This was a timely read, as I’ve debated switching between Medium and Substack based on how irritated each makes me on a given day - ha!
I’m a designer by trade and familiar with html and css, but Wordpress unfortunately never *clicked* with my brain. I’d probably have gotten more solo work if it did!
I started writing by drafting a Squarespace site, but didn’t know how to get strangers to my content other than IG, which is when a friend recommended Substack.
At this point, I just need to get my sh*t together and bring my relatively small audiences and personal connections to a single place…A bit tough with a mentally fatiguing chronic illness but I’m working on it :-)
Okay so answer me this, because I've put up and taken down the same website for years. I've had my domain, written by writtenbykristi.com forever. It's on Squarespace now but I've stopped paying for it the last year or so because I'm just not sure what purpose it serves besides linking out to all my writing homebases. I guess I just can't justify paying monthly for a website that isn't doing anything except redirecting people. What advice would you give?
I'm beginning to wonder if I should just do this on a Google Site. Not that I want to give Google more power, but then I can streamline it with my Google photos 🤔
woooooooah OKAY, I am so glad you came across my feed! Insta-subscribe. This is something I've been thinking about a *lot* recently. Going to be digging into your work a bit here -- THANK YOU!
I just watched your video regarding “Pika vs Substack,” and I’m a little confused, I think. Are you saying to use a website for projects and Substack to get them to the site? I’m also hearing that using Substack is sufficient.
I’m still new here and have no idea where to start, so my apologies for the noob question.
If you’re JUST starting out, set up a substack to figure stuff out. But as you get clarity on where things are going, set up a website. Send a newsletter via Substack, and point stuff to your website on occasion, like music videos, new merch, etc. Does that make sense?
It can be. I've been in the web industry for over 20 years, and people like to chase new things. There is a place for social, but only a website and a good email list have stood the test of time.
Heck yes 20 year club! For me on the music blog side for 10 years, and the last 10 in email marketing / PR / admin etc... but yeah... always looking for that next new app - BLUESKY WILL SAVE US!
THANK YOU for this. You’ve blown my mind and I’m feeling so inspired. What’s your take on the benefit of a blog like Pika vs. Substack when you are just starting out? Substack seems to have a strong benefit of helping you reach new people, but that sounds a lot like my excuse for not deleting Instagram…
Absolutely love it! I’ve been looking into setting up (another) website and procrastinate over finding the perfect fit. Any suggestions? I worked with WordPress for myself and clients for a while, but all the plugins and the constant updates annoy me (and give me bad anxiety because stuff breaks all the time). Currently I’m exploring systeme.io, but the heck if I know it will still be a good fit in a year or even a month. Everything changes so quickly all the time….
I might need a shop too for my pottery and macrame pieces. And a blog to post my writing, and a site to showcase my VA skills and expertise. You see, I’m all over the place.
Maybe a bit of overkill, but would Shopify work for the pottery? You can set up a blog with that site. Or even Squarespace, since they have shops now built in, and blogging functionality.
VA skills and such - try Notion! I mean, it's a bit wonky, but I bet you could make it work. Or even Carrd.
I currently have a very simple site on carrd. The thing is, I want everything under one roof, not several sites. Easy for me to update, and also showcase my entire spectrum instead of niching down everywhere. Not sure if it's a good idea, but I want one home that costs nothing.
I usually dread working on my biz website because I feel like I’m transforming all the time and I still have the residual 2013-flavored angst about “branding” myself correctly. But you just made something click for me — the website doesn’t have to be meticulous & glossy, it can be whimsical & real. Those are the websites I like to hang out on anyway. Whew! Thank you for that reframe!
