Vulfpeck’s Jack Stratton spoke recently about the streaming landscape and how Apple Music could be fixed.

Lots of people are writing about the death of Pitchfork.

Bandcamp saw 50% of its staff laid off last year.

In 2017, Spotify’s RapCaviar was the “most influential playlist in music.” Now, folks at major labels have “seen streams coming from RapCaviar drop anywhere from 30% to 50%” because “editorial playlists are losing influence amid AI expansion.”

There’s a Taco Bell commercial featuring Portugal. The Man – not for their actual music, but as a “feature” to highlight how broke the band was, but at least they could eat at Taco Bell.

It’s almost as if Seth Godin knew what I was going to write about today:

“When things don’t go the way we hope, one alternative is to look hard at the system that caused the problem. And another productive strategy is to figure out what to do with what we get, instead of seeking to find the villain that’s causing our problem.”

Right now, phones can shoot music videos, laptops can become studios, taking pictures with a disposable camera is chic, and we can post everything to the internet in seconds.

But the days of posting something on social media and getting 10,000 people to see it are over. That ain’t coming back.

If you’ve been a subscriber, you know I always say this – it will never get easier to reach your fans on social media.

Don’t blame Spotify, or Apple, or Meta – these are all companies that were built to make money for shareholders. They’re doing their job; are we doing ours?

Are we making the best art that we can?

Are we writing 1000 words a day?

Am I practicing my bass for 15 minutes a day? (No, I’m not)

If you were the lone creative weirdo in high school back in the day, well…, you’d better read some books and find some magazines because you’re on your own.

Now we have websites, Zoom, internet radio, email, and a thousand messaging apps – there’s no reason to do any of this alone.

We know the villains in the current landscape. We know what we’re up against.

Time to stop playing games we don’t want to play (and can’t win), and figure out what’s next.

My three quick ideas on that:

1. Write a good newsletter to your fans that they’ll want to read
2. Set up a website and fill it up with all the cool stuff you do
3. Delete the social media apps from your phone this week

Will that raise streaming rates and bring back organic reach on Facebook? NOPE. But it’s action, something we can do right now, and it’s a step toward new possibilities.

I had a wonderful chat with Raziq Rauf and friends last week (Raz writes Running Sucks, and it’s great), and got to continue screaming this message from the rooftops:

Don’t ask social media followers to subscribe to your newsletter; tell them what they’re getting.

And don’t just say “an interview” or “new music,” sell it!

“Make it easy for your fans to say “yes, I want that.”

Do you want free donuts? Yes.

Do you want more of my art? Yes.

Do you want more photos of my travels? Yes.

Do you want more music? Yes.”

Get fans to your site (or newsletter).

If they subscribe, great.

If they don’t, they don’t.

Sure, with a zillion followers, you can ask for the subscribe and see some success, but explaining what fans will be getting is a lot more fun.

I was a one-man band called Seth W.

I played the drums with my feet, I played the bass, and I sang all at the same time.

I played “The Car Song,” “The Jock Song,” “Runny Nose,” and many more. I even covered Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” (The Titanic movie has just come out).

It did this from 1998 to about 2001 or so.

Around this time, I met Tommy (maybe he took the photo above, but I’m not sure). He drove from NJ to see another band on the bill, but he “got” what I was doing. He booked me for a show in his town.

I got to play with Folly. I met Ben Kenney from Supergrub, who would go on to play with The Roots and Incubus.

That was around 25 years ago, and me and Tommy are still buds.

Could I have kept playing shows, writing silly songs, and maybe started touring?

Sure. But I didn’t want to do all that.

As Scott Perry says, play your own game:

“You can’t win playing someone else’s game.

And you can’t win a game you don’t want to play.”

I never got to play arenas or do big interviews, but I met Tommy.

What has this got to do with the Social Media Escape Club?

Well, I deleted my Instagram account on January 1st, 2024.

I met many great people through that app, but after all these years, I didn’t want to play that game anymore.

Could I have met another “Tommy?” I don’t know, maybe.

But just like I don’t want to spend time writing silly songs, I don’t want to waste hours on Instagram every week for some mystical payoff.

I mean, I turn 48 this year. I have a limited number of years left on this flying space rock – do I really want to spend that time staring at my phone?

Sure, “growing my audience” sounds like the right thing to do, but how much time am I investing in the people who are already onboard?

It’s like when I see people on social media say, “Gonna send some goodies to my 1,000th follower!” Is that how you make your first 999 followers feel special?

Tommy invited me to his New Year’s Eve get-together, but I was already planning on hiking up the nearby Appalachian Trail to watch the sun come up with another friend I met years ago (also from playing music).

Instead of chasing more, let’s seek depth in the new year.

Can you name five of your subscribers? Do you know what state or country they live in? Have you seen photos of their pets?

Depth isn’t a growth hack, but it has much better rewards.

Happy New Year.

When Roy Wood Jr. was asked if he deserved a shot at hosting the Daily Show, he said sure, but also, “make your own shot.”

Roy Wood Jr. understands how the game is played; wait to get picked, or make your own shot.

Seth Godin wrote, “reject the tyranny of being picked: pick yourself” back in 2011, and it absolutely stands the test of time:

It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work.

Make your art, share your music, take your photos and then make your shot.

I write about newsletters – what you’re doing is probably a lot more interesting.

