In this episode, I talked with Sarah Giffrow, an expert in helping small businesses with their online presences. If you weren't aware, I worked for Sarah's business, Upswept Creative, for a couple of years, and witnessed the similar workflows and software used for publishing, website design, and digital marketing.

It's not a galaxy-brained take to say that the tools that make up those workflows seem increasingly hostile to users—and I'd venture to say both the environment and the economy as well. Completely divesting from every problematic platform isn't realistic for most people's work, but as far as I'm concerned, that's no reason to give up.

Both Sarah and I do our best in this conversation to find a balance between “you have no choice but to succumb to your billionaire overlords” or “smash your phone with a sledgehammer and run into the woods.”

Hopefully, it empowers you to try to nudge your ethics and your tech use into closer alignment.

Welcome to the hybrid pub Scout podcast helping

you navigate the publishing landscape. I'm em Einolander,

and I explore resources and services so authors can be

successful and safe as they pursue publishing. This isn't

the most Galaxy brained observation, but doesn't it feel

like every online platform is growing increasingly hostile. It

could be content moderation issues. X, I'm looking at you

aggressive data collection, thanks, meta or AI, everything,

but currently that whole no ethical consumption under

capitalism thing seems to apply to every aspect of just trying

to do your job. One thing that I read about a couple months ago,

and am to this day still trying to digest I first heard about in

Jane Friedman's bottom line newsletter,

they were the results of the Gotham ghost writers AI writers

survey researchers used survey results from about 1500 writers,

300 of which were fiction writers, and unsurprisingly, the

results showed a huge divide between AI users and authors who

were virulently anti AI. I ended up watching a webinar Gotham

ghost writers put on about the study, and the host spent a lot

of the time laughing nervously after reading responses from

fiction writers stuff like, I fucking hate AI. I'd rather

throw myself in a pit of hungry badgers than use chat GPT for

anything, which is basically what I would have expected. But

one data point stuck out, one that revealed that advanced AI

users had a 64% higher income than non users. That might be a

bummer thing to hear for you, but taking it at face value, it

wouldn't be the first time that people lost potential income

from following their moral compasses. Now, correlation and

causation, as you may have heard once or twice, are not equal. I

hope you've heard it anyway, the researchers were quick to point

out that a lot of these high income advanced users were

probably in the corners of the writing profession that were

paying higher rates. Anyway, copywriters, business writers,

ghost writers, the lucky ones and the like. But speaking as a

ghost writer who is also concerned about the environment

as well as a noticeable deterioration of literacy and

critical thinking. I think that's kind of cold comfort. And

before anyone jumps down my throat, I know that not all AI

is the same. So I'll be specific, these advanced users

are using those llms trained without permission on stolen

works if you're otherwise neutral on AI, that's where a

lot of people hit their moral limit. To oversimplify, of

course, there's kind of a Shut up and take it vibe coming from

different thought leaders, despite the growing signs that

generative AI companies are unprofitable and don't have

nearly the adoption rates they need to change that overall. I

don't want every single part of my workflow to be at the mercy

of companies that don't have my best interests in mind. It's bad

enough that our whole industry hinges on Amazon's whims, and

that whole no ethical consumption under capitalism

thing can be a cop out if you aren't careful, there are ways

for us to adjust our interactions with technology,

even if it's not a complete overhaul. Our digital habits are

never going to be pure, not if we want to participate in

commerce or culture at the scale. Most of us have to unless

you're already famous or have someone to do it for you. You

have to battle for attention on some kind of social media

platform, unless you've got your own distribution or, again,

already have everyone's attention, you're probably not

going to be able to sell much without Amazon, not many books

anyway, and honestly, you're probably actually using AI, even

if you think you aren't. But that's a whole other much more

technical episode that I may or may not write at some point.

There is value in making more ethical decisions when you can

and where you can all or nothing is an unsustainable way to live.

Trust me, I've tried, with all that in mind, I wanted to get

someone on the show who had a little bit of a different

perspective, then you have no choice but to succumb to your

billionaire overlords or smash your phone with a sledgehammer

and run into the woods. A lot of software workflows and best

practices found in design and digital marketing have crossover

to book publishing and, of course, book marketing for a.

