Category: sethwCategory: sethw

In bummer news from earlier this week; the band Elder had their Facebook account hacked:

A commenter asked if they had Two-Factor Authentication turned on, and the band said they did, but an “external ad account that was hacked that had admin privileges did not have it enabled.”

🚨 Got an external ad account hooked up to your socials? Check your shit! 🚨

As I wrote last year (from ‘WHAT’S YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA LOCK OUT PLAN?):

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.

It pains me that so many bands, brands, artists, and creative individuals are losing touch with their audience. If you’re lucky you’re reaching 5% of your fans.

That means if you have 3,000 followers, 150 of them will see your next post.

So heck yes, being able to tell one social media audience that another social media channel has been hijacked is good and all, but these are still rented spaces, and you’re reaching a fraction of your audience, so most of your fans will still be in dark.

So here we go, here are your FOUR THE WEEKEND tasks:

1. Double check and make sure you set up 2FA for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and just about every other service that is critical to your operation.
2. Start an email list, or dust off your old one.
3. Figure out the URL that you can post on socials that’ll let people subscribe to your email list (also called a “landing page”).
4. Buy this damn Elder record, for real.

QUICK BITS:

“Just because digital marketing is largely fleeting, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sweat the details when it comes to copywriting, design, conversion, and automation.

It’s the old “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” adage.”

From Andrew Donovan’s newsletter ‘Thanks For Unsubscribing.’

“So I started doing long-form stuff, and like any other YouTube person who’s been at this for a while will tell you, sometimes it does well, and the algorithm, for whatever reason, turned in my favor around three years in, and I got like 40,000 subscribers in the course of two months, and I hit 100,000 subscribers. That was super cool. Then it slowed down for a while…”

Neat interview with the Samurai Guitarist about his journey to a million subscribers.

GOOD TWEETS:

Does the Oreo cookies social team just Tweet out, “hey, we’re available at your local Target?” Heck no! Meanwhile, rock and roll is 10,000 times more awesome than junk food and we’re just posting links to streaming services.

If you won’t listen to me, listen to Vince from Metal Blade.

Megan Thee Stallion launched a website with a killer URL: badbitcheshavebaddaystoo.com

The closest thing I remember in the heavy metal world is that Killswitch Engage timeline website they did back in 2020.

Even without a team or label behind you, you should do something similar.

With a SquareSpace site and a couple of photos you can create a website devoted to your latest project, and make it a legit destination for your fans to eat up.

If mental health is your thing – highlight that.
Or ending domestic violence, or maybe you’re all about suicide prevention.

If you love horror films, science fiction, fantasy, Star Wars – make sure your fans know it.

If you’re waiting for media outlets to do that work for you, good luck. Do the work now, tell your story, promote who you are often and always.

This way you build a fanbase that appreciates what you do and who you are.

Then – on occasion – you get to promote your work. Your new song and video now makes sense, since you’ve spent months building the story and inspiration behind your work.

QUICK BITS:

“You want people to care? Then give them something to care about.”

From Good Fucking Design Advice.

Tonight I watched a live stream as NASA aimed a spacecraft at an asteroid at 13,000mph, then I went outside and looked at Jupiter and a few of its moon with binoculars some 367 million miles away.

And you’re posting “check out our new video” without a screen shot, or crediting the director?

Fuck, 70% of your audience won’t even see your social media posts, and you’re competing with this:

Oh, you got riffs? My dude, I got 50+ years of riffs.

GOOD TWEETS:

My buddy Ben (@blackmetalbrews) bringing the heat, and yes, ‘… And Justice For All’ still rips.

Cover smaller bands, crickets. New song? Mild applause. Someone covering ‘Enter Sandman’ on kazoo? MASSIVE TRAFFIC. It’s a race to the bottom, and I sure a glad I don’t run a music site these days.

QUESTION. I never saw the point of sending an email newsletter when I get better interaction on socials.

MY TWO CENTS: Social media was built to fuel that rush of LIKES and RTs that we call engagement.

