Category: Social Media Escape ClubCategory: Social Media Escape Club

To get us started, “social media triggers children to dislike their own bodies,” this according to a study over at The Guardian.

Also, Meta is being fined by the EU for “forcing users to accept targeted ads.” Oh, and “Meta’s New Vision Of The Future Doesn’t Mention The Metaverse Even Once.”

Is Facebook heading towards another pivot? Shocking!

“Influencers discovered they could earn tens of thousands of dollars on the platform by making simple reaction videos,” writes the New Yorker.

“As long as fifteen minutes a day allows them to forgo full-time jobs and focus on music, they will continue to pump out face-filter videos.

“I do it every day to make sure I can pay my rent, dude,” Koch said.

To make you feel even worse, please read ‘30 ways influencers cheated their way to millions of dollars,” with lots of screenshots and info on “how Twitch streamers fake their numbers,” “fake Instagram engagement,” and more.

Yes, I’m all about leaving social media, but while we’re there we need to maximize our efforts to get folks to visit our sites and subscribe to our newsletters.

When Sarah Palmyra (with her 896.5K followers on TikTok) was asked how to engage with her audience, she offered this bit of advice:

“Stories are a really great way to engage with people. I just ask my audience questions, what do you wanna see next? What do you think about this? What do you like about this? And then that’s when I really check my direct messages and see who is saying what. And I have those real conversations just one-on-one.”

I’ll leave you with this:

For posts published by Instagram business accounts, the average engagement rate almost doubled in the past year and is up to 1.94%. Carousel posts still have the highest engagement rate (3.15%), while photo posts have the lowest average engagement rate (1.18%).

If the average engagement rate on Instagram is around 2%, imagine how low the actual click rate is for the “link in bio” game we’re all playing?!

Gee, it’s no wonder that we’re not seeing huge traffic to online stores and tour date pages!

I’ve been leaning on the “link in bio” strategy since November (since “Tweets with a link garner 28.76% less reach” says Buffer), to drive traffic from socials to my various projects (see my Linktree here), just like I hope you’re testing out. Hit me up if you have questions or ideas (seth@socialmediaescape.club).

People who buy vinyl and cassettes? They check their email.

People who buy concert tickets? They check their email.

People who order merch? They check their email.

You don’t need a social media account to buy any of the above, but you need an email address.

And every smartphone comes with an email app pre-installed 🤔

Yes, I preach the good word of email newsletters, but don’t think of it as “writing a newsletter,” think of it as “communicating directly with your fans.”

All those photos you share on Instagram and Twitter that only 5% of your fans see anyways? Yeah, use those.

You can even include a link, unlike when you keep posting URLs in your Instagram post (please stop doing that).

Maybe you’re afraid that your first email newsletter will suck, right?

Guess what? My first HEAVY METAL EMAIL post sucked. This one is a little better.

I got better at it because I kept doing it.

My first week running Noisecreep sucked, but eventually we got to follow Bring Me The Horizon around Times Square in 2010.

Let’s be honest – your first Tweet was definitely horrible.

Writer Natasha Mascarenhas told a story she learned from her professor, when asking “how long is it going to take to become great?” His answer was basically, “no one cares about the first 500 stories.”

Get your crap emails out of the way now, when you’ve got 100 dedicated fans on your list that won’t care either way.

FOUR THE WEEKEND TASKS

Due Monday, friends.

1. Start thinking about your Social Media Escape Plan. Not just because of horrible algorithms, but for when you get locked out of your account.

2. Valentines Day is 38 days away. Come on, there’s nothing more metal than love and heartbreak! Plan something fun for Feb 14th, I dare ‘ya.

3. Have you messed around with the LINK IN BIO thing yet? Come on, Buffer says “Tweets with a link garner 28.76% less reach.” It could be worth testing for your own projects.

4. Try actually replying to a few fans on your social media channels. It’ll make their day, and maybe it’ll appease the algorithmic gods.

You can say “LINK IN BIO,” or you can do something like this (watch all the way through the end, it’s so well done):

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Connor Price (@connorprice)

Am I saying you have to make videos just like this? No.
Do you you have to make dance videos? No.
Do you have to point at words? No.

Do you have to do something?

Yes.

There’s a whole new year ahead of us; are we really going to keep “doing socials” like we’ve always done, and expect improved results?

Making fancy videos like above is hard work.
Saying “watch our video” with a link is light work.

We have to find that sweet spot that works for us that will get fans to click a link and subscribe to our email list, or pre-order our latest product.

But, maybe you don’t have to do all the work.

I was chatting about the importance of artists’ telling their stories with Steve Tom Sawyer the other day, about making video clips in the studio, on the road, while shooting a music video.

