I made the above video reply for my Substack pal Mariah Friend, who is “diving into the world of offering live events/workshops with the hope of building community and engaging more directly with my readers.”

You can find her original comment here.

“Unfortunately, I’ve had little to no engagement. I have around 370 subscribers and offer both free/donation based events and ticketed events… so far, I’ll have 2-3 people sign up on Eventbrite but then not show up. This honestly makes me anxious because hosting a workshop for a live audience vs. doing a recorded workshop with NO audience has a very different flow! I’m not sure how to best prepare for a scenario I’m uncertain about until it’s happening.”

Hosting these events can be a lot of fun, and build lots of goodwill among your subscribers, but getting them to show up can be a challenge!

Hopefully, this video is helpful. Every situation is unique, and every audience is different, so take everything I mention with a grain of salt and then apply it however to your process.

I shared Michelle Warner’s concept of getting “awareness” off our own plate about a month ago and have tested it in a few ways.

First, I pitched an article to Ryan J. Downey, for his Stream N’ Destroy newsletter (above). I felt it fit better on his “platform” than here since I don’t focus on metal bands as much as I used to when this newsletter was called Heavy Metal Email!

Only 27% of the bands at the Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest in Philadelphia have email lists.

Six have websites.

That means four of the 14 bands performing can reach their fans directly via email. Since signing up for all four email lists 25 days ago, I have yet to receive any updates.

Here’s what happened: It’s hardly been a week and it brought in about five new subscribers. That might not seem like a lot, but giants in the heavy metal and hard rock industry read Ryan’s newsletter, so that’s fine with me!

Here’s how you can do it: Ask someone you know if you could offer something for their audience. Maybe it’s artwork for a newsletter series, an audio jingle for their voiceovers or podcast, or something else that supports the work they’re already doing. Maybe someone who makes videos could use your original music or animations.

Second, I helped artist/photographer Noah Kalina move his newsletter from Mailchimp to Substack. He mentioned wanting to restart his newsletter in his new YouTube videos, so I sent him an email, we had a good Facetime chat and got to work. His newsletter lives on and he’s got happy subscribers!

Here’s what happened: Noah credits me as his “newsletter guru” in the footer, and he gave me a Substack Recommendation, which led to about 35 new subscribers. I also reconnected with two wonderful artist friends who saw my name in his newsletters, too.

Here’s how you can do it: If someone is asking, offer a skill as a way to support someone in their creative journey. I’m not into the whole “cold email” thing, but if you see someone looking for help and you feel somewhat confident in your abilities, hit them up – you never know where it might lead!

Third, I submitted the above photo for Photo Talk, which is put together by Marcel Borgstijn. Folks vote in a poll about the clarity and engagement of the photo and leave comments, too. It was terrifying but a lot of fun at the same time!

Here’s what happened: This led to a few subscriptions, but this was just a fun thing to do, and I met some very talented photographers in the process!

Here’s how you can do it: If you see someone doing cool things with other people, ask if you can join in!

I’ve also replied to about 15 people by making individual videos for them and answering their questions or expanding on their ideas.

Why do all this? Well, maybe you missed it from my recent ‘Maybe you don’t need more subscribers’ post:

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.

Everything I listed above was way more fun than “creating content” to drive “awareness” on services that are turning from social media into paid advertising platforms.

Talk to good people, nurture your creative network, and reach out to people you haven’t talked to in a while. Use video, send a text, a postcard, or voice note. Call them on the phone, meet for coffee, axe-throwing, and/or putt-putt golf.

Yes, we’d all love to just post our work and be done, but occasionally connecting with the energy of other creative people will give you new perspectives on what you’re trying to accomplish.

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.

You can get away with sparse details about your latest album when you’re BEYONCÉ and you’re riding a white horse and holding an American flag.

Compare that to a post I saw recently on a social media platform:

“Just updated my site, and added some extra goodies. Subscribe!”

Updated your site with what? Photos of fish? Paintings of barns? Poems about frogs?

Extra goodies? Videos of balloon animals? Clown sculptures?

If you’re not telling me what I’m getting, why the heck should I click? Or subscribe?

Remember, you’re up against BEYONCÉ, TMZ, brands with social media teams, Netflix, and Mr. Beast.

If all you can muster is “I updated my site,” lower your expectations. The algorithms are cruel, but it’s nothing personal. Is this fair or kind? No. But playing this game is a choice, and hardly anybody wins.

There is hope, though.

When we put BEYONCÉ on one side of the spectrum and “hey, new song” on the other, there’s a vast expanse in between. A whole realm of possibilities.

As I mentioned a bit ago, Michelle Warner said “get awareness off your plate and onto other platforms,” and that phrase has rattled me to the bone.

This doesn’t mean putting our “content’“ on platforms to sit and collect dust, hoping someone will magically discover it.

Oh no.

Be intentional and work with creative people in other vibrant communities. Connect with the energized souls doing good work. Those are the “platforms” you want to inhabit.

Need an example?