You post something, and within minutes someone clicks LIKE. Then another.

Look at that – you got this ONLINE MARKETING thing covered!

But now you’re staring at your phone four hours a day (or more) to “maintain engagement.”

Me? I’d rather spend those hours honing my craft, creating, reading, being out in the woods. I bet you could be taking photos, writing songs, composing, designing.

And I’ll bet you that your link click numbers are much smaller than your LIKE numbers, right?

And how many times did you post an announcement, and then weeks later someone leaves a comment, “oh wow, I didn’t even know about this!”

Yes, you get LIKES, but they’re probably coming from 30% (or even less) of your fans.

What if you could include links to the things you’re trying to sell and promote without being limited by weird rules (no links in an Instagram post), or algorithms?

You can still be on social media, just don’t live there! Use it like the billboard on the highway and drive interest and curious fans to the locations that you own (your website, and your newsletter).

1. Post that cool photo from the show, the event, of your new product on Twitter and Instagram. But post more photos on your website, or in your newsletter. Stop giving all your marketing assets to social media companies!
2. Take your Twitter rants or lengthy Instagram captions and put ‘em someplace that you control. Chances are MOST of your fans never saw your posts.
3. Do you really want to make Reels? Or start using TikTok? Email newsletters work, and so do websites (it’s where all your fans buy concert tickets and merch and read music news).
4. Text will always rule – not everyone can watch your video, or listen to your podcast. But text is easily consumable (fine, except when you’re mowing the lawn), and easily shared.

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QUICK BITS:

“Newsletter growth — or any organic content growth for that matter — isn’t about any one thing. It’s about doing a lot of little things correctly and sustaining that effort over time.”

From ‘The Truth About Growing Your Email List’ over at ‘Thanks For Unsubscribing.’ You can follow my advice and start an email list, but if you just Tweet once or twice for people to sign up and do nothing else, well… it won’t go anywhere. We’ve all be on social media for YEARS (I’ve been on Twitter since 2006). Growth takes time.

“We’re obviously in the pocket, after a year of heavy touring. Our cockiness is on full display when we were invited to sit for an interview with Dave. You’re just kids, aren’t you? he said. We’re babies, you replied. All three of us grinned.”

Tell fucking good stories. Write them down. We’ve got decades of experience and we’re shrinking ourselves into tiny bits on social media every 14 minutes for seventeen likes. Pour your stories and your wisdom into places that you control, that you own, where you control the branding and the experience.

GOOD TWEETS:

People click on things that interest them. So you can still be on socials, but throw a link out there to your own thing – not just an interview on a media site, or a Spotify Playlist. Embed those things on your own site, include a few words about it, and link to THAT. Stop sending all your fans to the food court.

The year 2005 or so was the height of the music blog explosion. Having started Buzzgrinder in 2001, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just wanted to write about bands that I thought the “bigger sites” weren’t covering.

One day I checked our stats and was surprised to see our post about Warped Tour dates had like 10,000 views in a day, which was huge for us!

Turns out if you Google’d “Warped Tour Dates 2005” our site was near the top of the search results.

I had no clue, but I that’s how we found out how SEO (search engine optimization) worked.

And this is something I stress to all my creative clients – find it out by doing stuff, don’t try to figure it out.

We can plot and scheme and think we have a handle on things, but then when it’s out there in the real world, it’s not ours anymore.

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Before we launched Noisecreep in 2008 (other names we were considering at the time included Vection, Bedlam, and Crank Pit), I wrote out a whole schedule; Tuesdays will feature thrash! Wednesday will be doom! Thursdays will be…

Yeah, then we launched and that went right out the window, and it was entirely okay. We did very well without a rigid schedule like that.

All that to say – you don’t need to plan and figure out a perfect email newsletter strategy. You just need to start it.

Filmmaker Noam Kroll recently wrote (in his newsletter) “How To Not Finish Your Film” (subscribe here):

1. Be a perfectionist
2. Don’t set deadlines
3. Wait to be inspired to work
4. Be afraid of what people will think

The same can be said for starting your email newsletter, or dusting off your old list.

