb65q
“We don’t need more noise. We need space to listen—even to fall asleep. That’s radical in a world obsessed with productivity.”
Kamal Sabran, from “When Modular Synths Met Sufi Mysticism: The Space Gambus Experiment.”
I’m not even sure what part to quote from Alex Danco, but we can start with this:
Winning, for bloggers, means writing the reference take on a good topic. My favourite example of this is how Byrne Hobart broke out with his piece on the 30-year mortgage. It’s kind of surprising that this kind of post had such influence – it’s wonky, it’s not written for a general audience whatsoever. But it turns out that people think and talk about their mortgages a lot, and like to feel competent when they do. Reading that piece equips them with a kind of legitimacy to speak on the topic.
This under the header of Blogging is a trade, which I love seeing in the year 2025.
There is power in blogging, in writing, in text.
Everyone can put text on a screen in 2025, but not everyone can write. And if you can write, you’ve got options. From a blog post, to an email, to a text message – so much of it comes from the years blogging, of publishing on the web.
“This is the great secret of writing in public: the writer and primary audience both put in effort (to pack and unpack the idea); and they jointly reap the rewards, which is the legitimacy earned when the idea gets subsequently retold verbally to the wider secondary audience.”
Sadly, in the year 2025, some stupid ideas have won, but the good ideas spread, so it’s time for a lot of us to spread some more ideas. Not thoughts. Not hot takes. But ideas, ways to get out of messes, to move forward, to build a world we want to live in.
“We are not worried about the meme situation,” said photographer Antonio Guilliem in a 2017 interview with Intelligencer.
I’ve been on a lot of Zoom calls this week with my Escape Pod offering via Social Media Escape Club.
I remember being exhausted from scrolling through multiple social media channels everyday. Twitter. Instagram. LinkedIn. Back to Twitter. Over and over, throughout the day.
I would spend hours every day posting, replying, sharing, DMing, ping ping ping. All day long.
Now I spend hours every week with people who are engaged, filled with the energy of making good work.
Oooh, a wonderful resource of SLASH PAGES:
“Slash pages are common pages you can add to your website, usually with a standard, root-level slug like
/now,/about, or/uses. They tend to describe the individual behind the site and are distinguishing characteristics of the IndieWeb.”
Thanks Mikey Seay.
More record label clients would be great for my bank account, but I also know what it’d do for my sanity. Most industries have systems, but some just never manage to to get out of their own way.
Like Seth Godin says, “Choose your customers, choose your future.”
I attended his Freelancers Workshop many years ago. The biggest takeaway – get better clients.
“It’s possible, but alas, unlikely, that better clients will simply appear. That outsiders will realize how hard you’re working and will show up. Alas, while it may seem unfair, it turns out that you don’t get better clients simply by working hard. It’s much more productive to take the steps necessary to attract them and keep them instead.”
It’s true for clients, it’s true for fans, it true for customers.
