Category: Email MarketingCategory: Email Marketing

➡️ Look, it’s not you, it’s… the algorithm. More ammo to speed along your Social Media Escape Plan.

The bit below is from Ryan Broderick who writes Garbage Day, and he’s more plugged into the internet than you or me:

Catturd has been shadowbanned by the new Twitter algorithm. Luckily, Elon Musk is taking time away from his many lawsuits and looming bankruptcies to look into it. We have to stan. I will say this, like Catturd, Twitter engagement for me is also gone. It has also affected Garbage Day traffic, but in ways I don’t totally understand just yet. But it does seem like my conversions to paid subscribers have essentially flatlined since the algorithmic feed was switched on.

➡️ Yep. My Linktree traffic is at the same amount of views, but clicks are up from 29 to 33, about a 14% increase.

My “link in bio” strategy has sent me about 10-17 clicks here to HEAVY METAL EMAIL, and led to two sign ups. Alas, I’ve gotten 36 sign ups from direct traffic and the Substack network, so whatever… social media is dead to me.

➡️ Speaking of a different 

Link in Bio, they’ve got a great interview with Senior Social Media Manager at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources Rachel Terlep, with lots of insights and gems like this:

When a tweet starts to blow up, and we slide a landing page link in one of the replies, we see 900 link clicks where we used to see 50.

Sure, you need a Tweet to “blow up” first, of course, and they have a full time staff to implement such tactics, but it’s a pretty neat idea. Read more about their “venus flytrap strategy” right now.

➡️ Jim Merk (brand director at Eyebuydirect), when talking about Instagram in 2023, “we just want to know that the content that we build and create is going to be shown to our followers, organically. I think that’s the wish of everybody.” Keep on wishing!

➡️ Love this post from Lauren Nicholas from Big Spaceship:

No magical number of hashtags or carousel frames is going to spark engagement. There’s no time to post that all of a sudden will make people see your content who weren’t going to see it before.

Social is algorithmically driven. And more and more, that algorithm is reading to how people react to your content. Especially on TikTok, the first few people who see your video decide its fate. If it causes them to stop, watch, engage or share — you’re off to the races. If it is something they swipe right past — that’s that on that.

Music is magic. Photography. Writing. Painting. Managing. It’s all magic.

And if you’re posting on socials and sending out emails, you’re working with magic too, friends. Keep it up.

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➡️ Facebook might lift their Trump ban (Twitter,too?), while also sort of letting US border militia groups use their service to attract new members.

➡️ Twitter killed third party apps last week with no heads up, while “physical attacks in US have tracked with Twitter spikes in some categories of hate speech.”

➡️ “I think we were overfocused on video in 2022 and pushed ranking too far and basically showed too many videos and not enough photos,” said Instagram head Adam Mosseri.

➡️ Oh, all your hardwork on growing your TikTok channel? Eh, “TikTok confirms that its own employees can decide what goes viral.”

Search for a band on Google in 2023 and you’ll probably get these results:

Wikipedia.
Twitter.
Spotify.
Lyrics site.
Rate Your Music.
Bandcamp.
Bandsintown.
Metal Archives.
Another lyric site.

Without a website, you’re letting your fans wander the internet wasteland in search of your magic spells.

Below are the last 30 days of Wikipedia page views of a semi-active band with no website (I’m not saying who):

That’s 3,022 page views that you could’ve been on a band’s website, where fans could have:

• Bought an album or shirt
• Signed up for your email list
• Bought a ticket to an upcoming show

Having a website means controlling your story with a bio, linking to official merch (or selling it directly to your fans), and collecting email addresses to build a relationship over the next few years.

Sure, maybe that 3,022 isn’t 100% accurate, but even if it’s just 1,000 page views, I’d sure as heck take it.

And if you don’t take it, the shitty lyrics site will.

WEEKEND TASKS

Here’s four things you can do before Monday that might help.

1. Do a Google search for your brand / band / service and see what comes up. If you’re not at the top, get to work!
2. Don’t have a website? Get one. Take a few hours and set up a Square Space site with your logo, photos, and links. It ain’t much, but it’s a start, and you could have it done by Monday.
3. Oh, you don’t have a domain name? Head to Hover and buy one today (that’s a referral link).
4. Read my interview with Matt DeBenedictis, the Manager of Compliance from Mailchimp, and learn how to make sure your email marketing campaigns don’t end up in the Promotions tab (or worse).

