Someone is pretending to be senior editor Tom Breihan of Stereogum on Instagram and ripping off bands.

“A month or two ago, I heard about an Instagram account that was posting and contacting bands in my name. This account was hitting artists up for $100, promising some kind of coverage on (Stereogum).”

When social media platforms make it easy to impersonate anyone (the fake account has 2,800+ followers), then drag their feet in fixing the situation, whose side are they really on?

Thankfully Tom Breihan has a little site called, ummm… Stereogum to let people know about this scam, but even with the clout of being a senior editor of a site founded in 2002, the scam account is still active:

“I’ve reported this fake account to Instagram several times, and nothing has come of it. My colleagues have reported it, too. I don’t know how common this kind of scammer is on Instagram, but it’s apparently very difficult to get through to anyone at the company to put a stop to their activities. I’m applying for a verified account, too, which feels ridiculous when I don’t actually post on the platform.”

This happened to Rolling Stone and Billboard writers earlier this year. The Avenged Sevenfold social media accounts were hacked, too, pushing out fake festival cancellations.

Thankfully Tom at Stereogum can post on their site about the scam.
Same with Rolling Stone. A7x sent out a note to their email list.

It’s 2023, people – make sure you have an official channel where you can communicate directly with your audience.

• Have an email list and a website, and turn on all security options for the service you use (Mailchimp, Squarespace, etc)
• Turn on domain name auto-renew so you don’t lose your website
• Use all the security functions on your social media, too
• Don’t reuse passwords – get your team on 1Password

Seriously – if someone were impersonating you or your business, what would you do?

What if you get hacked, like when Elder lost access to their Facebook account with 78,000 followers?

Maybe you won’t get impersonated, or hacked, but what if you get BANNED, or plain old locked out of your accounts?

And if you won’t listen to me, listen to Vince from Metal Blade:

“Creators, musicians, etc. need to use multiple platforms – patreon, twitch, youtube, etc. Any individual platform, for any reason, can ban you for a reason you may never even know.

Have a dedicated website. Have an e-mail list.”

Have a space on the internet for your project. Have an email list. It’s the only direct communication you’ll with your fans when (not if) your social media accounts go down.

Earlier this week The Armed sent out an email newsletter (above, right). As you can see, it’s similar in layout to an Instagram post (above, left).

The rest of the email is the same; photo, text, image, text.

White background. Dark text. Like an Instagram post, or a book, a newspaper.

• Make sure your text isn’t too tiny
• Don’t use eye-searing background colors
• Make your link colors stand out – they’re important!
• Make photos full-width
• Don’t use columns (yeah, I said it)

Make the bulk of your email a reflection of your authentic self, as The Armed did here:

“Well that’s it for right now…we’re in North Carolina and it’s 96 degrees. We play at 6:30 pm outdoors and there is no shade anywhere. So uh..I guess if we die, please remember LIAR 2 as our final, irrevocable mathcore legacy.”

An intern (or AI) didn’t write that, that came from the band.

That’s the opposite of mullet marketing.

Your social media feeds are the party. Loose and free, filled with witty rants, spontaneous photos, lengthy captions.

The likes pour in, and the replies.

Party in the back.

Then you subscribe to a band’s newsletter and get their “email blast,” which is just a few vinyl mock-ups of their album, some text, a button.

No lively text. No attitude. No swagger.

Business in the front.

Remember, the bulk of your social media followers don’t see your posts, so copy, paste, and elaborate on the wonderfully long captions you’ve already written.

“Engagement is the thing. The main thing. The only thing. Do I still open your newsletter?”

Adding more people to your list ain’t the fix for your 10% open rate.

This is an excerpt from ‘Do Open‘ from David Hieatt. Great read.

Sharing this post from TOKiMONSTA to demonstrate how hard it is for everyone, even a Grammy nominated artist with 178,000 Instagram followers, and 1.3 million monthly listens on Spotify.

