So I’ve been thinking a lot about the biggest challenge for us in the coaching/consulting space.

I’m curious if you’d agree, but here’s how I’d describe it:

If we don’t want to follow the Gary Vee model and chase free attention on social media, what’s the best alternative medium to put our content in front of people who don’t know us?

There’s no easy answer, but when I look at the landscape of content marketing, a few things are high on the list

Podcasts (both as host and as guest)

YouTube

Substack

(Of course, platforms like Pinterest or Twitter might be better if you have the right niche audience.)

Since I already have podcasting pretty much on autopilot, I’m experimenting with YouTube and Substack.

Here’s how I’m thinking it’s going to work.

I’m launching an official MicroFamous YouTube channel, where I’ll cover shorter topics related to turning your expertise into a lifestyle business without spending all day on social media

I’m launching an additional podcast featuring conversations around life-changing books. Podcast episodes will mostly have guests, a mix of emerging thought leaders and some names you’ll know

I’ll follow up those podcast episodes with shorter “piggyback” videos on YouTube where I pull out my takeaways. I’ll sprinkle in 1-2 clips from the original podcast episode to highlight the podcast.

ALL my content gets published on Substack, from stand-alone articles to podcast episode summaries.

That allows me to publish several times a week to Substack for people who want to hear from me more, without hitting people in my list who didn’t sign up for that frequency.

You can see the Substack blog in its current form here: https://microfamous.substack.com/

I’m liking what I see so far from Substack on it’s customization options and how clean and readable the posts are when put into email form.

Now let’s turn to YouTube... Why YouTube?

Well, first, YouTube was part of my original success with Real Estate Uncensored.

We got great traction from YouTube between 2015 to around 2018 when we shifted the live show over to Facebook for good. 

We put about 4000 emails into our list for free based off of people finding our search-optimized videos and clicking over to a simple lead magnet page. 

Now, whether I can reproduce that level of success in today’s environment, and use YouTube to build the podcast audience for MicroFamous as well, remains to be seen.

But the discoverability and optimization tools available on YouTube are just too good not to explore.

And being there allows me to keep experimenting with building a cross-platform “show” - where certain forms of content go to YouTube and other forms of content go to the audio podcast.

That might be the near-term future of podcasting, at least until Apple and Spotify get their act together and catch up to YouTube in their analytics and insights.

Now this is just my answer to a set of questions I’ve been asking myself, and they might be helpful to you too.

So here are the key questions:

If my business grew from the systems I already have in place, what sort of content would I produce just for the fun and enjoyment of it?

What are the platforms where I could put my content in front of new people in an authentic and sustainable way?

What platforms allow me to pay to promote my content, so I’m not forced to rely on social media to drive traffic or reach new people?

What platforms allow me to...