➡️ If you’re the person doing socials for a company and the main draw is YOU, be careful.

From ‘Social Media Managers Are Becoming the Main Character,’ over at Link In Bio:

Are you being paid like a social manager or are you being paid like the face of a brand? More traditional faces of brands that you see in commercials can reportedly get paid from $250K to upwards of $1M per year. I understand TikTok is different, but there’s value beyond social strategy that a company is getting by using your likeness to build their brand.

I also think protecting yourself through a talent contract is important. Things like exclusivity, term, and paid usage could all be things that are negotiated here.

This might not be applicable to bands, but maybe for labels, or people working at media outlets.

➡️ Did you spend time working on the whole shopping integration on Instagram? Well surprise, “Instagram is kicking the shopping tab out of the home feed.” Facebook (the owner of IG) says, “you will still be able to set up and run your shop on Instagram as we continue to invest in shopping experiences that provide the most value for people and businesses across feed, stories, reels, ads and more.”

Sure!

➡️ And are fans watching your music videos? Jesus Christ, no, they’re watching something called YouTube Poops (from Garbage Day):

[VIDEO REMOVED]

On short-form video apps like TikTok and Instagram, a lot of channels try and game the algorithm by combining random video clips and sounds to catch users’ attention. The video above is a good example. It’s the video and audio from a scene from Family Guy, stitched together with footage of a pleasing sensory video and a playthrough of mobile Temple Run-style game.

And this also Garbage Day (yes, Garbage Day is a great read) :

The line between meme or internet trend and spam has never been particularly clear, but I think A.I.-generated content trends make it even blurrier.

This video, which is just AI generated still images and a royalty free track called “Labyrinth Of Lost Dreams” from Darren Curtis Music has over a million views since Jan 5th, 2023.

Aren’t you glad you spent $5,000 for your latest music video?

➡️ On a more serious note, “two Seattle area school districts are suing 5 social media companies,” accusing them of “harming students’ social, emotional and mental health.”

I’m not trying to be all “oh, stop using things that might lead to bad stuff,” because then we’d never use a bank, drive a car, or shop at a store.

But dear lord – our social media posts appear alongside auto-playing videos of police brutality, racist remarks, transphobic screeds and 100 other horrors, every minute of the day.

Set up your website, start your newsletter, and build your own quiet corner on the internet. We have all the tools and systems for becoming our own media empires.

Kiana Tipton recently posted her social media predictions for 2023 on LinkedIn, including this gem:

As concerns about the TikTok Ban increase, creators will prioritize owned channels + become more cross-platform (are we reentering a modern blog era?)

I think the solo efforts like Gawker and Wonkette and Just Jared (my memory is a little hazy, this was all a long time ago) are due for a come back.

Services like Ghost, WordPress.com, and Substack let you upload native video (see how I did that here), allowing creators to own 100% of their experience and branding and vibes, without platform lock-in.

And they’ve also got monetization tools built in, so you don’t have to send your fans to other sites like Patreon or Kofi in order to make money.

Yes, there’s still a place to post content on all the social channels (while the impression rates are still hovering around 2-3% hahaha), sure… but as billboards, directing fans to come to your site to experience more.

If you’ve been following along, I’ve leaned pretty hard into the “link in bio” strategy to promote this HEAVY METAL EMAIL and avoid the ire of social media algorithms.

Alas, the last few days I’ve seen zero traffic to my LinkTree, even though I’ve been posting to Twitter, LinkedIn, and IG stories. I’m sure I’m in some social media purgatory right now.

But that’s okay.

In this same time (Dec 15 – Jan 15) I got almost 1,000 views from Substack, Google, or direct traffic, and 32 new subscribers; that’s a 3.2% conversion rate, and all I had to do was… keep writing.

So keep writing, friends!

Hit me up if you have questions or ideas (seth@socialmediaescape.club)!

From ‘Inside the Baffling Revival of the Cassette Tape’ over at Rolling Stone:

According to Luminate CEO Rob Jonas, “Millennials in the U.S. are 42% more likely to buy cassette tapes than listeners from other generations” as a way to support their faves.

Vinyl sales are up, people are buying cassettes (I always loved cassingles), and I’m sure CDs will start to creep back in, too.

