Category: Email MarketingCategory: Email Marketing

Hey, you probably know someone who got locked out of their Instagram account earlier this week, but hey, soon you’ll be able to sell NFTs through their shitty app!

Hopefully you didn’t have some product roll out or big announcement to make, and were blessed to still be able to access your account.

Like I wrote about a year ago, “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.”

Seriously, what’s your plan?

Elder lost access to their Facebook account back in September and according to this recent IG story they’re still locked out.

Access to 78,000 Facebook followers gone, and now they’re left trying to get word out to their Instagram audience of 42,500 fans about the situation.

Even if they reach 10% of their fans on IG, that’s just 4,250 people.

Seriously, what’s your plan?

This is absolutely not a knock on Elder – that shit happens.

So what are we doing? Today? This week?

Started by getting your fans to subscribe to your email list:

• When fans buy from your webstore, make it easy (and enticing) for them to join your newsletter.
• Run giveaways and capture emails (use Gleam, KingSumo, or roll your own with Tally)
• Tell fans on social media to sign up (while you can still reach some of them)

You’ve worked too damn hard for too many years to lose contact with all your fans just because a 3rd party platform shits the bed.

SMART THINGS FROM SMART PEOPLE:

“Send a decent email even if it’s not perfect.

Getting the impression and staying top of mind outweighs waiting for the perfect email.” (From @thePhilRivers newsletter)

Write a decent song, take a decent photo, paint a decent sunset – perfect is the enemy of done. Keep producing and refining what you do over years (then decades), then keep going.

“Patreon, once the only creator paywall platform in the game, lost 70% of its value this year, though, not because people aren’t making money online, but the opposite. Influencers, once tethered to the algorithmic whims of a home platform, have freed themselves and become a creator economy, which now encapsulates sex workers on OnlyFans, writers on Substack, and every form of content producer in-between.” (From ‘The great unbundling is already happening’ by Ryan Broderick)

Lots of talk of Twitter and Facebook crumbling, but what happens if Patreon implodes? Yikes.

“Maybe I’m alone in thinking this but it’s so funny to imagine a point in the future where I can’t listen to the music I enjoy anymore because a company founded by billionaires crashed and burned.” (@World0fEcho)

“When our competitors are raising their prices,” said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, “that is really good for us.”

We’re doomed.

You may have seen this image from Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre around socials. It’s from their 2021 article ‘A little greyer and a bit more rectangular,’ where Dr. Cath Sleeman dug through 7,000 photos of objects from back in the 1800s to the current day.

We can see this in the heavy metal world in terms of sameness – same looking websites and social media feeds.

For a genre with such imaginative artwork, tour posters, and shirt designs, we can be pretty bland when it comes to actually promoting these things in creative ways.

Look at the band Vile Creature and their nod to Geocities-era websites:

What you create is unique to you, and sets you apart from everyone else, so let the world see just how magical you are with every image, and video, and chunk of text.

How the fuck does any of this tie into running a newsletter?

For me, it bums me out knowing how much blood, sweat, and tears we put into our craft, and then we push it out to social media where an algorithm decides if that hard work is even seen by your own fans. That’s fucked up.

Like I wrote in my last newsletter about Cody Cook-Parrott who has been on Instagram since 2012:

Getting 300 likes with 80,000 followers means that just 0.3% of their audience clicked like, no doubt because most of those 80,000 followers never even saw their posts.

So even if you managed to grow to 80,000 followers, most of your fans won’t see your pre-order announcement, or the sale you’re having, or the call for people to come to an upcoming video shoot.

So let’s not sleep walk in our efforts to get the word out. The Twitter / Facebook / Instagram world ain’t what it used to be, and it’s never going back.

THAT is why I want my heavy metal pals to start heavy metal email newsletters, so all the cool things they’re making actually get seen my their fans.

They ain’t sexy, but they work. Let’s do some good work.

FOUR THE WEEKEND HOMEWORK:

1. Get off social media for a minute, and visit the websites of a few of your favorite bands. While you’re there, buy a shirt if you can afford to do so.
2. Halloween is on October 31st. You’ve got all weekend to whip up a special offer, a give away, a video message – SOMETHING – for your fans on Monday.
3. Check out ‘Setting up your Substack for the first time’ and have your email newsletter up and running by Monday.
4. Thanksgiving is right around the corner – get on Google and find how you can support or volunteer at your local food bank.