If no one asked you to share your 10 favorite things of the year in their publication, feature yourself on your website.

There’s no underground / alt flea market in your area? Make your own (a buddy and I are working on a pop-up flea market for musicians to unload their unused gear).

Wish you had a community of art freaks to hang out with? Start your own.

The technology is there (Zoom, Google Meet, Discord), you just need to ask some people to come hang out.

Because just posting and talking about what you do only goes so far, mostly because that’s what everyone else is doing.

We publish, post, and repost, hoping to get picked.

Pick your people, build a community, grow together.

Make your own shot.

I’ve been talking to a lot of you about setting up newsletters, and the biggest challenge seems always to be, “How do I get my followers on Instagram to subscribe to my Substack?”

I’ve said before that social media is like the food court at the mall.

When you set up shop at the mall, yes, you’ll have lots of foot traffic, but you’re also bound by the rules of the mall – opening hours, delivery schedules, branding, etc.

But look at you – your food stand built quite a following and you expanded.

You set up shop in a nice downtown space – you set the hours, the vibes, the branding, and the music that plays while serving your customers.

Now, as a business owner like that, how much time will you spend at the mall?

Sure, some of your old customers are there, but you’ve probably got a handful of customers coming into your shop daily, right?

You could return to the food court and hand out some flyers – “Hey, visit us downtown!”

But… you’ve got a business to run. You’ve got customers!

So, to get away from the restaurant analogy – you’ve got an email list. You might have 25 people on your list. You might have 250, 1000, or 5000.

Sure, many people clicked FOLLOW on Instagram, but how much effort are you willing to invest to get them to your website?

People downloaded Instagram to be on Instagram.

Yes, we discover people, brands, art, and music from Instagram, but many of us haven’t bookmarked every website or subscribed to every email list (most folks on Instagram don’t even have email lists).

If you genuinely want to escape social media, the best course of action is to make some “WE MOVED” signs and schedule them for your various social media platforms.

Or, you could do what I did this past week and post twice on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Let’s see how that worked out.

I got 320 views total on LinkedIn (two posts), and 222 views on Instagram.

As you can see above, from my 542 views I got 14 people (users) to visit Social Media Escape Club, which is a 2.5% conversion rate.

But I fought for those clicks – I DM’d almost everyone who LIKED the IG stories, and gave them a link to the post I was promoting.

The result: two new subscribers (and one upgraded to a paid subscription).

It’s like I say, the vault is still open.

We can go back to the food court as often as we want, but we can only snag people a few people each time to visit.

Your results will vary, since I write about newsletters, and you probably do something a lot cooler than what I’m doing.

So maybe you get 4-6 new subscribers a week doing all that?

Do that for three months, and you might have 60 new subscribers.

Mind you, this is just one of the many ways to get the attention of your followers on a social media platform.

You can make dance videos and point at words and use trending audio…

Or you can make the best damn content for your existing subscribers.

Update your website. Send a weekly newsletter.

And avoid the mall this weekend if you can.

Happy Holidays, friends.

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.

How do you get people from Instagram to subscribe to your Substack?

By being on Instagram, unfortunately.

Don’t worry – Nail Mason lays it out nicely here:

Connect with 3 new fans each day, and you’re building a broad and deep audience.

Imagine — 1,095 new friends who can open doors to opportunities and insights.

Create value and connect.

Start there, then rinse, and repeat.

Beth Spencer of Introvert Drawing Club connected with her fans using a sneaky kitten character on Instagram.

I posted everywhere, begging folks folks to find, capture via screenshot, and share. I rewarded each person who helped with 3 months of complimentary membership.

Getting people on Instagram to do anything is hard, so you have to get creative.

Beth went from 150 Substack subscribers in November 2022, to 3,000 almost a year later (and nearing 200 paid subscribers).

You do that by building a real connection, not by just saying, “Join my newsletter for updates.”

And remember – this took a year.

Make sure you figure out a way to connect in a sustainable and energizing way. If it’s pure pain and misery, you’ll end up quitting the quest to get your social media followers to your email list.

Three Simple Ways To Start Connecting With Your Fans

1. Reply to the people in your comments in a sincere, human way
2. DM someone who liked a recent announcement (and include a link to what you’re promoting)
3. Reply to a fellow artist’s post and celebrate their wins – their fans will see it and maybe check you out – and that artist will appreciate your support!

Comments, replies, engagement – whatever you want to call it; do things that don’t scale for a few minutes a day, and see what happens. Like Neil mentioned above – do this with just three people a day, or just start with one!

If you want people from Instagram to subscribe to your Substack, understand that you are competing with an app built by a company with over 60,000 employees.

The motivation of Meta employees is to keep you scrolling, engaged, and plugged into their ecosystem of products – Instagram, Facebook, DMs and messages.

Your fans on social media are navigating an unending fast-food drive-thru experience, sitting comfortably in their vehicle, all while algorithms serve them as much content as they want through their digital window.

That’s what you’re up against, so trust me when I say the following ain’t gonna cut it:

• “I’m writing on Substack now. Click the link in bio to sign up.”
• “I’m starting a newsletter. Sign up to get updates.”
• “Hey, social media sucks. Sign up for our email list.”

Like the Merovingian says in The Matrix Reloaded, “this is not a reason, this is not a why.”

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