Hey Reader,

If you’re reading this, there’s a 55ish percent chance that this is your first edition of Fyreside. If that’s the case, welcome! If that’s not the case, welcome back! I don’t usually call out when I’ve had a bump in subscribers, BUT I MORE THAN DOUBLED MY LIST LAST WEEK.

Do you realize how insane that is? If you were my boss and I came to you and said “Hey boss, I more than doubled my output last week, is that cool?” you’d lose your mind. Honestly, you’d probably need to go home and change your pants. You’d hold an all-hands meeting to tell the whole company. You still wouldn’t give me a raise, but that’s because we live in a capitalist hellscape where employee value is no longer linked to individual contribution, not because you’re a bad boss.

The point is, I did something “right” last week. I put “right” in quotes for a reason, though. See, what I did “right” was, in fact, doing everything “wrong.” That’s the internet in 2025: a place where “wrong” = “right” and things no longer work the way you expect.

WTF Happened?

Great question, glad you asked.

Last week, I made a post on my personal Facebook and LinkedIn. Same post on both outlets with 2.5 sentences and a link to this newsletter. Importantly, I did not ask people to subscribe. In fact, I didn’t even mention what the newsletter was about. I didn’t list out the benefits of subscribing or offer any incentives. I didn’t include a juicy pull-quote from the newsletter. I didn’t even schedule the post for an optimized publish time or comment on it from another page to get the engagement going.

TL;DR: I went to a brewery where all of the best social media marketing advice was on tap, and I asked for a bud light out of the well. Now I’m drunk and my tab was only $4.

Y Tho?

Someone on LinkedIn actually called me on my shit, and quite frankly, I don’t blame them. Unfortunately James, I’m better at this than you. The reality is, I knew this would work. I didn’t expect it to be nearly as successful as it was, but I had faith, and not just because I’m better at this than James, but because I know how social media works.

Social media doesn’t care about you. Facebook doesn’t want your business to fail or succeed. LinkedIn doesn’t want to show or hide your newsletter. Social media doesn’t care about you. Social media just wants people to use it more. If this is news to you, go read this book I wrote about it.

So What?

I said the Internet is broken, and I mean that. If a product requires you to go against what is intuitive to use it successfully, that product is either broken or a bad product. (I’d argue that the internet is both broken AND bad, but that’s not the point.) It is silly that, to grow this newsletter, I had to intentionally market it poorly, but that’s what the Internet wants. The Internet doesn’t want my keywords, it wants content that encourages people to click buttons. We can’t change the Internet, but my hope is that we can change our understanding of it.

Everyday, I yearn for the 2007-era internet. I want to come home from school and pull up a YouTube video so I can watch it in 2 hours after it buffers. I want to cycle between fifteen different web pages with names like AlbinoBlackSheep and YoureTheManNowDog. I want to spend 5 minutes online without hearing the word “algorithm,” but it’s 2025 and I can’t. That’s not what the internet is anymore.

Now here’s a hard pill to swallow, just like we can’t go back to the 2006-era internet, we can’t go back to the 2017-era internet either. Social media marketing isn’t the game that it was 10 years ago. Do you think Carter would get his Nuggs in 2025? Hell, do you think any hashtag-based campaign would succeed in 2025? Social media no longer exists as a churning sea of content where anyone and anything can rise to the top. Social media is a machine built to maximize ad revenue. That’s bleak, but it’s true.

So, if that’s true, what should we do? My suggestion is to stop putting the Internet and Social Media on a pedestal. Value these things the way they value you, use them when it’s beneficial for you, and log off as soon as it’s not. Because if the Internet isn’t going to change, maybe it’s our perception that’s broken.

-MC

p.s.

• I've got a PHAT blog coming this week that breaks down the analytics around the above post. Stay tuned if that interests you.
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Being an Influencer vs. Social Media Marketing Repeat after me: Those are different things. Watch the Video

Cat video. Cat video? Cat video!

I've been working with Community Care Connections for nearly a year and we recently decided to try posting employee profiles on their social media. Last week, one of their employee profiles received a combined 156 likes and 24 comments! That's a totally free, super successful social strategy that's bringing them TONS of applications. Congrats CCC!

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