METAL BAND LAUNCHES EMAIL LIST

Elder lost access to their Facebook account with 78,000 followers back in early November because of an “external ad account that was hacked that had admin privileges did not have it enabled.”

Since then they’ve been keeping in touch with their audience via Instagram, and in the past week sent out this post:

This warms my black metal heart!

In the post they wrote, “we’ve become too dependent on social media as our only way of getting our news out to you lovely people. Without paying these companies massive ad money, there’s no reliable way of getting through to you, even if you want us to.”

Sign up for their newsletter here.

Some of the comments are magical, too:

“Never signed up for a newsletter faster in my life!”
”So many bands/venues/promoters don’t do this it’s crazy!”
”Old school is best”
”Smart! We are signed up!”

Elder hit #1 on all of Bandcamp for a bit, with well over 700 orders as of writing this (Dec 7, 2022), and they did it with:

• 43K Instagram followers
• No access to their Facebook since September
• No Twitter account at all

High fives to the Elder team, yowza!

OPEN UP THIS PIT

It’s time to get your fans on your email list before you get randomly locked out of your social media accounts.

Like I wrote about a year ago, “Your 2022 is going to be a bloodbath if you rely 100% on socials to keep in touch with your fans. Especially if you lose access to any of your social accounts.”

Seriously – what’s the plan if you lost access to one of your accounts tomorrow?

• Can you still announce your tour?
• Announce a new album with your media partners?
• Release that video you’ve been working on?
• Promote your new merch line?

Get your fans on social media to sign up for an email list while you still can.

ANTI-SOCIAL

Some conformationally-biased articles to get your heart pumping.

• “Twitter will no longer enforce its COVID misinformation policy,” which pairs well with “THE LONELY ROAD: TOURING DURING COVID.”
• “8 Ways to Grow Your Email List With Facebook”

• “Changing standards and financial instability are making disabled users of Twitter anxious they may lose a valuable tool for connection and advocacy.”
• “Arnold’s Bar & Grill’s Facebook account was hacked over the weekend,” and “Zingerman’s Deli back on Instagram following hack.” Neither have much to do with music, except the whole “we rely on social media to communicate and market to our fans and customers,” which is very much like what we do in music.

🏁 METALLICA’S SOCIAL MEDIA SPEED ZONE

Metallica have slowed their social media pace since last week, when they posted over 50 times after announcing their new album. Since Monday:

Twitter: 2 posts
Instagram: 2 posts
Facebook: 2 posts

One post warns about “Crypto giveaways,” which is a bummer.

The other is a native video upload of James Hetfield talking about the meaning of the new ‘72 Seasons’ album title:

Facebook (Post): 303,000 views
Instagram (Reels): 2,400,000 views
Twitter: 165,500 views
YouTube (Shorts): 36,000 views

If James can take a minute to make an explainer video, so can you. Plus now he doesn’t have to answer this question in any upcoming interviews, either! WIN/WIN.