“ Set up a private blog for your friends and family to share photos of your kids instead of putting them on Facebook for Zuckerberg to monetize.” - this has been on my heart lately. I want a place to capture thoughts and memories for a legacy. Not 100% sure which site will works best for me. Substack makes sense, but I like how other blogs have tags on the main page.🤔
If I could post a gif here of an audience in applause I would! Every word of this is so spot on, and we were just talking about these issues over lunch here. We’ve been iterating on a particular part of our portfolio website recently and Diana remarked “when the website is done we can xyz.” My response was that the website will never be done. It needs to always be updated, and refined, and improved upon, to look better or work better or convert better.
I’ve been wanting to add something along the lines of a handmade ‘feed’ to our website where we briefly list what was just updated on the site, along with what we’re listening to, or watching, or where we took a walk. This post reinforces that I really need to get that built, so thanks for the push Seth (and the mention of our Meadow site)!
Just looked into this and it sounds like NeoCities is the new evolution of your GEOCITIES (“without the data harvesting”). Very cool that they’re breathing new life into it!
This was a timely read, as I’ve debated switching between Medium and Substack based on how irritated each makes me on a given day - ha!
I’m a designer by trade and familiar with html and css, but Wordpress unfortunately never *clicked* with my brain. I’d probably have gotten more solo work if it did!
I started writing by drafting a Squarespace site, but didn’t know how to get strangers to my content other than IG, which is when a friend recommended Substack.
At this point, I just need to get my sh*t together and bring my relatively small audiences and personal connections to a single place…A bit tough with a mentally fatiguing chronic illness but I’m working on it :-)
You've already got it all figured out (and I made a video for you saying as much haha): https://share.cleanshot.com/fPc76CcQ
A special video just for me? Too cool. Thank you Seth, I’m off to start planning my personal hub!
It’s what I do haha! Go go go!
Okay so answer me this, because I've put up and taken down the same website for years. I've had my domain, written by writtenbykristi.com forever. It's on Squarespace now but I've stopped paying for it the last year or so because I'm just not sure what purpose it serves besides linking out to all my writing homebases. I guess I just can't justify paying monthly for a website that isn't doing anything except redirecting people. What advice would you give?
Everything can burn down tomorrow, then what? Replied via video! https://share.cleanshot.com/1FDtd7K0
This couldn't be more timely! And the clean shot video reply---LOVE
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Cleanshot hahah... and thank you!!!
I'm beginning to wonder if I should just do this on a Google Site. Not that I want to give Google more power, but then I can streamline it with my Google photos 🤔
Yeahhhh I'm doing my best to sneak away from Google with their Google Workspace thing, and YouTube, and Google Drive, and... uggg... they do so much.
Google keeps my life organized. Unlike social media, which sucks the life away from me, Google, unfortunately, makes my daily life possible.
And dare I say, they make it nearly impossible to switch to something else, right?
I know lots of folks who are MARRIED to Google Cal and such.
Guilty! I put everything on there and it helps me keep my family accountable to every single event 🤷🏼♀️
You are FAR from alone!
But still has to be better than my dependence on social media, right???
🤲🏼🤲🏼🤲🏼 love that more folks are spewing to this
Shouting it from the rooftops!
woooooooah OKAY, I am so glad you came across my feed! Insta-subscribe. This is something I've been thinking about a *lot* recently. Going to be digging into your work a bit here -- THANK YOU!
woah hey now! You're super welcome!
I just watched your video regarding “Pika vs Substack,” and I’m a little confused, I think. Are you saying to use a website for projects and Substack to get them to the site? I’m also hearing that using Substack is sufficient.
I’m still new here and have no idea where to start, so my apologies for the noob question.
Thanks for the article!!
If you’re JUST starting out, set up a substack to figure stuff out. But as you get clarity on where things are going, set up a website. Send a newsletter via Substack, and point stuff to your website on occasion, like music videos, new merch, etc. Does that make sense?
I like this post. I always tell people they need a website, not just a social media presence.
It’s a tough sell!
It can be. I've been in the web industry for over 20 years, and people like to chase new things. There is a place for social, but only a website and a good email list have stood the test of time.
