Category: NewslettersCategory: Newsletters
I should find more views like this and watch fewer Adam Mosseri videos:
That’s the head of Instagram, explaining why they’re not adding links to post. My friend Dino Corvino is right; who cares?
Instagram and Meta are big corporations doing whatever they want to increase shareholder value. Your local ISP, Netflix and every other service we use (including Substack) will do the same.
My answer? Control what I can control.
I saw too many emails from LinkedIn and scrolled through too many “ways to save the music industry” mega posts than I can put up with.
So, I deleted LinkedIn.
I deleted Twitter last summer.
I deleted Instagram on the first day of 2024.
They’re no longer an option. To make things work, I need to operate within those parameters.
Sometimes, I feel like I need to be up to date with everything happening on social media—the algorithm changes, the new policies, the latest blunders.
But none of that helps you write a better newsletter or figure out how to get new subscribers, so here are some ideas I’ve been batting around this week.
- Be yourself, be consistent, and you’ll find your people. You don’t need to become better or more marketable – you need to be exactly who you are so that people on the same operational frequency can find you. Like Mehret Biruk wrote, “when you put on a mask, you attract the wrong kind of people because they are attracted to the mask and not the you behind the mask.”
- Do it how you want. You don’t need to start a podcast. You don’t need to make videos. You don’t need to sign up for the hot new app. Like David Speed wrote recently in ‘I’m Saying BYE to 100K Instagram Followers,’ “are we going to keep compromising ourselves to cater for an ever-decreasing attention span?”
- Go back to what worked. Okay, social media aside, what else worked? Nic Peterson asks, “can you do it again, remove the parts you didn’t like and double down on the parts you did?” Get away from always having to do the hot new thing, and refine your previous efforts (h/t to Scott Perry).
- Get with people. You can do this virtually or like Jaime Derringer (who founded Design Milk) says, “find an offline way to engage with your community through events, conferences, local meetups, and other non-social media engagements.” This moves beyond what we’ve been doing for so long – shouting our message on social media in hope that someone might hear it. It’s time to get more intentional.
- Slow down. Step away from the online machine and watch what happens. Life goes on. We’re all busy, going about our lives. Post a dozen times a day on social media. Send an email three times a week. Make videos. Start a podcast. What does your art, your business, and your life look like if you slow it all down?
All of the above goes beyond open rates, ideal sending times, and promotions folders shenanigans.
This is about connection in its most basic form.
An email to an art gallery or booking agent, a phone call with an old co-worker, a video call with disgruntled creative folks looking for ways to exist without social media.
All things that the big corps can’t interfere with.
I wrote earlier this year, “Maybe centralized kingdoms of power and influence aren’t the answer.” Stop playing games you don’t want to play, befriend people doing the work you admire, and ascend to a whole new level beyond the social media rat race.
I ran 1,105 miles in 2020, which took me around 200 hours.
Scrolling 33 minutes daily on your phone adds up to about 200 hours a year, too.
A friend told me recently that they want to start a newsletter, but they don’t want it to become a large time investment.
I told them that their next newsletter “is already written.”
Re-purposing the content you’ve already posted (on social media) 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.
Most of us thought nothing of posting daily to social media, sometimes multiple times per day or per hour when an awards show was on or during a major sporting event.
Most of us have years of archival material to draw from, all tucked away in our social media channels.
Your posts only reach a fraction of your followers. Probably 90% of them never saw any of this material in the first place, so don’t feel bad about re-using your own material – it’s your material!
What could you do with just 30 minutes per day that might benefit you a year from now?
- Learn how to make scenic videos of lakes using a digital camera, Zoom H6 audio recorder, and editing the whole thing in DaVinci Resolve.
- Learning a new technique related to your craft
- Journaling and meditating
- Going for a walk, a bike ride, or go scootering (thanks, Amy Walsh)
- Dancing to your favorite records (R.I.P. mom)
- We think nothing of spending an hour a day on work meetings – what if we spent 30 minutes a day on FRIEND MEETINGS?
- Start a daily 30-minute check-in video call to help everyone stay on track and encourage one another
Sometimes, these things sound like too much, but each day, we have choices: invest in ourselves or create shareholder value for corporate behemoths.
Consider that we don’t think twice about uploading our original photos and text to a platform that sells advertising around our unpaid labor while limiting the number of our friends (or potential clients) who will ever see it, thus incentivizing us to either spend more of our time (a finite resource) on the platform “engaging,” or spending actual money to “boost” our posts so more people might see it.
What if the people receiving your emails forwarded it to friends? What if they copied the text from it and posted it on social media? What if your words traveled from the inbox into Facebook group chats and meeting rooms?
When was the last time you sent a newsletter that got 10 replies?
If none of those things happened — not even close— maybe getting more subscribers isn’t the answer.
