Tone Madison is reducing its social media presence

We want to prioritize better ways to connect with our readers.

We’re not going to be the first to say that social media is generally awful these days. For our small outlet, we’ve come to the consensus that regularly posting and moderating on some platforms takes up way too much of our limited time and resources. 

Moving forward, Tone Madison will maintain its existing accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Bluesky, but post much less frequently. We still encourage our readers to share Tone Madison writing and reporting on their personal Facebook, Twitter, and Bluesky accounts, as that does boost our readership. So please, feel free to keep tagging and referencing us. Some of our editors and freelance contributors are still active on those platforms to varying degrees, too. And as always, we love hearing from you via email: editor@tonemadison.com. 

We will continue to post regularly on Instagram, because that’s where the bulk of our readers and contributors have gravitated and interact with us the most. It’s also the most logical place to tag a swath of our contributors and illustrators to see more of their work. Follow us on Instagram at @tonemsn if you don’t already. 

We have collectively made this decision so we can focus more time and energy on new stories, more events, and more projects to grow Tone Madison. We’d like to put more effort into connecting with you in other ways. First, the best way to keep up with everything we do is by subscribing to our newsletter. We’ve worked hard on it, and we think it’s pretty great! Second, we’re revamping our Office Hours series to be more routine. From this fall onward, we hope to make ourselves available for more in-person, face-to-face conversations. Come see us during our next Office Hours on Friday, October 11, between 5 and 9 p.m. at Giant Jones Brewing. [Note: This event was initially scheduled for October 4, and has been moved back, so please note the new date if you’d like to join us!] 

During Tone Madison‘s summer publishing break, our small staff has been evaluating what’s taking up the most time and yielding the least benefit. Almost immediately, everyone on the team agreed: social media. Conventional wisdom is that online publications rely on social media to reach readers. Due to detrimental policy and ownership changes, Facebook and Twitter have especially become a chore to manage while also playing a much smaller role in helping people find our work. Over the last several years, social platforms have driven less and less traffic our way, while search engines have driven more and more. In fact, direct visits to our website—people pointing their browsers to tone madison dot com like it’s 1998 or something—have increasingly outpaced social media referrals.

We have to admit that social media has facilitated dialogue with our readers. From nuanced conversations to service-industry shitposting to rage-quit meltdowns, the various Madison-specific corners of social platforms have even steered us to some delightful and bizarre story ideas. Our readers are a smart and opinionated bunch, and journalism should never be a one-way conversation. But as the platforms continue to degrade, become more toxic, and more dysfunctional, they’ve become an absurd timesuck. At the same time, the benefits have diminished. It feels like a good time to step away from screens and focus a bit more on meeting people in real life. 

We hope you’ll join us to keep the conversation going and make it richer than ever. And don’t worry: This publication will always be incorrigibly, unhealthily online at heart. If you have further feedback, please reach out at editor@tonemadison.com.