Category: NewslettersCategory: Newsletters

Don’t seat your guests at your restaurant, then explain that the specials are at your other location across town.

EDIT: this post sort of led to this interview with Audience Republic!

So stop telling fans to follow you on platforms that are built to limit your ability to reach them

I know it’s easy to post to socials during your big event, but remember; you’re lucky if you reach 10% of your followers.

Instead, go grab a slice of pizza afterwards. Go dancing. Get home super late, and collapse on your bed fully clothed and exhausted.

The next day, after some coffee and a shower, put together an email newsletter with a handful of the photos and stories from the night before.

Because, come on… when you “take a minute” to post to social media at the event, you’re going to end up checking your email and DMs, open IG, process your notifications – stop it!

Get back to the show, hang out with your collaborators, go make some new friends.

And stop posting your most exciting photos and stories to the places where your fans are least likely to see them

You can put photos in a newsletter.

You can upload audio right to your Substack.

You can upload a video clip right to Substack.

You can write big captions.

When you send it with Substack, it’s also on the web, so new fans can find it from Google.

When you send it with Substack, you can link to it from your social media (good luck with that, but still).

You can link to your upcoming tour dates, pre-orders, or anything you want unlike Instagram (which doesn’t allow links)

You can link to anything and your fans will still see, unlike on social media which throttles your reach when you do that.

It won’t get any easier to reach your fans on social media in 2024

That’s why you should start an email list today, and get subscribers by sending great newsletters.

Had a fun Social Media Escape Club Zoom hang this week (become a trial member and 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!

Tell stories, not updates.

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…)

“You don’t need to reach a million people all the time. You don’t need to reach a thousand people all the time… one person can do it.”

This video centers on a simple but easily forgotten idea: impact doesn’t come from scale first—it comes from attention landing in the right place.

After talking with a longtime musician who quietly kept sending extreme metal records to college radio, the result surprised him. Once a station latched on, everything changed: “now instead of playing to old dudes with their arms crossed we’re playing to young kids who are going crazy.”

The lesson is this: “just because a thousand people didn’t see your thing, maybe one person that someday can do something with that is the person that you need to constantly be putting that in front of.”

You won’t always know who they are, but that’s why you keep going.

Approach your social media and email newsletters like a DJ.

A DJ doesn’t open the set with self-promotion; they give the audience a carefully chosen playlist of music, drawing from various sources, sounds, and eras.

Similarly, you can blend your influences and experiences into a cohesive online presence for your audience.

Plan ahead and schedule social media posts on specific days. Set a rhythm for your posts, and tastefully repeat announcing your new songs, tour dates, and upcoming events.

We do this because, “if your social media posts are seen by less than 3% of your followers, that means over 97% of your fans didn’t see it.”

Now, when a DJ is sourcing music for a mix, they draw from their own collection, along with new material. Random discoveries from other mixes.

In a way you’re probably already doing this.

You’re sending new music to your friends, and going to shows.
Dropping links to music videos in the group chat.
Talking about upcoming shows in Discord, on social media, in person.

You’re more of a DJ then you realize.

Your “online presence” is your existence in the digital space, so keep it authentic.

Use your good taste and share that with your audience. Tell them the new album you discovered, the old album that moves you to tears, a book that inspired your creative journey.

This makes “marketing ” feel less gross because you’re just being yourself, reshaping the conversation into whatever online container you happen to inhabit.