Just like writing a song, or shooting your first live show, those first few

So pick a name, and commit to sending something as often as you can muster, but start something this week, not next year.

You’re going to FIND OUT what works before you FIGURE OUT what works.

Your fans will let you know.

QUICK BITS:

“Just because everyone is telling you to take the highway, doesn’t mean you can’t take the side roads to get to where you want to go.”

From Maria Bowler’s email newsletter. Just because everyone is saying you need to be on TikTok (even though you haven’t posted anything in Twitter to your 1,943 followers in a year), doesn’t mean you MUST.

“Comparison anxiety is a common phenomenon that can be heightened through our access to the lives of others via social media. Seeing a rose-tinted view of another’s life may lead us to believe that everyone else is happier, richer, or more successful than we are.”

Don’t compare and despair – you’re right where you need to be (via Ness Labs)

It’s not IF Instagram implodes and you stop posting there someday (just like Facebook, and probably Twitter), but WHEN. And when that day comes, you lose access to all those fans that clicked “follow.” Today’s the day to start up that email list.

QUESTION: I had a large mailing list it got 10% open rate / 1% click rate and was far more work than social media. So same reach w/o reaching new fans. Is it worth it? Younger crowds don’t even do email.

MY TWO CENTS: With a 10% open rate and a 1% click rate it just sounds like people were getting an email they didn’t care about.

Is there a hack, or technique, or process you can implement to fix that?

Yes. Send better emails.

This might mean that your email isn’t for EVERYONE. You can’t impress EVERYONE, not even all your fans.

Some love you and will buy your all your stuff, and some will like occasionally like your Tweets. There’s a difference.

So don’t tell your fans you’re sending out UPDATES. You’re an artist, a guitarist, a photographer, a painter, a writer, a producer – and you’re telling me you’re selling your magic as just “updates?”

We’ve got enough brands to “follow” and get updates from.

1. Maybe save some of the 9000 image you give away to social media companies every day and use them as a “lead magnet” for your email newsletter. Sort of like, “like these? Join my newsletter for more.”
2. Tell a story. Remember, you are someone’s HERO. You’re an inspiration. So tell some stories about who you are, and how you got where you are today.
3. Low number of clicks? Sell it with more than just “watch my new video,” or “listen our new song.” Include screen shots from the video, or an animated GIF like this one I made of Slash from ‘November Rain’!
4. As for “younger crowds don’t even do email.,” pop star Olivia Rodrigo recently sent a hand-written note to her email list, and it’s not on any of her socials (as of me writing this). So do something special for your fans! Anyone can include a fancy designed “new album, pre-order now” square image in their newsletter – but what can YOU do for your fans that no one else can?

Stop shoveling all your creative energy into social media platforms that will someday implode and leave you with nothing. Use your existing social audience to build your email newsletter audience, so when these companies disappear, you’ll still have access to your fans.

QUICK BITS:

“Our reach on social media is basically terrible… we’re going to run flash 50% off sales… the codes will be send to all of our newsletter subscribers.”

Church Road Records started doing their own order fulfillment (due to rising costs), and they’re looking to grow their email list because reaching their fans on social media is hard – even when you happen to be in a band as big as Employed To Serve!

“It’s rarely a single tactic that drives growth. Over time, if you do a lot of little things — creating good sign-up pages, making it easy for readers to share newsletters with friends, testing out both on- and off-site acquisition tactics, etc. — you’ll have a good chance to grow a big, engaged newsletter list.”

This bit from ‘Not a Newsletter: A Monthly Guide to Sending Better Emails’ rings loud and true. It’s the things you try, tweak, stop doing, try again, and figure out along the way that will get people on your email list.

“In the future all advertising gets replaced by content creation.”

I loathe the term “content creation,” and the idea that “all traditional brands are gonna die,” is pretty bold – BUT… I think of someone like Craig Reynolds of Stray From The Path and how he’s doing amazing things with the Downbeat brand, and it’s all driven by… Craig Reynolds.

Which leads to…