Category: WorkCategory: Work

I had a nice exchange with songwriter olivia rafferty recently, who said they’re hesitant to leave Instagram because as a musician you must be on social media – it’s the rule!

I asked how many actual opportunities came from all that time they spend on social media.

As a musician, I post on social media so that people find my music and go, “nice! I want to listen to this artist and buy her merch and come to her shows.” So I try to stay active on Instagram. But looking back at the last year, the biggest successes I’ve had have come from funding, emails and live shows. None of them came from opportunities facilitated by social media.

I am not telling anyone to burn their social media accounts to the ground.

But… what’s the opposite of uploading content to social media that 85% of your fans won’t even see?

Posting once a week, perhaps?

Remember what Rick Rubin said; “for any rules you accept… it would be worthwhile to try the opposite.”

Instead of posting 19 times a day, engaging, sharing, uploading… post once a week.

See what happens, I dare you.

Social media won’t like that, though. They’d rather you doom scroll until 1:45am on a Tuesday night.

“Social media companies don’t want you to go out and have fun with your friends—they want you to look at pictures of your friends having fun without you.”

Social Media Escape Club gained 100 subscribers in the last month, and just four of them came from Instagram.

Instead of putting all our marketing eggs into the social media basket and increasing shareholder value for Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, let’s find new ways to meet our fans that are sustainable, and leave us energized.

Go to a show, start a club, learn a new skill, read a book, host an event – opportunities exist outside of social media.

They’re just waiting for you to show up.

Writing this newsletter has been a solo endeavor for about two years, but I’ve switched that up in the past month by starting weekly Zoom hangouts to talk with subscribers about social media, online marketing, and (usually) cats.

I’ve walked away from those calls each week feeling stoked, and used our discussions as starting points for upcoming newsletters.

I do this because I can’t know all the answers, but we learn together.

In a recent video chat, Josh from Úzkost talked about playing a show in a mall.

Whether it’s something like Beth’s Introvert Drawing Club or Josh and his band Úzkost melting faces in a mall, the people in front of you provide the energy.

Do your best to find those people.

They might be in quiet cafes or calm Discord servers or… malls. I’ve met some fantastic people on Twitter earlier this year and by signing up for some online courses.

Maybe your people are waiting for you to carve a space for them.

From The Creative Shift by Dan Blank:

Back when I used to manage a bookstore and cafe in the 1990s, we would run multiple events each week. What would make a great event? 20 people attending. Even an event with 8 or 10 would be a success.

Imagine that your website is a place of refuge for your fans.
Your newsletter is a ray of sunshine for someone.
The magic you create helps someone get through bad times.

HINDZ brings calm and peaceful vibes with his YouTube videos. He’s carved that niche for himself, and it’s beautiful.

Make a space for what you do with your website, with your newsletter – the essential online spaces that you can own and control.

Your website can be more than YouTube embeds and Bandsintown tour dates.

Your newsletter can be more than tour JPGs and BUY NOW buttons.

Trust me – your biggest fans will appreciate it.

We have to do marketing, I know.

But how are we fostering community around the things that we do? How does it affect change and expand culture? How do we foster a creative and vibrant space with our work?

I wrote the HEAVY METAL EMAIL newsletter for about two years, but about ten days ago, I renamed it to SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB.

That new name came about over the last two years, as I was sending 2-3 emails per week.

It started with the SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE PLAN, a play on the mighty DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN. And it just stuck around.

See, I booked a meeting with Sarah Fey of Writers at Work. She had a ton of great suggestions, but near the end of our chat, she suggested a name change. I was hesitant because who likes change?

But in my gut, I knew I was ready for some change.

HEAVY METAL EMAIL certainly points casual observers in one direction, but I don’t want to pigeonhole myself to just the metal world.

My niche isn’t the genre; my niche is “social media mostly sucks, let’s figure out how to spend less time on it.”

Since the name change, I’ve picked up about 25 free subscribers and two new paid subscribers. I’ve also had a few great conversations with fun stuff on the horizon.

Is it just from the name change? Probably not. But the name change and a fresh direction made a few things fall together nicely.

“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.

A friend is thinking about getting started with coaching calls.

They got a top 15 album to their name as an independent artist.

A coach’s name came up (let’s call them Susan) and how much they charged, which was around $250 to talk about (let’s say) playing professional poker.

“Well,” my friend said, “I can’t charge that much.”

To which I replied, “Why not? Susan doesn’t have a top 15 album.”

If you wanna learn poker, don’t book a call with my friend.

If you wanna sell records, talk to my friend (for $250).