Category: Email MarketingCategory: Email Marketing

Investing an hour with other creative people is a good idea.

I host weekly Zoom calls with Social Media Escape Club subscribers. We don’t all work in the same fields, or make the same art, but we still learn from one another, week in and week out. We’re not for everybody, and that’s okay.

Social media isolated us. Facebook and Instagram and Twitter keep us entangled in their products, making it difficult to walk away. They make us believe we’re nothing without them.

Social media is a toxic partner.

It’s time to get back to real life, with real people. To start using the internet as a tool, not a destination.

During last week’s call someone asked about hosting Zoom calls, and the room lit up with ideas, and thoughts, and encouragement.

If you’re an artist, a writer, a photographer, a musician – doing Zoom calls with subscribers is a great way to strengthen your community.

If you’re just looking to get away from social media, Zoom calls can be great to keep in touch with friends and family.

In each case, they’ll be laughter, some tension and silliness, and probably some revelations. The collection of people in Zoom calls can bring answers to questions we didn’t even know we had.

Here’s what I’ve learned from hosting about 30+ video meetings since 2023.

1. Set up a Luma invite, and connect it with your Zoom account. By using Luma, you can limit the capacity of the room. When I started out I limited the size of the room to 8-10 people because – honestly – I wasn’t sure I can emotionally handle hosting that many people on one call. Now my calls hover around 12 or so people each week.
   
   Also, with using Luma, now you’ve got the contact info of everyone who signs up. I did this for months, before I switched my calls to paid-only, but I still invite everyone who signed up for those early free calls. Those 30 people get an invite every week , and they can absolutely unsubscribe if they don’t want to be invited anymore.
2. Don’t just put an invite in your newsletter once and never mention it again. Announce it several times! Put it at the top, in the middle, in the footer – MIX. IT. UP. Do this in the two weeks leading up to your call.
3. Scared of no one showing up? Ask a friend or two (or three) to hop on the call a week ahead of time. Have them sign up via Luma, too, just so you get a feel for the automated emails that Luma sends out, and how it works.
4. Invite another writer / artist / musician on the call, and call it a live interview! This should be someone you’ve spoken with before, whether in person or on Zoom. You don’t want to learn how to interview people live on camera the first time.
5. I learned this from Cody Cook-Parrott; schedule your call for when you have the time and energy for it. Yes, it’s nice to accommodate for time zones and our international fans, BUT… a tired, sleepy host doesn’t do anyone any good!
   
   This also goes for how long your planned call is – 30/45/60 minutes? Do what feels right for you, and how much energy you have.
6. Consider having an intention for each call, at least as a launching point. This could be a recent newsletter you sent, or a media piece that has lot of people talking, and you can lead the discussion around it.
7. Slides? Agendas?! Up to you – I started out with agendas, but calls usually drifted elsewhere after 15 minutes or so. Like I mention above, I usually lead with a main point, and let the vibes take over.
8. The best way to keep the calls interesting is be interesting.
   
   Make sure you’re reading, staying fresh with the current happenings in your field. Also – go outside, get good sleep, drink enough water. How can you care for your community if you’re not your best self?
9. Read Priya Parker’s ‘The Art of Gathering,’ especially the ‘Never start a funeral with logistics’ part. Folks showed up. They took time out of their day to hop on a call. Start on time, think about your opening, and leave the “house keeping” until later in the call.
10. Your audience is counting on you to make space for everyone, so practice cutting people off when they get too chatty. It’s hard, but it’s best for the group.
11. Invite the right people. This is your space. Your baby. You don’t have to invite everyone. Protect your peace, protect your space, protect your guests. Make it as exclusive as you desire. If you’re going to devote an hour a week to bringing people together and creating a positive space, honor your time and sanity and make sure it’s something you’d want to be a part of.
12. Finally – Don’t be afraid to mess up, or stumble over your words. This is what makes us human. AI can write a newsletter, but it can’t build relationships and invite people to chat for 30 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon.

A Zoom meeting can only be as good as the people involved, so be mindful of who’s in attendance. Set the stage, manage expectations, and allow others to seek entrance to your community.

1. From the comment section: “write an ‘Anti-Art World Resume’ that includes all the stuff that usually gets cut from a resume.” Thanks Jacqueline C. What does this secret resume look like when it’s filled with the stuff you leave out?
2. Envision offline, at a coffee shop or a Discord. Don’t just say “open for business” and hope the right people show up, invite the people that match your energy. Be selfish with your project, your art, and who you allow to enter your creative orbit. You can’t build what you haven’t dreamed up, so get dreaming.
3. Get to the point with your story. Write three paragraphs and hit delete. Wipe it out and start over. Blank page every time. Do this three times and you’ll learn real quick what gets left out.
4. Digital clutter is still clutter. Your work is all over the place, and it’s probably dinging your bank account every month, too. Let’s stop giving our money to the corporations for the “convenience.” It ain’t convenience, it’s lock in. How many photos are on your iPhone? Do you have a plan to manage those assets, or will you just upgrade to the next cloud storage tier? It’s $3 a month now. Then it’s $5, then $10. What’s the plan?

In middle school I always had the latest issue of BMX Plus, and wore Airwalk shoes that mom ordered for me from the JCPenny catalog. I grew my hair long and wore a Batman cycling cap.