SMART THINGS FROM SMART PEOPLE:

“During any given hour, there are millions of tweets, photos, videos, podcasts, articles, and newsletters published, and you’re going to be competing with them no matter when you post. There’s no magic golden hour for content distribution.”

This (again) from Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter, answering the question “how important is it to post on the same day and the same time every week?” Consistency is key, sure, but aiming for the exact TIME of day isn’t always the most important part.

“It’s fair to say that Instagram and Facebook have become platforms that use their users, with your feed feeling like some sifting through cat litter for whatever nuggets of whatever it is you logged on to see, a thing that is becoming increasingly hard to remember.”

From Where’s Your Ed At, and that is spot on – ‘sifting through cat litter for whatever nuggets!’

In a recent interview with Substack, Cody Cook-Parrott spoke about shifting their audience from social media (they’ve been on Instagram since 2012) to their email newsletter (where they have 683 paid subscribers).

“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.”

Getting 300 likes with 80,000 followers means that just 0.3% of their audience clicked like, no doubt because most of those 80,000 followers never even saw their posts.

Think engagement will get easier for bands and labels and creative folks in 2023?

NOPE.

In more fun social media news, according to Reuters Twitter’s most “heavy users” are leaning more into “Cryptocurrency and ‘not safe for work’ (NSFW) content,” and “interest in news, sports and entertainment is waning among those users.”

So expect to see engagement on tour announcements and pre-orders (and a million other things) dip in the new year.

Oh, and looks like Elon Musk is gonna own Twitter later this week, too. That’ll be fun!

Imagine just sending an email once a week directly to your fans, and seeing those emails actually help you sell things.

Then think about how much time you could spend on your art, your music, your design studio if you didn’t have to feed the social media algorithm for hours every day.

“Make sure you’re building your email list today, while you can still reach some of your audience on social media!”

I said this in my very first SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB just over a year ago (in my interview with Jeff Gretz of Zao), and it’s even more true today.

Someday all of us (including your fans) will log into Twitter and Instagram and Facebook for the last time – don’t let the years you’ve spent building that audience disappear! Make a plan today to build a direct connection with those fans with an email list.

SMART THINGS FROM SMART PEOPLE:

“Instagram influencers are increasingly pushing their most dedicated fans onto platforms like Discord, Slack, Substack, and Patreon so they can forge a deeper connection with them.”

Look, it’s not just me who’s saying that people are pushing their social media audience elsewhere – go read Simon Owens’s Tech and Media Newsletter.

“What we do together matters. The way you connect with someone by drinking coffee at a cafe will feel entirely different than how you’ll feel connecting with someone while volunteering at a food kitchen.

What’s something that you can ask members to do that they wouldn’t usually do at a community experience like this one? What activities feel novel? What activities will help members connect in a different way?”

Some interesting concepts on “how to design community experiences your members will never forget,” by David Sprinks.

“Doing it right is expensive. Doing it wrong costs a fortune.”

From Shane Parrih at Farnam Street. Yes, hiring a professional is expensive, but in the long run it’ll probably save you a lot more time and money.

In conversations I’ve had in recent months, folks are reluctant to start (or re-start) sending newsletters. After all, social media is the big new thing. Email newsletters are the lame old thing.

“Our insistence that it be guaranteed to work almost ensures that it won’t.

Forcing something to be big makes it small.”

The above is from Seth Godin and his post, ‘The paradox of big.’

You expect to send one email to a years-old list and have it magically lead to $4000 in sales.

You doubt that’ll happen, so why even bother?

But knowing you can post a Tweet and see it reach 100 people, and 4 people like it, all within 10 minutes – well, that just feels better.

So if you believe email is old and not worth the time, no amount of metrics or percentages will convince you it’s worth the time.

Hit that unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email then.

Then just keep shoveling your photos and stories and “assets” into the social media hamster wheel, and be grateful for the 2% of your followers that might see it.

“On our @Buffer account, we reach about 2 percent of our followers on average with each tweet.”

Buffer is a tool I’ve used for years for scheduling social media posts for multiple clients. The company has been around since 2010, and they know a thing or two about social media.