From social media to Substack Notes, people post in the void. No comments, likes, or engagement of any kind.
Hey, sometimes things don’t work!
Your “questions to everyone” or “open invites” have good intentions, but after a dozen or so attempts, it’s time to reassess your strategy.
Stop asking “everyone” and start actually asking people.
➡️ Reply to someone else’s post. Go into the comments section of another post, or another Tweet, and reply there. Be the person that people love seeing in the comments section by being insightful, gracious, and / or funny.
➡️ Email someone directly in your network. If you’re hoping those people even see your original post and take the time to reply is a long shot. Instead, reach out and ask them. Say you’re looking for their insight for an upcoming post.
➡️ Invite someone before inviting everyone. If you’re just getting started in hosting video hangouts, live sessions, or workshops, consider inviting a few people you know directly. See if you can get three people to commit before announcing to “everyone.”
➡️ Go beyond “just sharing” and make it a big deal. Make a whole post about it. Go deeper than typing “THIS,” and explain why this piece resonated. Don’t just “curate your feed,” rolling the dice hoping that 10% of your audience might see it. Take the time to write about something (or make a video or an audio snippet), and share it directly with your audience in an upcoming newsletter (where 99% of your subscribers will see it in their inbox).
“Yeah, but Seth, I just want to post my thing and go do other things,” you might say.
Well, you see the results that “just posting” gets you.
Also, how can talking to your fans, audience, and readers be a waste of time?
Setting a timer for 15 minutes and communicating with real people five days a week will probably get you more results than the hour you spend making one Reel for 153 “people” to see (and which will never be seen again after 12 hours).
Does it scale? Fuck scale, do the work.
The strategy of “just posting” ain’t working, and it’s not going to get any easier to reach your fans in that way as we roll into the second half of 2024.
Had a fun Social Media Escape Club Zoom hang this week (make sure you’re subscribed so you can come to the next one).
This week I got us started riffing from Seth Godin’s recent quote, “Your (current) customers need to bring you your (new) customers.”
Through our 30 minute conversation we got on the subject of hyping new projects, and asking our fans to click to check it out, or subscribe. You know how it goes.
And well, sometimes the “check out my new thing” don’t resonate with our fans, as Robin Yang talks about here:
“Seth and I were in a LinkedIn class,” says Robin. “It’s about providing value, right? People aren’t going to do the thing that you want them to do unless they understand what they get out of it, right?
And so if it’s like, “oh, I have a new Substack over here.” But it’s like, why does that matter to me?
And some people have enough of a fan base that inevitably some people will follow them. Like, I’ve always loved whatever Seth’s doing, I’ll follow him till the end of… which like, I think we all will have those “true fans.”
But maybe the majority of your audience is like, well, “yeah, he’s like a good guy, I really value the content that he delivers in his new newsletter here. Why would I… what is he doing with his new social network?” Right? Like, why would I follow him on TikTok? (laughter ensues)”
This is why if you need to have a plan if you’re looking to get away from social media.
Telling your social media followers to sign up for your newsletter won’t get you far.
Sure, like Robin said above, some of your true fans may subscribe, but you’ve got fans at so many levels.
Remember to ask yourself, “what’s in it for them?”
Put yourself in their shoes,
Say, “follow our adventures as we leave for tour in a month. Sign up so you don’t miss a single photo of our adventures. Sign up so you, you don’t miss out on all our crazy tour stories.”
There’s a reason media outlets ask, “got any crazy tour stories?”
It’s because stories sell. Stories are what make movies!
If you get engagement from a certain type of photo you post on social media, tell your followers they can get more by visiting your website, and subscribing to your newsletter.
If you get great feedback from your Twitter rants, consider putting more of them into your newsletter. Ask people to subscribe so they don’t miss any.
Maybe you stream tutorials online for everyone for free. That’s awesome, but remember, you’re making money for Zuck and Musk with each on of those! Ask your fans to subscribe to your email newsletter, and then link folks to your own video stream that corporate dorks don’t get to monetize it.
You’re watching this video on the new Social Media Escape Club.
A minute ago we were HEAVY METAL EMAIL, but now it’s Social Media Escape Club.
I thought long and hard about that, and I realized no one cares. I could name this thing Zip Zorp and you’re gonna either read it or you’re not gonna read it.
No one’s thinking about this stuff as much as I am.
So – welcome to the Social Media Escape Club. Make yourself at home.
(more…)
I help creative people quit social media, promote their work in sustainable ways, and rethink how a website and newsletter can work together. Find out more here. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Join us — Get a 30 day trial for $10 and join our next Zoom call meeting!
Looking for personalized help? Check out my Email Guidance offering.
Need help now? Book a 1:1 call here.
Email me: seth@socialmediaescape.club
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