Lot of us publishing is a small business, so our guest today,

Sarah giffrow, is an expert in helping small businesses with

their online presences, specifically with website design

and social media. Sarah's path was set in the days of the old

internet after she built her very first web page in the 90s,

she was raised in a tech savvy household, and went on to get a

BS in multimedia design from the University of Oregon. Sarah is

the creative director and benevolent overlord of upswept

creative which was born out of her previous side hustle as a

photographer, where she often found herself seized by the

irrepressible urge to help her photography clients improve

their websites these days, she calls herself a website nerd and

accidental marketer. In her newsletter, the radical marketer

Sarah writes about how to cope with online marketing when

you're trying to survive in a capitalist world. She digs into

online marketing trends and what small business owners do or

don't need to worry about. She guides readers toward building

online marketing habits that feed their missions without

filling the pockets of tech billionaires, and helps business

owners to bring more of the radical acts and ethical

practices that matter to them into their online marketing.

Here's the interview. Hi Sarah. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for

having me. Yeah, I used to work with Sarah back in Wow, 2019,

2020,

it doesn't sound so long ago, and yet it feels so

long ago. I've finally, like, reached the point where it does

sound long ago, which maybe is good, but maybe is really bad.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's starting to but, but, yeah,

time is a weird social construct. Cool.

So Sarah, can you tell us a little bit about

yourself and about your business, yeah.

Um, so I Yeah. My name is Sarah giffrow, and I'm

the creative director and benevolent overlord of upswept

creative and we build WordPress websites and the online

marketing for service based entrepreneurs and nonprofits.

So, so, yeah, we're basically thinking about your website,

your social media and your email marketing for folks who just

need to spend less of their time on their marketing and have it

actually do effective things for for what they're trying to

achieve.

Because marketing takes forever. I just,

you know, I see all these people who are like, this is how you

make 20 posts in an hour, like, you know, five minutes, which, I

mean, come on, that's nonsense. But, like, I spend so long

writing a post that I'm just like, Who are these people and

how do they do this? So, I mean, it's good to have experts maybe,

you know, yeah,

I mean, I mean, note that nobody, nobody who's

saying that says that they're necessarily good posts.

Now this is actually, this is something I thought about

because, yeah, I've been because, yeah, I've also,

a few months ago, started a newsletter called The radical

marketer. And I have found that to be,

I found that to be, you know, decently easy, at least on the

scale of things, to create content for. It's it's a it's

topics that I have lots of things to say about. But like,

yeah,

these past couple weeks I've been like, oh, reflecting on the

end of the year, and I'm writing about different things. And,

yeah, there are just certain buckets of content that take me

so much longer and are just like, it's so much harder to

just like, squeeze the lemon hard enough to get the little

drop of wisdom that's in there. I've been loving the radical

marketer. That's kind of one of the major basis for this entire

interview, is just some of the stuff you've been saying is, to

me, a bit radical. You're not just regurgitating the same

Well, I mean, you're addressing the talking

points that a lot of people are right now, but you're not saying

the same thing as what I'm mostly seeing, and it seems very

realistic but optimistic, which I've been enjoying about tech

and about people's use of social media and the way our brains

work, which is really nice, especially for like,

neurodivergent people. It's it's like, Oh, I'm not, I'm not a

weirdo by myself who can't handle the world.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, it really, I mean, I

think, you know, at the core, I'm just, I'm always, I'm always

going to have that little bit of optimism, like, even if it's

just completely blind. Optimism. It's going to be in there, but,

but, yeah, I think we're just, we're at a point where

everything feels very like, super intense extreme, like, you

know, we're like, late stage capitalism. We're seeing like,

all of the, all of the best and worst things that could possibly

happen. I mean, a lot of them on the worst ends, but, but yeah,

it's, it's sort of the internet is just sort of like that too,

where, like, you'll see, like, the most wonderful, heartwarming

thing you've seen, like, in months, and then like, something

that makes you want to, like, throw your computer out the

window and run away to Alaska in the span of 10 minutes, exactly.

