Category: CommunityCategory: Community

Instead of being lonely content machines, we can do cool stuff with good people to help build a vibrant community of people around whatever we’re doing.

In a recent Social Media Escape Club hangout, 

Beth Spencer discussed her method of collaborating with artists.

Beth’ Introvert Drawing Club welcomes a guest co-host, the community grows, and everyone has fun – it’s perfect!

This isn’t a “growth hack” or shortcut, though – this is work.

It’s getting away from the “follow me” game, and getting into the “let’s do cool stuff together” mindset.

Because cool people doing cool stuff together can lead to fun things.

For example, I met Laura Kidd earlier this year on Twitter. We connected over our shared appreciation of email lists and a disdain for social media (ironic, I know).

Laura suggested we do a video interview, so we set up our cameras and microphones and made it happen.

Laura shared what she’s learned as an independent artist and emphasized the significance of maintaining an email list. I talked about my experiences with newsletters and online music marketing.

This one interview led to my largest bump in subscribers in the two-year history of this newsletter (thank you, Laura).

Again, bring good people together, make fun stuff, and watch what happens.

Marisa Dabice of Mannequin Pussy talks with Karly Hartzman of Wednesday on the Talkhouse Podcast.

In this chat, these two friends talk about touring, and specifically about how unusual it can feel to perform—and how that can lead to actual tears on stage, not the most fun experience. They chat about the difference between Mannequin Pussy and Wednesday fans, and about the pressure to enjoy your success while it’s happening.

Fans of Mannequin Pussy are going to read that and find out all about Wednesday, and vice versa. See how that works?

Kathryn Calder (of The New Pornographers) talks about making music with Mark Andrew Hamilton (of Woodpigeon) as Frontperson:

What I love about writing together with Mark, is that he always has really interesting ideas, I really trust his taste, and he comes up with ideas I wouldn’t think of. I used to be a little bit more strict about what I wanted things to sound like, and Mark loves keeping the character of sounds, and something I’ve learned to embrace more from working with him is just because something isn’t exactly perfect, that doesn’t mean it needs to be redone. Sometimes the small imperfections are part of what makes something really special.

Dancer and musician Mikayla Geier dropped a short film to accompany her latest single.

She had help making this film from a director/cinematographer, someone scored it, someone else did the animation, and she had help writing it.

And while I don’t think anyone reading has aspirations of being the next Mr. Beast, I think it’s interesting to hear how obsessed he was about figuring out YouTube with a few like-minded people.

I’m not saying you need to Skype your pals from 7am to 10pm everyday, but a 30 minute Zoom call with a few people to “figure things out” couldn’t hurt (see below).

Bring good people together, make fun stuff, and let’s see what happens.

Flip social media from “come hang” to “you missed out”

The creative community is a wonderful thing, which is why I’ve been hosting mid-week 30-minute Zoom calls with subscribers.

Click play below and hear how a bit of conversation and creative energy led to a fun realization for DJ Shotski, and how to promote her passion for polka in a way that feels sustainable and pure.

Yeah, I think what I’m getting from this conversation is an answer to a question that I’ve been chewing on for a couple of days. Seth, thank you so much.

My mission is to try to get to find people who like this (polka) like I do, but also to inspire younger people, and more people to like this music, that’s so much a part of the history and culture of our state. Right?

So I have the benefit of having this weekly radio program, that now is about to have a ton of potential reach all over the State. Very exciting.

Like, what if, instead of saying, “Here’s an album of the week, like, here’s a spotlight. Look at this cool record. It’s this physical artifact. It’s neat. It’s got a cool picture. It’s got something interesting on the back about the artist. The song is really cool. I want you to tune in, social media people. I want you to tune into my radio show and then maybe sign up for my emails.”

Like, what if I flipped it? What if it was my website, or my email subscriber, saying, “You get to see on Thursday what the highlight album of the week is.
So when you tune in on Sunday, you get to hear the record that I’m talking about.”

Right! Give your most exciting content to the people who’ve already bought in FIRST. They signed up, raised their hand, and said I WANT YOU – so give it to them!

And then social media post is the same content, it’s just a post to say, “Hey, look at this thing that I did last week. My subscribers already heard about this, that’s why they tuned into the radio show. You shouldn’t miss out. You should subscribe because this community that I’m building are people who get this, who love this music, who are inspired by this, and who love the same things that I do right.”

So instead of social media being the thing to try to trickle people in, like – flip it.

Social media is the last thing you share about something that already happened. Don’t miss out. 

I’ve been saying this for a while, “don’t leave your magic at the food court.”

You make all those cool videos and assets for social media, but your website hasn’t been updated in months and doesn’t reflect one bit of the show you’re putting on for platforms that don’t even let you reach your entire audience.

Flip the script – treat social media like a billboard (h/t

Dino Corvino), and drive people to your online space, where you control your messaging, branding, and vibes.

