Category: sethwCategory: sethw

I have good news, and I have bad news.

The good news is the vault is open, and by vault, I mean social media.

You’re still able to link to your latest video, or a new song, or ask people to join your email list.

The bad news is that you can only swipe a few dollars at a time from the vault.

That post got 7,927 views.
Revolver has 416,600 followers.
2% of their followers saw it (and 98% didn’t).

Revolver entered the vault, and with a 2% click rate, they walked out with about 130 clicks.

At 5%, that’s 400 visits to their website.

The vault is open, so they keep posting.

Carter Vail has 211,000 followers and got 400 people to pre-save his song, which means just 0.1% of his fans pre-saved his new track.

The vault is open, so he keeps posting videos and making music.

I had about 2,600 Twitter followers at one time, and got four people total to subscribe to Social Media Escsape Club.

PERSON BY PERSON, DRIP BY DRIP

You might be interested in getting away from social media, and thinking that you can pull a lever and all your followers will magically sign up for your email list, or start visiting your site.

Linda Bloomfield moved her #OpportunityTuesday from Twitter (with 16,500 followers) to Substack in late 2022, and got 1,200 people to subscribe to her newsletter from one Tweet.

There should be studies on how well that worked. And it’s still just 7.2% of her Twitter audience.

But again, the good news is that the vault is still open.

Take what you can get.

Make it as simple as possible for your fans to subscribe to your email list.

Streamline the f*ck out of your landing page.

You want as few distractions as possible.

Less options.

Make it so easy to understand that a person can’t help but give you their email address.

A few notes about your landing page:

• Include your photos, your images, your logos, your branding. Do NOT let your landing page have any sort of DEFAULT look.
• Explain what they’re signing up for. Avoid the boring “sign up for updates” text – that’s for car dealerships and Kohls. Think of all the things you post on socials – I bet subscribers would love to see more of that!
• Don’t ask for a lot, in fact I recommend just asking for an email address. No need to go overboard with last name, city, town, zip code, phone number – you can ask for that later when you’ve developed your email list!
• Send a welcome / thanks email afterwards (if possible). You can use this email to link back to your website to watch your latest videos, or see your newest products.

There’s a few ways to build a landing page. Some are simple, and some more feature rich. Some are free, some will cost you a bit. Here’s some I’ve worked with over the years:

• Substack – (Free, then 10% if you turn on payments) they give you a pretty basic WELCOME page, which just asks for an email address, and if people have signed up for other Substack newsletters, their email address may already be filled in!
• Flodesk – ($35/mo) They offer some nice pre-built designs, and you can automate all sorts of responses.
• Tally – (Free) Can be bare bones, and provides a nice THANK YOU page when people sign up.
• Mailchimp – (Free up to 500 subscribers) A standard in the email marketing industry. Can be as complex or as simple as you make it.
• Your own website – Squarespace, WordPress and lots more offer some built-in ways for people to join your email list.

If you’ve got questions about any of these, get in touch!

1. Clean up your “link in bio” links – seriously, there are some messy ones out there.

2. Update your social media header images – use a photo you’ve taken, or find something for free on Pexels

3. Promote someone doing good work – like my pal Bariann Tuite Smith, who is crushing it lately!

Social media can be a full-time job – if you let it become a full-time job.

Let me explain Parkinson’s law; “work expands to fill the time allotted to it.”

So if your online marketing plan is just, “ehh, whenever I get to it,” great – you’re now a full time social media person.

After all, you’ve set no boundaries or limits. You get to always think about social media, and fret about if you’re doing enough, and if you should post something.

“Oh man, I haven’t posted on Facebook is weeks!”

Instead of that amateur-hour nonsense, set up a plan that fits your life, since you probably have better things to think about than social media.

Open up Google Calendar, we’re going to create an “editorial calendar.”

If you’ve got a new song coming out, put that in there.

Now, plan a social media post two weeks before that date.

Then seven days. Then three.

Oh, the new song is out! That’s another post.

Now, plan a post for three days after it comes out.

And seven days.

And 14 days.

Your numbers may vary, but you get the point.

Go into Twitter, write out your posts, include an image, and schedule them.

Use Facebook’s Business Manger thing and do the same to schedule posts on Facebook and Instagram.

Congrats! That’s the bare fucking minimum to have a seemingly active social media presence, and 95% of bands in your scene can’t be bothered, so you’re a star.

But what about when you don’t have a new song coming out, or a new tour?

Figure out what major holidays are coming up, then plan a post around something that matches the vibe and feel of your creative endeavor.

57 days til Halloween! Spooky things! Horror movies!
79 days til Black Friday! Special deals!
112 days til Christmas!

You get the idea.

Or search “[genre] albums released in 2013” and find albums that are 10 years old (or 15, or 25).

Write about your favorite albums on your website, link to it from you social media platforms, and in your newsletter.

For example, ‘Surgical Steel’ from Carcass came out September 13, 2013.

Instead of just writing your homage to this epic album on Instagram, put it on your website instead.

Then, on September 13th, tell your followers on socials to read you post on your website (that’s what Loudwire will be doing).

Send the link to your email list, too.

You can do that with movies, books, shows you went to, albums you’ve released, and all sorts of various other milestones you’ve had in your career.

Now, when you sit down and write out these ideas, it makes your “content creation” a lot easier, and the job takes less time.

You’re not just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks. Instead, you’re being deliberate.

You can take an hour a week, write some stuff, schedule it, and be done. DONE.

Then, since you’re putting out solid stuff, it just makes it easier for your audience to click, comment, react, and subscribe.

And it’s also how you keep from making social media your full time job.

Found Publish Something Online via the Naive Weekly newsletter.

I remember visiting the old Asterisk Studio website and hearing the guitar loop of ‘Bullet to Binary’ from Me Without You, so this must’ve been 2002 or 2003.

Yeah, auto-playing audio on a website is typically frowned upon these days, but for Asterisk (now Invisible Creature), it worked, especially for that era, the early internet.