I did see an article last night, and I don't

remember the date on it. Maybe this was a while ago, and I just

missed it. But there was an entire thing about a guy who

invented something that he's been able to get, like, a

million pounds of trash out of the Pacific Garbage Patch,

right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we would never just hear

about that unless maybe we happened to know the guy. But

now we have the internet, and it's literally

a page where it's like, here are some good

things, like, I need to follow this.

Oh yeah, yeah. That is a response to a very, a

very needed thing.

Yeah, so I, this is a publishing podcast.

This is for authors. This is for publishers. And so one I find

that a lot of things that you do overlap with things that I do,

and one of those things is a lot of the tools and processes that

we need to grapple with. You know, whether we're using it,

whether we're not using it, which of them we are using? So

what? What types of digital services do you need to do your

work?

There's definitely a lot of overlap in

those tools, like, a lot of, a lot of what I do in a day

centers around words, like, I, I'm very much about, like, all

right, please, let's have your copy dialed in before we really

start designing this thing. Because so much of design and

marketing is, is, you know, it hangs on, you know, the quality

of the words that are involved. So, so yeah, there's, there's

going to be, you know, word processing, collaborative

document editing, and that's, that's probably the biggest

thing. And then there are visual design tools, certainly, and,

and, yeah, also, yeah, CRMs,

oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's

probably one that you do a lot more than I do at this point.

But I, I guess a lot of publishing business owners

probably have to deal with that.

Yeah, I feel like those are the big ones. And

then, yeah, yeah, social media, scheduling tools in particular,

yeah, that's probably Yeah,

and, and email marketing tools. I mean, there's

just, there's so many tools,

and more and more of them just seem to be

minefields of ethical problems these days.

Yeah, that's, that's the, that's the fun thing

we get to navigation.

So there's the AI encroachment on every single

tech platform ever and and you've you haven't taken that

lying down, I have noticed from what you've been writing about.

So how's that been? What's been your response over time, and

how's that changed? And how do you keep your energy up?

Yeah, it feels like just a bit of vigilance,

because, I mean, it seems like you're constantly having to say,

like, no, please, don't write this email for me. No, please. I

don't want to try your new AI tool, but, but, yeah, I think, I

think I may have been more open to it in the earlier stages, but

I think my opinion has stayed pretty much the same over time,

in that it seems that the AI boosters are really well able.

They're really like trying to push hard into the creative

spaces and and I have a, I mean, I have a huge problem with that,

as you know, someone who does design and marketing, because,

because, yeah, I mean, what people ultimately want to

achieve, particularly with marketing, is, you know, they

want to stand out, and they want to be memorable. And so many of

these llms are just, they're pulling from things that already

exist, and the result is, predictably, just very samey,

samey and, and I really, and, yeah, it's, it doesn't have the

capability of, like, you know, creating new ideas that that

will stick in people's minds. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm very, I've

been pretty vocally against that use of it, because, yeah, I

think we need more humanity in the online spaces. You know, I

saw some like, horrifying statistic about, like, some

online platforms being like, 50% bots.

Yeah, you were talking. You were talking in one

of your newsletters about dead internet theory. And I was like,

do you, do you, like, believe that's true, or

I don't think I'm there yet, but, like, yeah,

it's, but yeah, it's sort of, it was just sort of an alarming, an

alarming realization that, like, you know, yeah, there are

people, like, using bots to achieve certain, often nefarious

ends, and, and, yeah, and we can't, you know, it's, it's kind

of messed up, that this, that this tool that was supposed to

connect us all in this, in this beautiful manner, like, is now a

space where we can't even be certain that we're dealing with

an actual person there.

Yeah, and you have been on the internet back

when it was fun. I mean, I was, I was for a while too, but I

think you were, like, more participatory and, like, earlier

stages of it. But, yeah, I just remember having a good time. It

was dangerous. Sometimes. Like, to to be online, you had to be a

little bit more like keep a good eye out. But I think you should

now, too. And people have sort of lost sight of protecting

themselves online. But I don't know, it almost feels like

giving up to a certain extent, because there's just so much

push to be a certain way and be in certain places, and it gets

exhausting after a while, because you're just trying to do

your work, and you're trying to see what's going on with people,

and, you know, trying to find a concert to go to, or whatever,

and it's just this endless barrage of nonsense. Yeah, yeah.