Heck, teens are using digital cameras again.

Back to emails, though; this according to Sale Cycle:

59% of respondents said that marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, while just over 50% buy from marketing emails at least once a month.

Read that again: almost 60% said marketing emails influence their purchase decisions.

So if you’re posting on social media multiple times per week for just 5-10% of your fans to see, you should probably “repurpose your social media posts” and put them into a weekly email newsletter.

Weekly? YES.

I bet your fans would love to hear from you every week (which is why they followed you on socials, came to your show, and bought the record).

Try it for two months then look at the data. You are looking at the data, right?

It’s easy to say “that’s too much.”

It’s also pretty easy to copy and paste your social media content that hardly any of your fans see, drop it into Mailchimp or Substack, and hit send once a week and actually find out.

FOUR THE WEEKEND TASKS:

1. Have you replied to more fans then you’ve posted? Reply to three fans on your socials this weekend. Bonus points if you make it a personal video.
2. Valentines Day is now 31 days away – got anything planned?
3. Have you given your fans a reason to visit your website? Updated it in the last month? Freshened up your bio? Or are you content to just keep shoveling your photos, art, images, music, and sound onto social media platforms that you don’t own or control, neglecting the fact that Google can send you more traffic than all those social media sites combined.
4. Have you asked ONCE in 2023 for fans to sign up for your email list? Is your landing page in order? Did you just lead with “Sign Up For Updates” and wonder why only two people signed up? It’s because that “offer” is “for department stores and car dealerships,” and you’re a lot more exciting than that.

Social media numbers teach many lessons.

Carter Vail is quirky musician I follow on Instagram. He’s not a metal guy at all, but he writes some catchy tunes that I think any music nerd could appreciate.

He’s got the numbers that most any independent artist strives for:

• 137,000 Instagram followers
• Reels with 35K, 100K, even a MILLION views

He started his Patreon in December 2022, and posted to it twice. In the new year he’s been promoting it through IG (and elsewhere probably), and posting a bit more, and he’s now at 13 patrons and about $65 per month (before Patreon and PayPal fees).

The lesson here is that even with 137K followers and millions of Reels views THIS SHIT TAKES TIME.

Remember, social media can be a full time job (go look – there are job listings that pay lots of money for it).

So if you’re an independent artist / musician / photographer / band / producer – you can’t expect full-time results without the full-time effort.

I know this isn’t a SOCIAL MEDIA newsletter, but I’m 100% in favor of using social media as the delivery truck to my own stuff, and I’m sure you are, too.

So control what you can control:

• Post consistently. Schedule posts if you have to, but make sure you’re putting up something every day or so.
• Make it easy for people to support you. Link to your Bandcamp, have a Patreon or a Substack, and make sure your online store is working.
• Focus on getting people to your website. This should be the hub for all your operations; your store, Bandcamp, Patreon, tour dates, news – get in the habit of keeping it updated and fresh!
• Offer fans a reason to get on your email list. Exclusive deals, pre-sales, behind the scenes reports, tour diaries! For inspiration look at the editorial features all the music sites.

Social media is the food court, and you don’t wanna hang out there all day.

It’s time to leave the food court at the mall.

Your art is your restaurant.

You set the menu and you set the hours. You adjust the lights, the atmosphere and the vibes are up to you.

PATREON NUMBERS

Below are a handful of bands, media outlets, notable characters, and reaction channels with Patreon pages.

Go check out what they’re doing, and how they’re promoting it on their websites and social channels.

William Ramos, 1,081 patrons
While She Sleeps, 1,017
Two Minutes To Late Night, 854
Banger TV, 720
Ne Obliviscaris, 712
Alissa White-Gluz, 588
Nik Nocturnal, 485
IGNEA, 469
Lords of the Trident, 431
Bullet for My Valentine, 248
Darkest Hour, 240
Jamey Jasta, 226
66Samus, 224
Northlane, 211
ELEINE, 192
Matt Pike, 117
Requiem Metal Podcast, 79
Alex Skolnick, 66
SeenFeen, 54
Cane Hill, 45
Into the Combine Podcast, 43
Judicator, 29
Lambgoat, 11

Some of these folks have been putting out seminal albums since the 90s, and some release cover songs with members of TOOL. So use that list as inspiration, and get out there and do great stuff.