Category: Social MediaCategory: Social Media

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.

This from a Chris Dalla Riva piece called ‘Your Followers are not Your Fans.’

“Your followers – and maybe even your listeners – are not necessarily your fans.”

Riva goes down the rabbit hole of how Spotify plays and TikTok numbers don’t always translate to ticket sales.

Social media vanity metrics don’t always translate to real world fandom.

People who “like” a post probably won’t buy your album, sign up for your course, join your email list, or share something with their friends.

Many followers like you, but they don’t LIKE-LIKE you.

A “follower” starts at the very top of the “marketing funnel.”

Moving the follower down the funnel is an adventure.

One does not simply turn this casual fan into a customer overnight.

Customer. Subscriber. Student. Client. Whoever you’re trying to bring into your world.

You probably know this because of the very few followers that even see your social media posts, very few click anything.

So in our SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE PLAN journey, we’ve been doing a lot of ATTRACTING (at the top of the funnel).

Our next move is INFORMING.

Nobody knows everything you’re doing.

Most of your followers don’t know about your next course, your next photo session, your next tour, your new shirt.

They don’t know they can subscribe to your cool email list.

Here’s some wild things you can do:

➡️ Reply to someone who leaves a comment with a link

➡️ DM someone and let them know about your new project

➡️ Email someone directly

➡️ Make personalized videos with Loom and send to fans (like this):

You can directly reach followers, all while watching Ahsoka on a Tuesday night, or watching the Jets season implode in just 75 seconds.

It’s hand-to-hand combat from here on out. It’s gonna take time, and it doesn’t scale, but it can help move casual fans to people who absolutely love what you do.

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.

I have good news, and I have bad news.

The good news is the vault is open, and by vault, I mean social media.

You’re still able to link to your latest video, or a new song, or ask people to join your email list.

The bad news is that you can only swipe a few dollars at a time from the vault.

That post got 7,927 views.
Revolver has 416,600 followers.
2% of their followers saw it (and 98% didn’t).

Revolver entered the vault, and with a 2% click rate, they walked out with about 130 clicks.

At 5%, that’s 400 visits to their website.

The vault is open, so they keep posting.

Carter Vail has 211,000 followers and got 400 people to pre-save his song, which means just 0.1% of his fans pre-saved his new track.

The vault is open, so he keeps posting videos and making music.

I had about 2,600 Twitter followers at one time, and got four people total to subscribe to Social Media Escsape Club.

PERSON BY PERSON, DRIP BY DRIP

You might be interested in getting away from social media, and thinking that you can pull a lever and all your followers will magically sign up for your email list, or start visiting your site.

Linda Bloomfield moved her #OpportunityTuesday from Twitter (with 16,500 followers) to Substack in late 2022, and got 1,200 people to subscribe to her newsletter from one Tweet.

There should be studies on how well that worked. And it’s still just 7.2% of her Twitter audience.

But again, the good news is that the vault is still open.

Take what you can get.

Social media can be a full-time job – if you let it become a full-time job.

Let me explain Parkinson’s law; “work expands to fill the time allotted to it.”

So if your online marketing plan is just, “ehh, whenever I get to it,” great – you’re now a full time social media person.

After all, you’ve set no boundaries or limits. You get to always think about social media, and fret about if you’re doing enough, and if you should post something.

“Oh man, I haven’t posted on Facebook is weeks!”

Instead of that amateur-hour nonsense, set up a plan that fits your life, since you probably have better things to think about than social media.

Open up Google Calendar, we’re going to create an “editorial calendar.”

If you’ve got a new song coming out, put that in there.

Now, plan a social media post two weeks before that date.

Then seven days. Then three.

Oh, the new song is out! That’s another post.

Now, plan a post for three days after it comes out.

And seven days.

And 14 days.

Your numbers may vary, but you get the point.

Go into Twitter, write out your posts, include an image, and schedule them.

Use Facebook’s Business Manger thing and do the same to schedule posts on Facebook and Instagram.

Congrats! That’s the bare fucking minimum to have a seemingly active social media presence, and 95% of bands in your scene can’t be bothered, so you’re a star.

But what about when you don’t have a new song coming out, or a new tour?

Figure out what major holidays are coming up, then plan a post around something that matches the vibe and feel of your creative endeavor.

57 days til Halloween! Spooky things! Horror movies!
79 days til Black Friday! Special deals!
112 days til Christmas!

You get the idea.

Or search “[genre] albums released in 2013” and find albums that are 10 years old (or 15, or 25).

Write about your favorite albums on your website, link to it from you social media platforms, and in your newsletter.

For example, ‘Surgical Steel’ from Carcass came out September 13, 2013.

Instead of just writing your homage to this epic album on Instagram, put it on your website instead.

Then, on September 13th, tell your followers on socials to read you post on your website (that’s what Loudwire will be doing).

Send the link to your email list, too.

You can do that with movies, books, shows you went to, albums you’ve released, and all sorts of various other milestones you’ve had in your career.

Now, when you sit down and write out these ideas, it makes your “content creation” a lot easier, and the job takes less time.

You’re not just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks. Instead, you’re being deliberate.

You can take an hour a week, write some stuff, schedule it, and be done. DONE.

Then, since you’re putting out solid stuff, it just makes it easier for your audience to click, comment, react, and subscribe.

And it’s also how you keep from making social media your full time job.