You know, I'm ranting. I am gonna, I am going to link that

American hysteria podcast that you put in one of your

newsletters about, like, the the troll bots especially, yeah,

that's, that's really interesting. I think I'm gonna

link it in the show notes. I think everyone should listen to

it. But, yeah, oh, I did want to ask you. Said, back when Gemini

was really, like, getting involved and, like, was, was,

you know, I, I don't even know if it's working or not on my

computer anymore. I'm just like, I tell it No, but I still see

it. And you said that you were, you said that you were on the

phone with them, trying to get it off of the upswept drive. Did

that work?

Um, yeah, I think. So I, I went hunting for

the proper toggles in the like, in the Google Admin to, like,

turn it off. And so theoretically, it seems like

that should have done it, but then it didn't. And so I think,

um, I think I came up just short of calling someone where, like,

I had, they had this really circuitous, like, you know,

here's how to contact support and, and it just seemed like an

endless loop. But I did, actually, I ended up having to

chat with an actual person who had to, yeah, toggle some

mysterious things on their end to like, actually turn it off.

So now it's not there anymore. And I love that. It took me the

better part of an hour.

I'm very impressed I did not go to those

lengths. But then there's just one of me. So in your

newsletter, the radical marketer, you've talked a lot of

about divesting from different platforms, and I'd love to hear

more about what that process has been like, how you made the

decisions. I especially want to hear about how you, as a

designer, ditched Adobe. And we have to talk about meta,

obviously, because that's that's been a big one for getting rid

of this year,

yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as pulling pulling away

from Adobe, that's actually turned out to be similar or

simpler than I expected. Yeah, I essentially, I had the entire

Creative Suite. And I think that, you know, as like, the

focus of my business has narrowed, like, the activities

that I've been doing also, you know, narrowed down a little

bit. I essentially had to do some research as to, like, what

else is even out there in terms of design tools. I I've had some

experience with Canva, which has had its uses. I use it with my

team, sometimes, just for, like, collaborative editing, so that I

can design most of a thing, and then my social media manager can

just plug in the necessary words. But it's definitely, it's

definitely not as robust of a tool, but I ran across a. Say,

an alternative called the affinity. So they have a

publisher, photo and and designer apps. And it's, it was

kind of a throwback, because it was, it was back. It was like

buying, you know, the Adobe Suite back in the day. Or just

like, Oh yeah, you pay a few $100 once, and it's yours

forever. Incredible.

I missed that. I was looking at them yesterday,

and it did look like it was a affiliated with Canva. That is

that correct? That I'm sure about it could be. But I mean,

yeah, the issue with Canva for me was just, I was using Adobe

for so long, and I'm used to, like Photoshop and and in

design, that I was just like, where, how do I make a

rectangle? Oh, regular ass rectangle, please.

That was, yeah, that was definitely, like, the

that was definitely the most challenging part of the

transition. I definitely took advantage of the three trials so

that I could, like, get my bearings and, like, actually

make sure that I could actually perform the tasks that I wanted

to perform in affinity. And, yeah, a lot of it was just this

being like, Oh, they use a different word for this function

than what I'm used to in Adobe. Or like, oh, it's open this menu

instead of this menu. So just figuring out where things live,

like, and honestly, you can, you can Google it, find the answer

pretty quickly. Yeah. The the first, the first design piece

that I did in Affinity Designer, I, like, I was very diligent

about setting my timer, and, like, this took about the same

amount of time, and I had not really had a ton of experience

with this app, so I felt like that was encouraging. And at

that point I was like, Well, I think, I think it's, I think I

feel safe clicking the Cancel button on my Adobe subscription.

I think I found the one. So, yeah, so you,

I'm glad to hear that wasn't too difficult. It does seem like

such a monolith that, you know, it's intimidating to try to get

off some of these platforms, but you've talked a lot about

leaving meta as well. Yeah, what's that? What's that been

like for you? But also, like, what's that been like for some

of your clients, if they've tried, or have they tried?