Joi mentioned this in one of my recent Collaboration Station chats, working with someone she was introduced to:

“We made a collaborative mixtape and broadcast it LIVE last night and discussed the song selection like we were having a coffee on a Saturday morning.”

Collaboration is an art form—approaching someone, pitching an idea, discussing how it might work, and imagining where it could lead for both parties.

Even though I’ve got 20+ years of experience doing all this, I’m always looking to collaborate.

Two collaborations I’ve got in the works:

First, remember last year when I wrote about how many bands played Furnace Fest and had an email list?

I’m doing something like that for this year’s Decibel Beer and Metal Fest, but it won’t be in this newsletter!

Nope.

I hit up my friend who runs a newsletter better suited for that sort of heavy music nerdery, and it will be read by an audience who will devour that sort of article.

Second, someone I’ve been following on YouTube talked about restarting their newsletter, so I emailed them. A few days later, we spoke via Facetime, and now I’m helping them get their newsletter back into gear (I’ll link to it when it’s live).

You can do a lot of things to “get the word out” about your project, like making another Reel and signing up for the newest social media platform.

But consider the creative energy that could be exchanged right within your own network – and slightly beyond.

“It takes two to make a thing go right,” goes the smash hit from Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock. “It takes two to make it out of sight.”

Social media rotted our brains on the instant gratification racket.

“I accept defeat,” I repeat after HINDZ from a recent video, “I accept that billion-dollar corporations have invested millions and millions of millions into the psychology and understanding how to keep me on these devices on their platforms, and it works.”

It’s not enough that social media gobbles up our attention – it tricks us into thinking we’re nothing without them.

This is made worse because “the creative status quo has made us lonely content machines.”

We are isolated, working on projects alone in our studios and rooms. We are so in our own heads that when we get together to discuss these things, we can cry.

We’re trying to figure this out on our own, thinking we’ll beat the tech bros with better-crafted hashtags, disguising our “link in bio” text, or churning out vertical videos to appease the social media overlords.

If we just read one more social media strategy guide, or watch more one more YouTube video then we’ll crack the code.

No, thanks.

I’d rather spend my time in deeper connection with good people.

• As writers, we can work with our photographer friends (like Patrick Fellows did here). Or the photographer Wesley Verhoeve who will make black and white landscape photos for “painter Brie Noel Taylor to paint over in color.”
• Cody Cook-Parrott hosts FLEXIBLE OFFICE, where amazing creative people gather on a video call to work on their projects together.
• Carolyn Yoo made a zine called ‘How to keep your hobby from becoming a job’, and it’s brought a bunch of people together in the comment section and in real life – I handed a copy to my creative friend, and she loved it!

Start reaching out to fellow zine writers, artists, photographers, and designers – get on a phone call, plan a meetup, gather in secret in remote parks, commandeer several tables at the local Denny’s, plan your own hyper-niche flea market, write a short skit.

These are things made outside of isolation.

Spending more time around creative people will do us more good than if we just sit on our hands and wait to be saved by the next tech-bro platform to deliver us a new magical marketing machine.

Are we so powerless to change the current situation that we sit back and hope somebody else fixes everything?

And then what? That person will sell the company to a Nabisco+Tide hedge fund subsidiary, and we’ll be back where we started.

Maybe centralized kingdoms of power and influence aren’t the answer.

The answer is other people, community, and the exchange of ideas away from the supposed champions of our “creator economy,” which was here long before the silicon valley dorks showed up.

You can wait for things to change, but reaching your fans on social media will never get any easier. NEVER. I’ve been saying this since 2021.

Find some other weirdos, form your own band of misfits and start having the conversation about living in a post-social media world, ‘cuz baby it’s coming.

I said previously that maybe tossing promotional paper airplanes into the cyclone of digital content isn’t the best use of our time.

Building our work or brand on rented property is risky business, and for years we’ve been uploading content for free on social media platforms.

Then I heard Michelle Warner say recently to take 85% of the things we make “off your platform” and redistribute it in other places (listen here).

“Whether it’s a group of five people or landing some media, just get it off your platform so people don’t have to find you there.”

The answer was right there the whole time, in front of my dumb face.

“That’s where I break marketing into three stages; awareness, engagement, sales. People need to know you exist, then they need to like you, then they need to buy something from you.”

The podcast host, Jay Acunzo, then suggests that we parse out some of our content in ways that I feel like a lot of us have seen or have done in the past, like appearing on a podcast or seeing artists contribute to blogs or host classes.

As Michelle says, and I think this is the money quote, is to “get awareness off your plate and onto other platforms.”

Platforms in this case don’t have to be Instagram or TikTok, but trusted outlets with an established audience. Or a writer or artist you admire.

(more…)

My first few Threads on Substack were duds, but then I flipped them upside down.

1. Make something that’ll be interesting for my readers
2. Reach out to smart people and ask them to drop a comment
3. Share the Thread post and quotes in future posts

Not only is it a fun way to get input from your friends, but it’s great for learning about your readers (and way more fun that surveys).

I made this thread, “Where are you at with social media?” and linked it from my Welcome Email.