While I have my share of bad things to say about social media on here, I’m still fairly active on most networks and plan to be for the foreseeable future. I suspect some of you found this post via social media, and that’s great!
In the long run, though, email is where your followers need to be. Not that email is great, per se, but you can truly own your list and that is hugely valuable. David Perell calls this taking your users over the Public to Private bridge.
Rand Fishkin recently laid this out in a very compelling (and somewhat depressing) post about the state of the web, and what creators need to be doing. In that post, he included the thought:
I’d rather have 1 new email subscriber than 1,000 more followers on Facebook
It’s amazing to me that email is again becoming one of the best ways to reach people, but the numbers don’t lie. Continue to use social media to the extent you desire, but do your best to continue to grow your list.
If you’re reading this through my email list, thanks! If not, I certainly welcome you to join me here.
