For tech it's twitter, for lifestyle it's instagram, for search it's google, for conspiracies it's facebook, for gen z it's tiktok, for gen x it's media. Whatever way you slice it, Other People's Audience is the fastest way to grow.
This no longer exists. You need Twitter in perpetuity. If for some reason you’re banned from Twitter (often there’s no reason at all) there goes an entire career and audience you’ve built for years.
If Facebook bans you because you think vaccines have microchips you don’t lose your income. If Twitter bans you because you said something mean you’re dead.
The good news is that there's this robust, free, and open protocol you may have heard of: email. I can hear Gen Z laughing at me already. "LOL, Gen X grandpa, why are you yelling at clouds? And what's 'email'?"
Yes, email. Build your subscriber list via email. Nobody can cancel you or take that away from you.
For a newsletter at least, this definitely isn't true.
For context, I'm the cofounder of SparkLoop — a referral platform specifically for newsletters.
We see thousands of newsletters growing 5-50% monthly with referrals (and more if they do other marketing stuff).
Except this doesn't work for Substack users, because Substack doesn't support tools like ours.
The problem isn't that "you can't grow a newsletter without Twitter" — it's that "you can't grow a Substack without Twitter".
Just choose a better email platform and the problem disappears.
Not coincidentally, they're the two only media that are delivered by open protocols.
Tell it to Josh Rogan.
He's a geopolitics writer that was, ironically, interviewed by Rogan about the lab leak hypothesis, but he's not banned from Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshrogin
Neither is Rogan, btw, but he's not posting any of his controversial takes there.
"- Tell it to Evel Knievel"
As if Josh (Joe?) Rogan is representative.