Yeah, I think that, yeah, that's been kind of

interesting and and definitely a more layered issue. We actually,

we actually left our basically have, like, abandoned our

Facebook page. Like, you know, we've put up a bunch of notices

saying, like, here you can find us on these other platforms, but

we're not maintaining an active presence there anymore. And and

for us, that seemed like the right call. It never really been

one of our top performers and, and, yeah, any anymore as like,

more and more users are peeling off of the platform, it just

seemed like our audience wasn't there anyway. So it's, it felt

like it was, it was time to to pull out of that. We're still on

Instagram and and that seems to be doing okay, but I talk a lot

about about disengaging from ads as much as you can, because,

because, yeah, that's that's basically feeding the base

disengaging, like as a user or as a poster,

or,

yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I think it's

been a lot harder to like, unlearn the instinct to like,

click on a thing if it shows me an ad. I like, yeah, yeah. So

it's been like, Okay, I'm gonna go over here and Google it

instead of like, instead of clicking through on this and,

and putting, you know, 20 more cents in their pocket, which,

you know, at scale, that ends up being a lot. But yeah, as far as

client work goes, I think they've there. Haven't, they

haven't made a lot of changes and, and interestingly, one of,

yeah, I think of a client in particular that we have, that

that is a nonprofit, and there's been a lot of like, there's been

a fair bit of like, churn in terms of their following, yeah,

where it's like, oh, you gained like 221 followers this month,

and you lost like 72 but, but, I mean, it's still a net gain. So

you know, in that, in that respect, they're still

performing really well and and, you know, those 72 people were

probably bots, or they were probably, or maybe they decided

they didn't want to be on Facebook anymore. Like this is

it just, there's a lot of like vola. Utility and the numbers

and so you really kind of have to look at them and see, like,

okay, but, but like, Yeah, where are the net gains? Like, where

are we actually seeing results? And they are still seeing

results. So, so yeah, it's, it's felt like the right move for

them to stay the course. But yeah, I I also, yeah, I think

that's been the big thing about a lot of my discussion around

meta is that, you know, I want people to be aware that there

are there are other options, there are other channels. I

could yell about email marketing all day, because they're just

not enough people doing it. But, yeah, but I also want to be

sensitive to the fact that, you know, there are certain tactics

that you know maybe have historically worked, and just

pulling out of those completely is maybe not an option right

now. So, so it's really, I try to be case by case about it. And

you know, we can always, you know, have that aspirational

goal in our minds and and make those incremental changes over

time. But yeah, it's, it doesn't have to be a cold, jerky thing.

And yeah, I also encourage people to, you know, not just

delete everything because they're really mad one day, but

to, you know, plan the departure.

Yeah, that's, that's definitely a risk,

because just so many things happen to make you mad,

yeah, yeah, yeah. I've thought about it often, but

I'm still out here. The cat videos are keeping me in

I did divest from meta in my personal life

and in hybrid pub Scout, I did have to get back on Instagram

with my like author pen name, because I didn't really know

what else to do. And that's something I've been thinking a

lot about with authors. And because there is email marketing

is really, really effective. But there's also that chicken and

the egg thing with your email list, because it's like, how do

you actually get people to join the email list, and there's, you

know, stuff at the back of your book where you can direct people

there, but then it's like, how do they find the book? And then

it's like, Amazon ads. And I'm like, is that really better than

being on Facebook? So it's just this really like net. It's just

a net it's a bunch of tangled things that go together, and you

it feels sometimes like you have to have the right combination,

or you're just kind of dead in the water.

Yeah, and, and that's something I've been

talking about too, is, is, you know, making use of the free

capabilities that are available. So, yeah, if we're not, yeah, if

we're not buying ads from metal all the time, like they've still

made this tool freely available to us. People are using it for

all kinds of things, promote their businesses, to do

activism. Like, if it's out there, if we know we can reach

people through it, then, then I there's, there's certainly an

argument for taking advantage.

Yeah, that's fair. So one thing I thought was

really interesting in that I feel like you're one of the only

people I've seen saying this is, you know, authors, especially

like I've been listening to podcasts where they're being

urged to optimize books, and they're publishing businesses,

if it's a business, rather than like self publishing to optimize

for LLM search engines, especially chat, GPT, but you

said that you're not convinced that that's going to be a long

term thing, like you're you seem skeptical that that's going to

be something that people are going to be locked into, unless

you've changed your mind since the last time I saw you posting

about it, but I love to hear More of your thoughts on that.