What happens when you cold-email a bunch of radio contacts about your blackened death metal band?

In the case of Úzkost, vocalist Josh Thieler explains how it led to a memorable house show (and so much more).

Click play, it’s a wild story.

Josh explains how the magic has continued over the years:

“My understanding is, so the college radio stations started playing us and then one of these kids have like, graduated college and then started their own web radio stations. And so then they’re playing us on those, and then other people hear about it, and they’re playing us on their stations. And then some like real legitimate, like the one local radio station here, the Big Rock one has played us multiple times on it, which makes no sense to me.”

The band has gone from 200 Spotify followers to 2,800 as result.

As most of us know, it’s not just about unit sales and DSP playlisting:

“The last show that we played here, a mom brought her 13 year old trans daughter, and it was her first show she had ever been to,” says Josh. “And she’s like, I love you guys so much. And she’s like, bought each shirt, bought every record that we had. And she’s like, I want to play metal someday. And I’m just like, how did this happen?”

During our chat, Alex asked “what would you say would be an actionable tip from this experience that you would pass on to other people?”

“I’m learning that I know less than I did the day before. So try as much as you have energy for, don’t discount the things, you know, Seth pushes emailing lists and stuff. Do that. It’s easy to set up.”

Josh also dishes the age old wisdom for any creative person – networking is vital, but in an honest, organic, kind way.

“Just talk to people in bands. Talk to fans on the internet when you can, when you have the energy for it. Talk to people that write for different sites. Then, like I said, don’t discount any of the things that we look at as dead from the past, like mailing lists, radio.”

That’s the thing – you gotta start somewhere, but you gotta do it at your own pace.

“It’s obnoxious to like start this whole thing by yourself out of nowhere and just be like, okay, here’s everything. Let me start trying to do everything at once and collect all these different contacts and everything. Start somewhere, and you just keep doing it. Once you gather those contacts, it’s super low effort to just send a press release, you know, and you can use the same press release for your emailing list, you know, of fans that you send to your PR contacts and that includes all the radio people that you can find.”

None of this is a magic fix. Emailing your local college radio station this week might not be the answer – you just never know!

And if you’re not in a band, take this concept and run with it.

Maybe it’s not hitting up college radio, but maybe there’s a local print weekly, a flea market, a record store, a DJ night.

This is all built on people, on relationships. Build those up, and see where it goes.

Listen to Úzkost on Bandcamp.

Harriet JW’s clients are doing unconventional things to get their songs heard (via LinkedIn):

My buddy Dino Corvino got me listening to WORRIERS.

Not because of a song, or a music video, but because Lauren Denitzio replied to a comment or two on TikTok.

Dino (he writes Skateboarding on their Altar) has seen it all, so when he tells me something like this, I listen.

I’m a fan now, and maybe a few people reading this will go see WORRIERS on tour, or listen to the new album ‘Trust Your Gut.’

Don’t get stuck playing the “GET A MILLION NEW FANS” slot machine, dumping a bucket of pennies onto social media, and playing it safe with mullet marketing.

Commit to some dialogue with your fans a few times a week at least.

Does it scale?

Fuck scale, make your fans feel something.

When’s the last time an artist made you feel something?
Let me know in the comments, or reply to this email!

This from a Chris Dalla Riva piece called ‘Your Followers are not Your Fans.’

“Your followers – and maybe even your listeners – are not necessarily your fans.”

Riva goes down the rabbit hole of how Spotify plays and TikTok numbers don’t always translate to ticket sales.

Social media vanity metrics don’t always translate to real world fandom.

People who “like” a post probably won’t buy your album, sign up for your course, join your email list, or share something with their friends.

Many followers like you, but they don’t LIKE-LIKE you.

A “follower” starts at the very top of the “marketing funnel.”

Moving the follower down the funnel is an adventure.

One does not simply turn this casual fan into a customer overnight.

Customer. Subscriber. Student. Client. Whoever you’re trying to bring into your world.

You probably know this because of the very few followers that even see your social media posts, very few click anything.

So in our SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE PLAN journey, we’ve been doing a lot of ATTRACTING (at the top of the funnel).

Our next move is INFORMING.

Nobody knows everything you’re doing.

Most of your followers don’t know about your next course, your next photo session, your next tour, your new shirt.

They don’t know they can subscribe to your cool email list.

Here’s some wild things you can do:

➡️ Reply to someone who leaves a comment with a link

➡️ DM someone and let them know about your new project

➡️ Email someone directly

➡️ Make personalized videos with Loom and send to fans (like this):

You can directly reach followers, all while watching Ahsoka on a Tuesday night, or watching the Jets season implode in just 75 seconds.

It’s hand-to-hand combat from here on out. It’s gonna take time, and it doesn’t scale, but it can help move casual fans to people who absolutely love what you do.