Over the past few years, I’ve watched the social media trends around ESG go from boring webinars that no one watched to Glenn Beck’s paranoid delusions through to scaling those delusions into a misinformed and maligned political movement. Still, I could count on Twitter to learn and participate in the ESG discussion.
For an ESG practitioner or thought leader, the platform is difficult to stay active on. I know it is a poorly governed company with actively harmful governance and mishandling of stakeholders, from employees to customers. Ironically, Twitter’s handling of Revue’s shutdown brought me to Substack in the first place.
Yet, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately on Twitter, and you may have seen it too. Searching for any topic, especially ESG-related topics, brings up the most polarizing viewpoints and positions. Where I used to search Twitter for thoughtful commentary, it now appears few and far between. I suspect, like me, most level-headed people have scaled back out there. For a platform critical to keeping my sanity during COVID and allowing me to meet new people, this breaks my heart a bit.
And so, while there are other social media options like LinkedIn (still great for learning and engaging), Mastodon, and Post.News, I was excited to see a new contender launch with Substack Notes.
Looking at the launch through Twitter’s ESG missteps
Since I look at Twitter through an ESG lens, I thought it would be interesting to look at the Substack Notes Introduction article, which contains its purpose and features from the perspective of Twitter’s ESG missteps.
First, Notes isn’t meant to be a Twitter clone but to encourage content discovery across the platform. It also can be used for shorter engagement and quick questions, which is how I plan to use it. However, unlike Recommendations, which promotes another Substack, you can include anything “—including posts, quotes, comments, images, and links.” But, so far, we’re still at Twitter clone.
But quickly, things change towards stakeholders and governance.
Substack’s model isn’t like most social media, where endless attention grabs and advertisements are the goals. Instead, Substack’s content creators are paid directly for the content they deliver.
The ultimate goal on this platform is to convert casual readers into paying subscribers. In this system, the vast majority of the financial rewards go to the creators of the content.
It’s almost a reversal of what Revue had been doing, being added after Twitter.
This takes the material function of Substack and extends it out as another platform to draw more revenue for the content creator (or stakeholder). I’m interested to see how this affects the budgetary operations of Substack if this takes off, though. That operational and functional review of finances needs to be done at the highest levels, tightly monitored, carefully adjusted, and clearly communicated. After all, storage is cheap, but it isn’t free.
Contrasted to Twitter’s ad-based model, which has faced struggles due to the controversies surrounding the platform, has leveraged a long-tested model for revenue. While Twitter is now attempting to pivot to profitability through massive layoffs and paid verification, it is uncertain whether the trolls will ultimately be the end of that platform.
And speaking of trolls. Shortly after this, Substack notes that:
…we will focus on building a system that lets people control the contours and boundaries of their subscription universe so that it is easy to keep trolls out and even easier to let valuable contributors in.
It is unclear how this will be done, but stakeholder management and digital identity are complex. Twitter had been handling the latter through verifications, which admittedly did have issues before the now-infamous subscription model. Still, stakeholder risks include anonymity, freedom of speech, impersonation, and much more to consider here.
Notes will survive and grow from Stakeholders and Governance
I’ve been looking for a place to engage ESG novices, practitioners, and experts, and I’m wondering if this just might be it. Still, I’m not the only stakeholder who would drive this platform’s success. You, dear reader, are also a stakeholder in this new model, as the success of Notes depends not only on content creators but subscribers and participants.
So far, I’ve been enjoying it, but I hope the development cadence moves quickly and thoughtfully. That is a Governance challenge to be sure. One way to help this effort would be to check it out and join the conversation!
Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber to The ESG Advocate, you’ll automatically see my notes. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around!
I’ll hopefully see you there!