Hi YATMers, I'm Toby Martin and I do like a bit of air guitar.
I help people to be weird on camera.
To hell with polish, autocue, and the Serious Business Voice that makes everyone sound like a hostage video!
I work with people to be more confident on camera, giving them the gumption to be their true selves on camera, because nobody has ever watched a video and thought, "I loved how NORMAL she was."
I'd like to recommend the whimsical, storytelling comedic stylings of Daniel Kitson, particularly his show Stories for the Starlit Sky, with musician Gavin Osborn. I once saw him do a show in Bristol that was so long, I had to go out for fish and chips halfway through.
Let's make sure we connect today.
Here I am on LinkedIn
Where I work here
One more thing. On 3rd September I'm broadcasting live for 24 hours without sleep. Consider it an extreme stress test of my own advice. Free to watch, and all for charity, that's here.
Being the media today means building a place people choose to return to.
I am returning to an idea that I first put into the world in 2013. I have never stopped working on You Are The Media. It has been a mainstay in my life and have never deviated from what it stands for.
What I have done is adjust it as people, our work and the world around us have changed.
Does You Are The Media mean the same thing today as it did 13 years ago? Not quite.
The Original Promise Was Independence
In October 2013, YATM was my declaration of independence. I wanted to prove that small businesses could build an audience and encourage people to come directly to you.
You didn’t need to rely entirely on someone else’s platform or wait for a gatekeeper/algorithm to decide that your ideas were worth sharing.
Seth Godin said recently, “If you win an auction to get a click, you probably overpaid. Putting attention up for auction is a good business model, for the seller.”
The original YATM message was about taking responsibility for your work and finding a rhythm where you published with the regularity of a magazine.
A lot of this came from my experience of never being picked.
I joined networking groups and associations hoping to be seen and regarded as someone worth paying attention to. It never happened, as the power always seemed to belong to someone else who decided who was worthy of the opportunity.
Eventually, I decided to pick myself, even when I didn’t feel ready.
Many small businesses were in the same position. We depended on paid advertising, press coverage and other people’s audiences to be noticed. Someone else controlled the access.
The greatest sense of ownership comes from pressing send to people who have chosen to hear from you. That remains a powerful place to be.
In 2019, I deleted the entire YATM database by mistake. I had to build it again, from scratch, but the people who were there before were still there when I built everything again. This made me realise that you can build a space where people are willing to stay.
The Idea Worked, The Challenge Has Changed
The barrier to publishing has collapsed.
We can all write, record, design and distribute our ideas. AI has reduced the effort further and raised surface-level competence. We can create more, publish faster and sound assured about subjects we have barely experienced.
AI is not the problem, it just makes everything clearer. Our ability to produce content was never going to be our lasting advantage.
We have all gained the ability to publish whenever we like, but we are not guaranteed attention from anyone. I have learned that access and reach are not the same thing.
I hold my hand up, I have been guilty of sharing on LinkedIn because I could, rather than because it was useful or had a clear point to it. Publishing more does not bring people closer.
The question today is not, ‘how much can I publish’ but ‘why would anyone return?’
Publishing Is The Starting Point
YATM progressed from sharing content to finding ways for people to participate.
Today, much of my thinking is centred on the idea that people should not have to carry the full weight of their work alone. We need other people on our side.
Starting a podcast, newsletter or video series will not create that connection if you have no idea who it is for, why you’re doing it or why they might come back. We cannot rely on publishing to an anonymous audience and expect relationships to appear.
The north star is to build something people can take part in.
Our first YATM Lunch Club in 2016 was not part of a community-building master plan. I simply wanted to meet newsletter subscribers who lived close enough to attend.
The weekly newsletter had created familiarity between us. Lunch Club gave people the opportunity to step into the same room and meet one another.
I loved this idea of bringing subscribers together. People could connect, build relationships and start feeling part of something. Over the following years, people hosted, taught, collaborated, shared ideas and contributed themselves.
The first clear sign of a shared identity came in 2019, when Sue Pilgrim described herself as a “YATMer.” It was not a name I had asked anyone to use. Someone else had recognised an identity and chosen to belong to it. That was when I realised YATM belonged partly to other people.
From 2013 to today, being the media is not about what you send. It is about what happens between people because you sent it.
From Independence To Interdependence
When YATM started, it was about helping people move from dependence on others to independence on themselves and what they can achieve.
YATM today is about what comes next, moving from independence to interdependence.
Independence means you do not need permission from anyone else for you to step forward and say ‘ I am here!’ Interdependence means recognising that our most impactful work is rarely built alone.
The people alongside us help us test ideas, speak with greater confidence, find opportunities and create something we could never deliver by ourselves.
This is why the YATM mantra of ‘more together’ has meaning today.
The most developed form of small business media does not create a relationship between publisher and reader. It’s helping people recognise, support and learn from each other.
We are capable of more when other people are on our side.
Let’s Round Up
13 years ago, YATM was an invitation to stop waiting for permission and to choose yourself. It still is, but permission is not the difficult part.
The harder work is how you earn a place in someone’s week, work and world.
Access helps us be seen. Relevance helps people return. Interdependence is what makes them want to take part.
The goal is not to appear in another channel. It is to build a place of return. Somewhere people understand, value, want to join and would notice if it disappeared.
That is what YATM means today: not another channel, but a place of return.
Share this with someone else 💌
youarethemedia.co.uk/become-the-media/
Time Wasting
Take the window seat on any plane. Look out the window.
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This Week Around The Web
GROWTH, CREATION & YOUR INDEPENDENCE
Has LinkedIn become the new business newspaper? - from Hackernoon
👉 Is LinkedIn the go-to medium for everything to do with business?
Does your website still matter? - from Rand Fishkin
👉 Yes....even in a world of zero click decisions
THE COMMUNITY YOU CAN BUILD
The dream of people coming to you - from Jessica Lackey
👉 You have to go to them first.
Can public media build its own social network? - from Nieman Lab
👉 New habits in keeping people informed and galvanised
GROWING YOUR NEWSLETTER
The reason Substack is collapsing - from Scott Carney
👉 Platfoms have reached their limit in terms of growth and sustainability.
One genius tactic others should steal - from InBox Collective
👉 What more people should take from others
It's good to be back with the YATM newsletter...
I hope you're having a great summer?
I take August off every year and see the world with my family. This year we chose Thailand and fly back to England this weekend.
I've missed home.
Home is not precious because it can compete with Thailand as scenery. It is precious because of the life that is always there.
Thailand has shown me how much beauty exists beyond my doorstep.
Missing home has reminded me how much of what matters is already there.
The normality of the everyday is a special place to be. Alongside supportive and talented people, it's heightened. These steps in Koh Samui sum it up perfectly...
Lunch Clubs return in September!
Cannot wait to get Lunch Club back. If you see a location that is ok for you to get to, make sure you book on. If this is your first time stepping into the YATM space, I promise, we're going to look after you.
For the rest of '26 do more together!
Read more and join us around the lunch time table...
☀️ Lunch Club Poole is Thursday 3rd September on start something
☀️ Lunch Club London is Thursday 17th September on buying into you
☀️ Lunch Club Bristol is Thursday 24th September on the right people
☀️ Lunch Club Manchester is Thursday 1st October on being you
Thailand has been full of colour, have a great Thursday your side...