And Steve raised a great point – why should the artists always have to do that?

He’s right.

Find someone on your same level, trying to put together a body of work, and build something together. There’s a lot of talented A/V people out there, hustling and doing the work.

So in the new year, ask for help. Partner up. Build a team.

Work with good people on good projects and good things can happen.

That said, wanna talk? seth@socialmediaescape.club

Punk Planet founder Dan Sinker wrote this and it couldn’t be any more vital.

WHAT’S YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE PLAN?

Here’s a very basic plan.

Set up a landing page for your email list (like Prosthetic Records did here, using Mailchimp). It’s not hard.

Next, Tweet about it.

Imagine you have 10,000 Twitter followers, and you know around 10% of those people see your Tweet. That’s 1,000 people.

Then imagine 5% of those people click to subscribe to your email newsletter. That’s 50 people.

That’d be 50 people that you could reach directly when you’ve got something new to announce.

Now say 5% of those 50 people buy something from you for $20. Let’s round up, it’s three people.

That’s $60.

And that’s if you post “join my email list” once and never do it again.

But you should at least schedule some Tweets to let people know they can sign up to stay in touch.

Yeah, I know, 50 people is smaller than 10,000. But it took you half a decade to get to 10,000, so it’s going to take a minute. Develop a strategy and you can someday get 10-20% of that audience subscribed to your email list.

Then you can reach this audience whenever you have a new release, a product, tour announcement, or new video.

But you gotta get creative.“‘Sign up for updates’ is for department stores and car dealerships.”

It’s boring as shit, so I gave you a few ideas how to accelerate your Social Media Escape Plan

Your FOUR THE WEEKEND tasks this weekend:

1. Start an email list if you haven’t already. Check out my Resources page for help with that.
2. Set up a Link In Bio service, and then try mentioning (not linking) that in your posts. See what happens.
3. Read how Linda Bloomfield got around 1,800 people to sign up for her email list with just one tweet. See how Elder announced their email list, too.
4. Valentines Day is just 45 days away. What’s your plan?

ANTISOCIAL

A vulgar display of social media hostility.

Grab a fistful of cookies and doom spiral with the multitude of “social media trends in 2023” articles, with missives like “YouTube Shorts Takes Off,” “Budgets on the line as bosses demand social receipts,” and “First steps into the metaverse.” Good luck!

Hey friends – it’s the end of the year, so I don’t want to drop any big new ideas here as we’re all in wind-down mode, so I figured a wrap-up of the three biggest newsletters I sent this year would be of help to get you ready for 2023.

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1. I had no idea that ‘MORE THAN PLASTIC’ (from Nov 9) would be a hit (for a newsletter about newsletters), but that’s why we make things and release them into the world, right?

In this newsletter I stressed, “You are more interesting than what you’re selling.”

You aren’t just a bass player, you are a songwriter.
You aren’t just a guitar tech, you’ve got stories.
You aren’t just a writer, you weave stories.
You aren’t just a photographer, you capture timeless moments.

Yes, email campaigns of vinyl mock ups and merch bundles are fine when you’re sending to 5,000+ folks, but if you’re just getting started then do your best in telling your story, selling your journey, and inviting your fans into your process as much as you can.

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2. In October I wrote ‘UNHOOK FROM SOCIAL MEDIA,’ which was me yelling from the rooftops (as usual) about breaking away from the over reliance on social media platforms to reach your fans.

This quote from Cody Cook-Parrott keeps me up at night:

“I have had to completely unhook from the algorithm because I have never had lower social media engagement. I have 80K+ followers and often get 300 likes on a post.”

Do we keep spending hours on Instagram every week to get to 85K followers, all so you can hit 325 likes? Fuck that.

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3. My third most popular post was all about the LINK IN BIO, which I’ve been testing out since early November and seeing solid results.

I refuse to believe our reach / impressions will ever get better than right now. It’s all downhill from here.

Yes, I bring the doom and gloom, but there’s no way you can count on winning the attention roulette game every time you have something to announce on socials.

ANTISOCIAL

A vulgar display of social media hostility.

This isn’t about social media, but “The Fake Artists Problem Is Much Worse Than You Realize” is pretty fucked up, though I don’t think we’ll see any fake bands on the Spotify metal playlist, right? RIGHT?!? (h/t Kallie Marie)

“Piers Morgan’s Twitter account sent out explicit, derogatory tweets to his 8.3 million followers Tuesday,” which is mind boggling. Two-factor your Twitter account, friends.

“Between January 1 and June 30, more than 21 million fake accounts were detected and removed from LinkedIn,” says LINKEDIN.