Category: MarketingCategory: Marketing

“Experiment, find what works for you, and do more of that.”

That’s from Justin Welsh, in a post called ‘Algorithms are F*cked. Now what?’

Let’s break it down:

Experiment: don’t copy the way people post and expect the same results. Truly experiment with everything, in every way that you promote your work. Video, audio, song, dance, writing long-form, writing short-form, hand writing, typewriter – experiment!

What Works For You: the key word here is WORKS. For anything to work, you have to do it more than once a month. Try it over and over again, gauge the results. Set a reminder, set a schedule. This doesn’t mean you have to exhaust yourself, get up at 5am, and work on this for 10 hours a day. You can literally try a thing, schedule it a dozen times in a month, and see what happens. At the end of the month you can look back and see if it “worked.”

Do More Of That: In my book; if you ENJOYED it, it worked. We’re human, and we like to do things we enjoy. You’re more likely to keep promoting your work in a way that feels natural and sustainable and non-gross.

And I would say this, too: don’t worry about being spammy and posting similar posts a dozen times a month because most of your followers don’t see your posts anyways.

Keep posting.

“Do you … help poets to grow?”

“The world of poetry is beyond my sphere of knowledge,” said Linda from Substack, “but I would say the growth tactics that will work for you are probably the same set of best practices that work for any publisher: consistency, authenticity, and shameless self-promotion.”

⏰ Consistency: sending a newsletter at least once a week

🚫 Authenticity: no copy and paste from chatGPT 🤢

😎 Shameless self-promotion: if you love what you’re writing about, tell some people about it! Literally one person at a time.

Yes, hitting post to 50 or 100 or 1000 followers is always an option, but think about DM’ing or emailing or calling people in a non-gross, non-spammy way.

I mean, I’d feel shame if I just randomly selected people from my address book and just randomly hit up people I haven’t spoken to in years. That’s gross. Don’t do that.

But for me, this can look like, “hey friend, remember that thing we talked about a few months ago? It’s been rattling around in my head, and I finally wrote a post about it – I think you’ll appreciate it.”

Your style and vibe may vary, of course, but give it a shot.

Many of us are artists before we’re “SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS,” or “EMAIL MARKETING EXPERTS.”

The energy goes into the art first, then later we buy that nicer guitar, that plugin, that course, those art supplies, but it’s all to support the art.

So figuring out how to promote what we do – in a way that aligns with our soul – that’s an art, too.

There are lots of examples on how to promote your art, but use them only as guides, because your path is as unique as you are as a human being.

We’re not all obligated to make dance video on TikTok.

But like tuning a guitar, we still have to learn the workings of Substack or Mailchimp, or how to schedule a Tweet.

We’re gonna be beginners, again.

Don’t let the fear stop you from sending that first email, uploading your first video, or playing your first show – no one will be thinking about it as much as you are, I promise.

This text above is from @gisellebuchanan on Instagram, and I love it so much.

Seth Godin in 2011 on “Getting serious about the attention economy:

“Every interaction comes with a cost. Not in cash money, but in something worth even more: the attention of the person you’re interacting with. Waste it–with spam, with a worthless offer, with a lack of preparation, and yes, with nervous dissembling, then you are unlikely to get another chance.”

Tweet another “new song” link, or post a static image to the Instagram feed when you should be posting a video (as IG boss Adam Mosseri said in this interview).

While the bar is low, there’s so much we can do, without a massive amount of effort.

Even with just plain old text:

🚫 “Hey, we’re on Revolver’s 6 Best Songs Right Now list.” [LINK]

✅ “Djent riffage that rumbles like a chunk of glacier breaking off and crashing into the choppy sea,” says Revolver Magazine [LINK]

Copy and paste what the established media outlet said about you, and then show it to your fans.

Do the thing that other people aren’t!

“Change comes from intrinsic forces, not extrinsic ones. If you think things are shit, you can — whisper it — stop making shit things.

We’ve be throwing “shit things” at the walls for so long it’s hard to notice the stink.

Now, do you have to chug Starbucks drinks to promote a new single, get 62K views, and covertly get 62K people to listen to track in the process?

Well, no.

You don’t need to make dance videos, or start a podcast, either.

But you need to do your thing, in a way that translates online, that your fans can actually view and get excited about.

Find a way to display your magic on these cursed platforms, and do it in a way that feels comfortable and sustainable.

The world needs you, and so do your fans.

✅ “Djent riffage that rumbles like a chunk of glacier breaking off and crashing into the choppy sea,” says Revolver Magazine [LINK]

🚫 “Hey, we’re on Revolver’s 6 Best Songs Right Now list.” [LINK]

You got a split second to catch someone’s attention, so put the juicy bit (what someone says) ahead of the boring facts (we’re on this website).