I my first thought was to go back to

thinking about what search engines, how they used to work,

and how they kind of do now, in that we've essentially, we've

kind of broken organic search because everyone is trying so

hard to optimize for it. Because, you know, you think

about like, you know, 10 years ago, if you would like Google

something, you might actually get some relevant information.

And if you Google the same thing now, like so much of it is, is

just like weird, click baity, hyper optimized articles from

like directory sites or blogs that that you know don't

actually, that don't actually answer the question you're

trying to answer. It's just that they have all the right keywords

in the right places, and so they're showing up on page one

and and, yeah, and that's just, that's kind of where we've ended

up, where we're we're back to not being able to find what we

need, because everyone is, like, working so hard to, like, get to

page one of Google.

Yeah, no, I remember that was part of what I

was part of my expertise. I put that in air quotes, since this

is an audio medium and.

Yeah. And so I do expect similar to happen with

LLM search. Is that, is that, yeah, once we're all trying to

optimize for that as well, then we're probably going to get to a

similar place where, like, the hyper optimized things that

maybe don't even have any value are going to float to the top.

Yeah. But then I actually tested this out with a couple of

different LLM searches and and did a and basically compared

that with like what showed up in organic search. And so I was

able to basically determine that you don't really have to, you,

don't really have to make a ton of drastic changes to optimize

for LLM search, like the big finding that I came across. I

just Googled things about website, Wordpress, website

designers, something I knew about and but, yeah, I think the

main thing difference there was that it seems like a lot of the

llms were pulling from directory sites, and that's and that sort

of thing. So so I feel like outside of that, a lot of the

same best practices that you are using to rank in organic search

are also going to carry over to LLM search. So, so, yeah, it's

basically not worth panicking over. Yeah.

I mean, I a lot of what I'm hearing is like,

put alt text on your photos and images and write posts about

each of your offerings. And I'm like, That's why haven't you

done that yet?

Yeah, these are all the things that we should be

doing anyway, to be optimized for organic search. So not, not

really, very much has changed ultimately.

So it's less that you don't think it's going

to be a thing down the road, but you just don't think it's going

to be

that different. Yeah, I mean, a little, a little

of both, but yeah, definitely I don't think it's going to be

that different, at least, at least from what I could see at

this point in time.

Are you insinuating about the AI bubble

right now?

I mean, I'm just, just trying to be open to

possibility.

I'm just one person floating in an online

world. Sometimes I'm like, All right, I'm doing my best here,

because

we're all just doing our best.

I was deals with EDS and trans podcast.

Oh I yeah, in measured doses. I get really mad

if I go to

a little stressed out sometimes, so I

feel very like in that bubble all by myself, sometimes alone

in my house, working from home, and I'm just like, ah. Sam

Altman,

he apparently can't raise his child without

chat. GPT, so yeah, as a parent, can you speak to that, oh, man,

that was maybe the most dystopian thing I've heard in a

really,

I honestly though to me, I was just like,

that sounds like a you problem, but when you don't have any

friends,

yeah, you know, I don't, I don't claim to be good

at people, but, but yeah, I've Been able to I made it through

four years of parenting, and I have a pretty happy child.

All right, so I was kind of talking earlier

about the whole the way that we're all trying to create a web

that makes sense for ourselves with the services we use and the

attempting to create funnels or pathways for customers to find

us, or readers to find us, for authors. And you know some of

that has to do with just what's available for free, what we're

willing to pay for, what we are comfortable with using like and

I know that I've been trying to reevaluate a lot of that stuff

for myself lately, and it's so just intimidating, and it feels

like such a big undertaking to try to, like, be an ethical

business owner or, you know, publisher of one or whatever in

the world right now. And so like, when, if someone were to

take a first step into that world of of untangling their own

tech use, like, what would you suggest?