But hey, Jeffrey Wisenbaugh (Director of Social & Content at Meta) tells Link in Bio about some new things coming to Threads!

“I think I’m most excited about an improved search experience, the web version, and multiple account login—will make managing brand pages and your own personal account so much easier.” 

Who else is excited about an improved search experience?!
Are you excited about “the web version” yet?! WOO!

Most artists would be excited about reaching their fans who clicked follow, but you gotta pay money for that (and even then, there’s no guarantee they’ll see it).

SO WHAT DO WE DO?

What do folks without Grammy nominations, press coverage, label support, and a management team do?

Are we really going to stick it out on Instagram and Threads and “X” and whatever else, working our asses off to get a million followers just so we can reach 10% of them if we’re lucky?

You’re closer to 10,000 people on an email list than you are to a million on a social platform (probably).

And if you got “just” 10,000 email subscribers and a 40% open rate you’re cooking with an email a week.

Now, that doesn’t just mean some vinyl mock ups and video stills linking to YouTube.

That’s the sort of stuff you can outsource to Fiverr.

Like my pal Laura says in her latest video, she doesn’t need to be the one stuffing mail orders.

Her magic comes from writing catchy songs and making great videos – the sort of thing you can’t outsource.

Tegan and Sara have been writing multiple newsletters every week since January, 2022.

Nina Nastasia wrote about the one year anniversary of her album ‘Riderless Horse,’ complete with photos of the recording process with Steve Albini (disclaimer; she’s a client, but she wrote all that).

PUT DOWN THE PHONE

If you wanna do the bare minimum with a newsletter, don’t expect great open rates, or people rushing to subscribe.

Instead, set aside one hour from the multiple hours you spend on social media each week and write a great newsletter.

Include some photos. Maybe a video.

Oh, you know – like all the stuff you shovel onto social media that most of your fans never see!

And all those cool interview features you see in magazines and music sites (maybe stuff that other artists are doing, but you’re not at that level yet), DO THEM YOURSELF.

Make you own photo session.

Hell, work with a photographer friend. COLLABORATE.

List your 10 favorite horror videos, favorite 80s action movies, the album that got you to start playing music, the mentor that got you making art… should I keep going?

I can do this all day.

Because dammit, if you got that sort of press on a site or an alt-weekly you’d share it with your fans, right?

YOU’RE MORE INTERESTING THAN THIS NEWSLETTER

I mean, straight up; I write a newsletter about MAKING NEWSLETTERS and got about 25 new subscribers in the last month.

This is the nerdiest shit and I’m nearing 600 subscribers.

You probably make art, run a shop, write music, interview bands, photograph live shows, teach amazing courses – you know how much more interesting that is than writing about newsletters?!?

BUT, if you just make your newsletter about 10% discounts and BUY NOW buttons and NEW SONG in bold with a link, well, then yes, my shit is cooler.

But you can tell stories! You should share photos! Talk about the things you like!

Or… just sit around and hope that social media platforms are gonna change.

That ain’t gonna happen.

We’re all a million times cooler than these social media nerds.

Make cool stuff, and share it with your friends on your website and newsletter (where they’ll see it).

Yep, things look slightly different here at Heavy Metal Email.

I discovered an account that started in 2019 was using the same “iOS email app with 666” design for their logo, so I switched things up.

Aside from the batch of stickers I made with that old design, it’s not a great loss. I doubt any of you reading this right now will un-subscribe, and six minutes after reading this you will have forgotten all about it.

It’s okay to scrap old things and start fresh.

That’s why you should start your email list today.

Pick a service like Button Down or Substack or Beehiiv and just start.

Like I wrote in “GET BETTER AT REACHING YOUR FANS,”

If you start with Mailchimp, you can send five emails and decide you hate it and use something else.

Just export your subscribers and leave.

I did this recently with a client.

We sent two email campaigns and jumped to Substack.

We are at week 33 of 2023. Do not wait until the new year to “maybe figure out that email thing.”