Heck yes 20 year club! For me on the music blog side for 10 years, and the last 10 in email marketing / PR / admin etc... but yeah... always looking for that next new app - BLUESKY WILL SAVE US!
THANK YOU for this. You’ve blown my mind and I’m feeling so inspired. What’s your take on the benefit of a blog like Pika vs. Substack when you are just starting out? Substack seems to have a strong benefit of helping you reach new people, but that sounds a lot like my excuse for not deleting Instagram…
Maja - I made a whole video to answer your question here - basically, it depends on what your goals are! https://socialmediaescapeclub.substack.com/p/stand-alone-blog-or-substack
Seth, thank you. So so grateful for your Substack as a resource to start this journey without total dependence on Social Media!
Absolutely! You can do this.
Absolutely love it! I’ve been looking into setting up (another) website and procrastinate over finding the perfect fit. Any suggestions? I worked with WordPress for myself and clients for a while, but all the plugins and the constant updates annoy me (and give me bad anxiety because stuff breaks all the time). Currently I’m exploring systeme.io, but the heck if I know it will still be a good fit in a year or even a month. Everything changes so quickly all the time….
Do you just need something static? Notion Sites could be good. I think I'm switching my main work website to that from WordPress
https://www.notion.so/product/sites
I might need a shop too for my pottery and macrame pieces. And a blog to post my writing, and a site to showcase my VA skills and expertise. You see, I’m all over the place.
Maybe a bit of overkill, but would Shopify work for the pottery? You can set up a blog with that site. Or even Squarespace, since they have shops now built in, and blogging functionality.
VA skills and such - try Notion! I mean, it's a bit wonky, but I bet you could make it work. Or even Carrd.
I currently have a very simple site on carrd. The thing is, I want everything under one roof, not several sites. Easy for me to update, and also showcase my entire spectrum instead of niching down everywhere. Not sure if it's a good idea, but I want one home that costs nothing.
I usually dread working on my biz website because I feel like I’m transforming all the time and I still have the residual 2013-flavored angst about “branding” myself correctly. But you just made something click for me — the website doesn’t have to be meticulous & glossy, it can be whimsical & real. Those are the websites I like to hang out on anyway. Whew! Thank you for that reframe!
RIGHT! Make it as whimsical and real as YOU ARE, so you get hired to show up 100% full you!
“ Set up a private blog for your friends and family to share photos of your kids instead of putting them on Facebook for Zuckerberg to monetize.” - this has been on my heart lately. I want a place to capture thoughts and memories for a legacy. Not 100% sure which site will works best for me. Substack makes sense, but I like how other blogs have tags on the main page.🤔
Not sure if you can make Subtack private, though. WordPress and SquareSpace you can make private, by adding a password to the site. It can be tricky!
You actually can set a Substack to private mode. Just FYI.
You can make Substack private but you would have to manually approve the users.
YES to all of this. Plugging my cute website here: https://firstsaturnreturn.com/
heck yes, cute website!
If I could post a gif here of an audience in applause I would! Every word of this is so spot on, and we were just talking about these issues over lunch here. We’ve been iterating on a particular part of our portfolio website recently and Diana remarked “when the website is done we can xyz.” My response was that the website will never be done. It needs to always be updated, and refined, and improved upon, to look better or work better or convert better.
I’ve been wanting to add something along the lines of a handmade ‘feed’ to our website where we briefly list what was just updated on the site, along with what we’re listening to, or watching, or where we took a walk. This post reinforces that I really need to get that built, so thanks for the push Seth (and the mention of our Meadow site)!
Yesssss! Make the site a place where your friends and family and fans will want to visit a few times a week to see what’s up! Love this!
Love this! Would recommend checking out NeoCities as another web builder. Similar ethos :)
Just looked into this and it sounds like NeoCities is the new evolution of your GEOCITIES (“without the data harvesting”). Very cool that they’re breathing new life into it!
Oooh I love it
Hey now, that sounds like GEOCITIES which is where I built websites for bands back in like 1996 or something! hahah