Uh, I mean, I think that there's something to

be said for just looking at things that you're doing in a

day, and how much they how much time they're taking up because,

because, one, I've done that on multiple occasions over the

course of my career, and I feel like I've been surprised every

time. Yeah, yeah. Then you also, you also get a sense of, like,

what, which of those things is actually, you know. Know,

getting you closer to your goals, and which of those things

aren't. So, yeah, so yeah, looking at time and looking at

data, if you're on like, social media at all, you you know there

are, there are statistics available. You can tell how many

people are clicking on things and like, you know how many

inquiries are coming through your inbox. And you know, you

can, you can, at least, like, get a general sense of of what's

actually moving the needle.

So kind of making that, like, cost benefit

for like, how long you're spending somewhere, versus,

like, how much of a return you're getting, or even, you

know, and not necessarily, like, there's, you know, there's the

customer return, there's the ROI, but then there's also just,

like, maybe how it makes you feel,

yeah, yeah, very much. So, yeah, I actually so

one of the one of the offerings that I have is it's more of a

coaching package for for your online marketing, like, one of

the first things that I that I ask in the discovery phase is

just like, what kinds of content do you like making? Because like

it like, for example, you know, I I love writing. I love writing

my newsletter. I love the written format for anything. I

will take it over speaking any day. If you ask me to make,

like, a 15 second video, I will just be like, I can't do it. I

need, like, three weeks to hype myself up before I do this, and

then maybe I still won't like, yeah,

oh god. I heard this woman who was like,

oh yeah. I decided to use Tiktok because I make like, three

videos a day no problem. Like, what are you videoing? Like,

what is this video you're talking about?

I'm exhausted just thinking about, I know I

had to sit down.

I had to take I had to take a breather.

Yeah, you know it's, it's good to plug into.

You know, those those places where you feel strong, in those

places where it's just, it's just really difficult to even

get started because, because, yeah, it's, you know, if you're

having to force it, like, I mean, speaking as an AD, AD,

ADHD human, the executive dysfunction will rear its head

at every opportunity, and

then at one point, you just kind of run out

of energy. Where does that leave you? It leaves you shutting down

your social media accounts impulsively, oops, hey, hey

guys, I'm back. Just kidding. I Hmm, so you were talking about

affinity for design earlier. Can you also share some of your

favorite, lesser known alternatives for like, app,

software, digital services, newsletters, maybe for everyone

on substack, the Nazi website?

Yeah, I have to, I have to shout out Lex Roman,

because I was, I was in a community of hers, and saw her

talking a lot about outpost. So that is where I run my

newsletter through. Has a lot of those sub stacky In

capabilities, yeah. And I think, I think a lot of, I think a lot

of people, more people, have heard of beehive at this point,

then, then have heard of, I've heard of ghost, but I've heard

of ghost, ghost, yeah, I said outpost. I meant ghost. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. Outpost is a tool suite that's that works with,

that works in tandem with ghosts God, and it's yeah and, and it's

super useful for like, all of those, like, welcome flows and

and re engagement campaigns and little things that you that you

like to have when you're trying to maintain a paid

subscribership.

Yes, that's a good one, and then you're still

using Google Drive for most of your assets management and stuff

like that.

Or, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I am just because,

yeah, a, it's there, and B, I turned off Gemini, and C, I use

Google for our email accounts. Oh, yeah, it's just sometimes

simplicity is is a valid motivator.

Yeah, no, that's fair. I agree.

Yeah, yeah. But I think, yeah. I think something

that, something that I'm actually looking to do in

upcoming installments of the newsletters, is looking at, is

looking more deeply into, like, Who's behind various pieces of

software or various apps. Apps. Because I remember, like, I

remember back in 2020, when we were like, in the height of the

Black Lives Matter movement and, and, and I was thinking a lot

about like, okay, what can I do to really like, to really like,

step into like, that, that, you know, diversity and equity and

justice role as a business owner. And like, actually, you

know, take the anti racism a step further. And so I, like,

started looking at, like, Oh, what are all these services that

I'm using? Like, who's actually running the show here? And like,

I was pleasantly surprised to find that, for example,

cowansley was a black owned tech company. I don't know that.