It will only get harder to reach your fans on social media in the coming weeks and months – it’s time to figure out your Social Media Escape Plan, friends. Let’s go.

I like this quote from New Creative Era:

THE CREATIVE STATUS QUO HAS MADE US LONELY CONTENT MACHINES
PRESSURED TO POST WITH UNNATURAL QUANTITY AND FREQUENCY
TO PURSUE OUR LIVELIHOODS AND EXPRESS OUR WORK
WE PLAY SOMEONE ELSE’S GAME

I’ve been thinking about that first line a bit, as I sort of felt isolated as a writer, as someone trying to offer up ideas. I feel like it’s me vs everyone, stacking up against everyone else trying to offer solutions and ideas in a busy, hyper-competitive world of music and culture.

But I found some comfort in two podcasts recently, that sort of set me at ease, the first being with Bobby Hundreds on the Tim Ferris show:

The one thing that stuck with me was building something within a community.

Think of artists working together on various projects, like Turnstile working with BADBADNOTGOOD and today releasing this EP:

Working with other creative people is good energy, and good energy spreads. As the effectiveness of social media wanes, think of the creative people you can work with.

Next is ‘Common Shapes’ from Cody Cook-Parrott and their episode ‘The Art of Newsletters.’

Here’s a quote:

“Just hit send. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, I imagine people might see your imperfections and think “me, too. I feel that, too. I have typos. I misspell things.” Whatever it is, let your anti-perfectionism be an invitation to your readers that it’s ok to be clumsy and start anyways. It’s ok to be mediocre and still hit send.”

I’ve botched subject lines, missed typos, and sent emails with broken links – life rolls on. Learn from it, and start work on the next one.

It’s most likely no one died from a tiny error in your newsletter. Let your humanity have some space in your work, in your social media posts, in whatever you do.

Things don’t have to be perfect, they just need to be done / shipped / out the door. And like I mentioned above, you don’t have to do it alone!

Digital Marketing Director (and someone I work with!) Kyle Frey at MNRK Music Group, on the Break the Gate Podcast:

There’s so much power in email marketing today. That’s definitely one of the most slept on areas, especially if you’re developing your own audience or fan base, bands should definitely get more on board with collecting that data, getting those emails. It’s your direct line of communication.

Email marketing is so strong for everything like, single rollouts, just basic communication, album presale, and just having that (first party) data is very important.

Bands, organic soap makers, photographers, any other creative souls – you need a direct line of communication with your fans.

Social media gives you the illusion of reaching your fans, but your posts never reach all your fans. Some of the bigger accounts on socials that are getting results – well, they probably got PAID, FULL TIME PEOPLE doing that work, or some other kind of help.

That’s what I meant when I wrote ‘PART TIME SOCIAL MEDIA EFFORT GETS YOU PART TIME RESULTS’ – you can only do so much an an independent artist. 

And I mean this with all my heart; as a creative person, the hard part is already done.

You write songs, take photographs, win races, teach courses, sell merch – whatever it is that you do – you’re doing it! That’s the hard part.

Setting up and sending out a newsletter? Come on, you can do this. You can figure it out.

You figured out how to do that stupid SWIPE UP thing with Instagram stories, right?

Ask a friend. Watch some YouTube videos. Send me an email (seth@closemondays.com) with some questions, or just book an hour call with me and we’ll this rolling.

We all figured out “hashtags” and vertical video.

Let’s figure out how to send an email to your fans.

From ‘25 THINGS TO SAY INSTEAD OF “NEW VIDEO‘ over at my HEAVY METAL EMAIL newsletter on Substack:

Every day, a hundred bands have a new music video to promote, but these creative, gifted, genius artists only seem to know one way to announce their new creative vision to the world:

NEW VIDEO [link]

Hours of planning, hiring a director, gathering equipment, location scouting, lighting, permits, and a long ass day playing in the woods or in an abandoned warehouse, and when it’s time to announce it to the world – the creative well is empty.