Category: NewslettersCategory: Newsletters

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.

There are three places to start when writing a newsletter.

1. Sharing

A link you shared with a friend can be your next newsletter. It might be topical, about a recent event or a new idea.

You could also dig through the archives on your blog or newsletter or your social media profile and re-share links that meant something a year ago or 10 years ago, like this blog post I wrote a decade ago:

“Every one to one interaction is priceless. It’s valuable. It can’t be outsourced, and you can’t just get some unpaid college intern to do it.”

Remember – something you shared 18 months ago was probably seen by just 8% of your followers – and you’ve probably gained more subscribers over the last year and a half!

2. Storytelling

We’ve all got stories, some big, some small.

I was taking some photos around town a few days ago, and the owner of the barbershop yelled, “come take our photo!”

Now, that doesn’t happen very often, but it made for a fun story!

Here’s some other stories I haven’t told yet:

• That time I invited by highschool buddy to NYC to hangout when I had the Deftones come to our studio for an interview.
• How I ditched all my belongings in 2010 and left Brooklyn with my bike and my laptop and rode to Rutherford, NJ to start my nomadic bike nerd journey and ended up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• When a manager for a big Grammy Nominated band told me they had a problem with my interviewer minutes before we were supposed to go live on a podcast.

You’ve probably got stories, and your subscribers would probably love to hear them.

3. Showing

This is the default, the starting point, the simplest thing to write about in your newsletter, but you have to do it in a way that feels right.

In last week’s ‘Social Media Support for Artists’ (hosted by the wonderful Beth Spencer), someone spoke about taking photos of her sketchbooks and then dreading the idea of posting them to social media and writing captions for each.

Someone suggested, “Make it a video!” And for this person, that resonated.

If you dread doing something, you’re probably not gonna do it. And if you do it reluctantly, everyone is gonna know you’re being pissy about it. The vibes will be off, my friend.

Here are two examples of sharing and keeping the good vibes:

• Noah Kalina sent a newsletter about making egg cups, which was a story from a magazine that had come out several months prior.
• Taylor Pendleton made a video of her walking around Death Valley taking pictures. No music. No dialogue.

Do I dread running? Well, I love eating pizza a lot more, that’s for sure.

But I do love being outside. So running gets me outside, into the space I love. And then I love sharing photos and videos from being outside, way more than making “infographics” or whatever to try to promote my work.

By sharing a glimpse of what I love, it shows a bit of who I am, and maybe that resonates with a few people.

Getting off social media has to be more than just “yeah, but how will I still sell stuff?” It’s about the time you regain, which allows you to explore, learn, and grow.

So don’t get sad about writing a newsletter, thinking you’ve got nothing to write to your subscribers—you’ve got plenty to write about, share, and explore with the people who’ve signed up and said, “Yes, I want more of what you have.”

You are more interesting than storage lockers, and that show has been on air longer than Seinfeld.

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.

I had a wonderful chat with Raziq Rauf and friends last week (Raz writes Running Sucks, and it’s great), and got to continue screaming this message from the rooftops:

Don’t ask social media followers to subscribe to your newsletter; tell them what they’re getting.

And don’t just say “an interview” or “new music,” sell it!

“Make it easy for your fans to say “yes, I want that.”

Do you want free donuts? Yes.

Do you want more of my art? Yes.

Do you want more photos of my travels? Yes.

Do you want more music? Yes.”

Get fans to your site (or newsletter).

If they subscribe, great.

If they don’t, they don’t.

Sure, with a zillion followers, you can ask for the subscribe and see some success, but explaining what fans will be getting is a lot more fun.

How do you get people from Instagram to subscribe to your Substack?

By being on Instagram, unfortunately.

Don’t worry – Nail Mason lays it out nicely here:

Connect with 3 new fans each day, and you’re building a broad and deep audience.

Imagine — 1,095 new friends who can open doors to opportunities and insights.

Create value and connect.

Start there, then rinse, and repeat.

Beth Spencer of Introvert Drawing Club connected with her fans using a sneaky kitten character on Instagram.

I posted everywhere, begging folks folks to find, capture via screenshot, and share. I rewarded each person who helped with 3 months of complimentary membership.

Getting people on Instagram to do anything is hard, so you have to get creative.

Beth went from 150 Substack subscribers in November 2022, to 3,000 almost a year later (and nearing 200 paid subscribers).

You do that by building a real connection, not by just saying, “Join my newsletter for updates.”

And remember – this took a year.

Make sure you figure out a way to connect in a sustainable and energizing way. If it’s pure pain and misery, you’ll end up quitting the quest to get your social media followers to your email list.

Three Simple Ways To Start Connecting With Your Fans

1. Reply to the people in your comments in a sincere, human way
2. DM someone who liked a recent announcement (and include a link to what you’re promoting)
3. Reply to a fellow artist’s post and celebrate their wins – their fans will see it and maybe check you out – and that artist will appreciate your support!

Comments, replies, engagement – whatever you want to call it; do things that don’t scale for a few minutes a day, and see what happens. Like Neil mentioned above – do this with just three people a day, or just start with one!