Yeah, so, so that's, that's one to put in your back pocket, but

I got it in my front pocket, but, but yeah, I think, yeah. I

think it's worth educating yourself at least a little bit

about, about about the like, the pieces of software that you're

using, and India, and who, and who's behind the scenes, who's

behind the curtain, and what are they all up to? Because as

ultimately, the most potent way we're going to make our feelings

known and make any changes is to control where our dollars go.

I'm looking forward to that series that

you're going to do, because I would love to learn more about

the people behind these apps, and it will help me a lot with

decision making.

Yeah, that's the goal. I think, yeah, it'll

probably lead me to make a few changes here and there too,

depending on what I learn.

Here's a question, Is there anywhere on

the internet where you're still having a good time?

Whoa, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to say when I think

one of my biggest complaints since, like, the mass exodus

from from Twitter rip the dad, is that I felt like I had so

perfectly curated my my Twitter feeds, where it was like just

this wonderful blend of like things you should know about,

and also random things that are interesting, and also really

goofy internet jokes. And I haven't really been able to

recreate that, since

there's nothing like being on Twitter when something happened

like that was, oh my god,

the main character today, yeah,

but, like, but the good ones, but, like, the

really fun ones that, you know, sometimes it's just like a rage

bait, but other times it's just like, what is happening in this

world right now? This is incredible, but i You can't

bottle that, and I think it's a bygone era.

But, yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I really, I really

have to, you know, I really have to give it to, you know, anyone

who is looking to engage online in a genuine way. I mean, I feel

like, I feel like LinkedIn has been one of the more rewarding

spaces for me over the past year, which, like I would not

have predicted myself saying that, but I've actually, you

know, gotten, like, honest comments and feedback from

people that I like to hear from. And it's, you know, it feels,

you know. I mean, it's all very like, you know, within the

bubble of like, you know, with under the umbrella of work

stuff. But it is still like people are looking to have,

like, genuine interactions there, which I appreciate, but,

but, yeah, I just, I just have to say, you know, to all the

people who, like, you know, want to ask you who you're like, ask

you to name your favorite Nicholas Cage movie, or who,

like, can't shut up about their dog. Like, just, just hold on to

that, because I think the world needs it.

Like, oh, that's thing I like, I remember

now. I think I need to do some more work curating my LinkedIn

feed right now, because the stuff I get sometimes, like,

basically, you're one of the only people that I actually feel

like interacting with right now. I saw a guy today literally say,

Stop posting things that help people and giving away content

for free. And I was like, he literally said, Stop posting

things that help people. And I was like, what is happening? And

I just was like, I am not engaging with it. Engaging with

this. That's what he wants. That's what he wants. He wants

me to click on him, and I'm not going to do it. But my goodness,

that's that attitude is kind of things in a nutshell right now?

People, yeah, oh, we had to. We. Have to fight

that at every turn.

Yeah, it's like, why should I put up

everything I know behind a paywall? Like, that's not how

being a person works.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I love helping people. Why I do

this job?

Yeah, for real, I was like, I don't know if I'll ever make

money doing this podcast. Like, but that's not why I'm doing all

right. Well, where can people find you?

Online? Yeah, so, so the newsletters at the radical

marketer.com and and my services are at Upswing creative.com we

are, we are on Instagram for the moment. We might be in jail

because we like to talk shit about meadow so much, but we're

on there, and we're on LinkedIn, and we're also on blue sky, so

there, yeah, those, those are the, those are the ponds we're

playing in right now.

Sounds good. Gotta play somewhere right now, or you

don't, but that gets lonely, I promise. Yeah.

I mean, you don't have to. That's, that's always the thing

I want to lead with. You don't, technically, you don't have to

be in any particular place.

Yeah, that is, that is true. You don't have to,

but there are consequences. All right. Sarah, thanks so much for

talking to me today. This is really fun.

Thank you. I appreciate the invitation.

You can find both me, M Einolander and hybrid

pub scout on LinkedIn, my website, hybridpubscout.com or

on blue sky at Emily, I know you can email me

emily@hybridpubscout.com and be sure to check the show notes for

links referenced in the episode, as well as ones to sign up for

plotter with the HPS affiliate Code and visit HBs bookshop.org

shop. Thanks for listening. You.