I was sending signals, people! So were you. Even right now. Everything we do and how we operate is a secret nod to those who might “get it.”

The signals you send say, “this is the stuff I do, come say hello.” I was sending lots of “I’m into cool music and I want to be in a band” signals at that time.

The kid with the black jean jacket and a Bon Jovi shirt got my signal in 5th grade. Years later I’d join his band (which changed my life).

What signals are you putting out today?

How can you send better signals?

And how can you make sure your signal doesn’t get lost in the noise?

The below only really applies to the Substack platform, but I think the logic behind it can carry over into other places.

Stop begging the Substack Notes algorithm to “send you” cool people to follow.

Sending signals to social media algorithms is a poor use of time.

I bet you already subscribe to / follow at least one interesting person on Substack, right?

Go to their profile (here is mine) and check out all the posts they LIKE and the publications they subscribe to.

See? Now you’ve got tons of interesting people to discover via someone’s unique taste and cool vibe discernment.

It’s all about the “liner notes.” Find people involved with the cool videos you watch on YouTube, or the people who leave comments, or dig through the guests on your favorite podcasts. Find out who they’re following, who they’re writing about and sharing about.

It’s Friday, this is Four the Weekend – four things you can do by Monday that’ll be more productive than hours of scrolling social media.

1. Watch my ‘Talking About About Pages’ workshop replay, update your About page, and email a friend in your creative orbit to take a look at it, preferably in person (or on a Zoom call). I also spoke at length with the very wise Alex Dobrenko` this week – you can watch that here.
2. Clean up your Link in Bio. Better yet, trim it to 2-3 links; starting with your own website and somewhere to subscribe to your email list.
3. Get talking to people in your existing creative orbit. Email, set up a call, meet in person. Vent for the first 15 minutes, sure, but then start talking and dreaming about the way you want to work the rest of 2025 (like more photo walks with friends).
4. Read the section ‘Don’t kill the attention of mourners’ from ‘The Art of Gathering‘ (chapter five) by Priya Parker. Are you leading with logistics, or leading with magic and wonder?

1. Make your own Twitter

I mentioned recently that you should make your own Twitter, and it’s been fun seeing some subscribers run with the idea:

• https://pappasbland.com/feed
• https://timmcfarlane.com/work/the-almost-daily-art-life
• https://shinydesigns.com/category/studio-updates-feed/

We update our websites because platforms disappear.

For instance, Posts was a nice platform for designers and artists and programmers. I found it a few years ago, and discovered some cool art and a few apps.

It’s shutting down in May.

All the photos and designs will go away. All the stories about making vector animations or silk screen posters will no longer exist.

This is why we need our own feeds, on our own websites.

2. Join my About “About Pages” Workshop

Join me for a one-hour interactive workshop where we’ll focus on crafting or improving your About/Bio page. Whether it’s for your website or Substack, we’re work together to create something that aligns with your vibes.

➡️ Thursday, Feb 13 – 2-3:00 PM EST – Register and get the Zoom link here​

I’ll have have links to various About pages for inspiration, and we’ll talk about what every good About page should have, but I won’t be clicking through a deck and lecturing for an hour – heck no!

The even is free, but you can name your own price at check out if you’d like to support my work.

• Yes, this workshop will be recorded
• Yes, you should register even if you can’t attend so I can send you the replay video
• No, this won’t be a lecture
• Yes, this will be chatty and we will take time to work on our about pages in real time
• Yes, it’s free / pay what you want

➡️ Thursday, Feb 13 – 2-3:00 PM EST – Register and get the Zoom link here

3. Check your SEO Description

Google your publication or website and see what comes up.

This is updated on Substack here:

Skip the “hello, and welcome to my musings and whimsical thoughts that flutter through my noggin” intros and tell potential readers what they get before clicking.

Can you explain your work in one sentence? In five words?

4. Leave the house

From our pal Dedicate Your Life To Music (link):

Streams don’t make your career.

Followers don’t make your career.

People do.

If your career is stagnant, go to shows.

Get involved in your local scene.

Make friends and play house parties.

Meet people who love live music.

If your music is good, people will be so excited to share it with others. But they can’t do that if you’re fucking around at home worrying about your Spotify numbers.

This is universal wisdom, as it can be applied to other art forms, too.

Go to book readings, art galleries, photo exhibits, museums, craft fairs.

Be around the people you want to be around. Work hard at making good stuff, instead of obsessing over unsubscribes or clicks.

The experiences and lessons you learn make you who you are. We’re not talking just “words on a screen” or “lyrics to a song,” because this is 2025 and bullshit AI bots can do those things. Not well, but they can.

So that’s why we need to get out into the ugly real world, have some awkward conversations, show up someplace and not know anyone. Skip the algorithmic shortcuts that everyone else tries to game and cut in line by knowing people. Making connections. Networking but not in a gross way, but in a “omg my life is filled with amazing people” way.

AI bots can’t show up in venues on a Tuesday, or your D&D night.

Hop on a Zoom call with some fellow freaks. Or stay home and invite people over. Start a knitting club, a book club, a vinyl record club, a “show us the photos you made this week” club.