Category: CommunityCategory: Community

Bryan Patton of As The Story Grows runs a successful podcast and deleted his social media accounts.

Bryan now has more time to work on his podcast – he’s doing 2-3 episodes per week now. That means 2-3 more times per week, a band or label or fan could post about the interview on their social media accounts, and someone could discover his podcast for the first time.

LESS TIME ON SOCIALS, MORE TIME FOR ACTION

I joined Twitter in 2006. I was one of the first 3,000 people to sign up for it. But I deleted my Twitter account this year, and now I have time to start hosting weekly Zoom calls with subscribers, which leads to better newsletter posts like this (I hope).

There are only so many hours in a day, so I use them in a way that gives me joy.

Here’s a few things you can do instead of spending hours a day doom-scrolling, or posting to socials for the “likes:”

Email/reply / DM a fan – delight a fan, give them a reason to talk about you with their friends

Work on your art – imagine 10+ extra hours a week honing your craft

Email key people – there are people out there who could help your project flourish (or replenish your soul) – find a mentor, a coach, or someone who’s been down this road already

IF YOU WANT A MAP, VISIT A GAS STATION

There’s no clear-cut way to get off social media and keep promoting your project, but there’s a direction you can travel.

I’d say you’re on that path if you’re reading Social Media Escape Club.

You can follow people like Cody Cook-Parrott who quit Instagram:

“I have had to completely unhook from the algorithm because I have never had lower social media engagement. I have 80K+ followers and often get 300 likes on a post.”

Listen to the Off The Grid Podcast, which is “for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients.”

Reach out to Bryan and ask him how he left social media, or email me (my email address is at the bottom of this post).

Businesses were built before social media. Bands released vital albums before hashtags. Art and photography existed before Instagram.

It’s scary stepping away from social media, I know. But it doesn’t have to be black and white – you don’t need to delete your social media accounts to be part of this club.

We’re all just trying to figure it out.

Writing this newsletter has been a solo endeavor for about two years, but I’ve switched that up in the past month by starting weekly Zoom hangouts to talk with subscribers about social media, online marketing, and (usually) cats.

I’ve walked away from those calls each week feeling stoked, and used our discussions as starting points for upcoming newsletters.

I do this because I can’t know all the answers, but we learn together.

In a recent video chat, Josh from Úzkost talked about playing a show in a mall.

Whether it’s something like Beth’s Introvert Drawing Club or Josh and his band Úzkost melting faces in a mall, the people in front of you provide the energy.

Do your best to find those people.

They might be in quiet cafes or calm Discord servers or… malls. I’ve met some fantastic people on Twitter earlier this year and by signing up for some online courses.

Maybe your people are waiting for you to carve a space for them.

From The Creative Shift by Dan Blank:

Back when I used to manage a bookstore and cafe in the 1990s, we would run multiple events each week. What would make a great event? 20 people attending. Even an event with 8 or 10 would be a success.

Imagine that your website is a place of refuge for your fans.
Your newsletter is a ray of sunshine for someone.
The magic you create helps someone get through bad times.

HINDZ brings calm and peaceful vibes with his YouTube videos. He’s carved that niche for himself, and it’s beautiful.

Make a space for what you do with your website, with your newsletter – the essential online spaces that you can own and control.

Your website can be more than YouTube embeds and Bandsintown tour dates.

Your newsletter can be more than tour JPGs and BUY NOW buttons.

Trust me – your biggest fans will appreciate it.

We have to do marketing, I know.

But how are we fostering community around the things that we do? How does it affect change and expand culture? How do we foster a creative and vibrant space with our work?

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.