So even Buffer is only reaching about 2% of their followers on Twitter (as of 2014, I’m sure that number is smaller today), and they’re professionals. I just checked my own account (@sethw) and I’m just over 3% for the last 28 days.

Basically that means 97% of my followers never saw a Tweet from me in the last month. That’s about 2,500 out of 2,599 people that didn’t see me post about this newsletter, my Goodnight, Metal Friend mixes, or me posting links to bands I like on Bandcamp.

Read the ‘Tweet reach percentage’ section of ‘How to Use Twitter Analytics: 15 Simple-to-Find Stats to Help You Tweet Better’ from Buffer for more info.

SO, here’s your FOUR THE WEEKEND homework:

1. Look up your monthly impressions on your social media accounts. Divide by the # of followers you’ve got. If it’s better than 5% you’re a legend (but it still means 95% of your fans are missing out).
2. Check your own engagement rates – that’s how many of the people who see your posts actually “engage” with your content via likes / shares / replies. Read ‘Your guide to social media engagement rates’ from Adobe for insight on that.
3. Thanksgiving is coming up, and a lot of people could use help. Donate to your nearest food bank if you can.
4. Figure out a loose engagement rate from your favorite bands / brands / shops / media outlets. Just take the number of LIKES and RTs, add in the comments, then divide all that by the number of followers they have. This won’t be 100% accurate, but it’s fun to see a ballpark number and compare it to your own efforts.

SMART THINGS FROM SMART PEOPLE:

“Patreon creators … are forced to build their audiences on other platforms and then drive them over to Patreon.”

This from ‘Why Patreon is struggling’ from Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter. I had a Patreon for my heavy metal trivia on Twitter project years ago (@skulltoaster), and found I had to spend a lot of time linking my audience to a site I didn’t own or control.

“Your daily disruption is proportional to the level of attention you give to email, messaging apps, SMS.”

Love this from Richard Allardice from ‘Not right now. But maybe later.’ I do my best to dive into my biggest, most high-value work task first thing in the morning before checking email.

“Time is finite and shouldn’t be dictated by others or how you believe others to perceive you.”

From ‘The case for caring less’ over at VOX, which reminds me of this from artist Dakota Cates of Wizard of Barge:

Be known as someone who values their time!

GOOD TWEETS:

Either way, seems like big changes coming to Twitter, a social media network where we can’t export our followers. Start getting your audience to subscribe to your email list before the whole thing implodes!

The above is mostly true (I think you need to post your story to FB from IG for this to work), but still – INCLUDE LINKS. Fuck the algorithms. If only 10 people see your post at least they’ll have a link to click!

It’s true. We need everything to slow down, please.

Are you worried about all the extra time you’ll have to devote to writing an email newsletter?

Well, good news, because you already wrote it.

Using my Goodnight, Metal Friend dark ambient mix project as an example (hey, I do other stuff besides work), and you can see how I could re-use the images and text from my social media posts (Instagram and Twitter) and just copy & paste them into a newsletter format.

This can be done super easily with Substack or Mailchimp.

Remember, not everyone who follows you on social media will see every post. Hell, people who subscribe to your email newsletter won’t open every email, either.

Re-purposing the content you’ve already posted means less time thinking about your next email newsletter, and gives you a jump on the creative process.

Once you have everything copied and pasted into your newsletter, you can make expand on some of your ideas, or include some other photos that you didn’t share on socials.

Now you’re offering exclusive bits and pieces to your fans!

SMART THINGS FROM SMART PEOPLE:

“ If you want to get people to subscribe to your newsletter, it helps to be able to tell them exactly what they’re getting…”

This is from a nerdy internet culture writer on Substack (Max Read), but still applies to what you’re doing, so give it some thought. Don’t sell your email list as “signing up for updates!” Tell people they’re getting behind the scenes photos, tales from the road, and all the stuff you’re already shoveling onto social media!

This from Cody Cook-Parrott who writes the Monday Monday newsletter. The above is so true, though – no one says “there’s too many people on social media,” right?

GOOD TWEETS:

This from Christina Warren, regarding news sites forking their content over to places like Apple News, but this applies to your art and magic and the relationship you have with your fans! Hard to own the relationship with your fans when Apple / Amazon / YouTube / Twitch / Facebook have all the data!

Interesting thread here, and interesting to see how people in this thread don’t find new music.