I recently saw a Reel of an artist explaining how they weren’t making sales because the Instagram platform was limiting their reach.

I clicked around and found their website (it was a store), and at the bottom they had an email sign up form, so I subscribed.

A few weeks went by, and by the time they sent me something, I had no idea who it was from.

This creative person, this spreader of whimsical words and imagery, posting daily their delights and magic. I subscribed, basically saying “hello, keep in touch.”

But instead of their magic and art, I got a menu.

A list of product images, prices, and the “BUY NOW” buttons below.

Look, it is a fucking MIRACLE that anyone opens any of our emails – including mine. I write emails about emails, for fucks sake.

My emails compete with much cooler newsletters. They compete with cool bands with new albums, cool clothing companies, and Netflix, and even though a lot of us aren’t remotely in this world we’re competing with the recent Met Gala whether we like it or not.

And most of us are getting “junk mail” in our email inboxes.

The race to the bottom is boring.

So easy an unpaid intern could send ‘em.

Now – if you’ve got 20K email subscribers and you’ve been in business for 20 years, fine – you’re probably doing great. Carry on. This isn’t for you, you’ve got bank accounts to look at and you’re doing great. I know this!

But if you’re the small fish in a giant pond, trying to make a name for yourself, and sell a few things to pay your phone bill, whew… it’s gonna take more than just a few product mock-ups and BUY NOW buttons.

I will die on this hill; “repurpose your social media posts – most of your followers don’t see em’ anyways!”

Re-purposing the content you’ve already posted means less time thinking about your next email newsletter, and gives you a jump on the creative process.

The same magic and delight you put into your socials is the same magic and delight you can put into your emails to your fans, your customers, your audience.

And it’s why they follow you on social media in the first place.

Just copy, paste, add a little text and context, and hit send.

Not everyone see your stuff. Not even all your fans.

There are plenty of “old” things you can repurpose and share with your fans:

• Upcoming tour dates, photos from previous tours
• Six month old releases, early product drops
• Old interviews, playlist adds, cool reviews

Remind people about interview you did earlier in the month (like my talk with Laura Kidd, an independent artist whose recent album ‘Obey Robots’ hit #14 on the UK charts, or the interview I did with Matt DeBenedictis, the Manager of Compliance at Mailchimp, or Zao drummer Jeff Gretz).

Your biggest fans might know these things, but not everybody does.

I bet half of you didn’t know I interviewed the drummer from Zao.

So with that, 70% of your social media followers probably missed that cool feature you shared, or a special you’re running in your web store.

Remember when Metallica released the first music video from their new album ‘72 Seasons’ (which just came out)?

Since releasing their video for ‘Lux Æterna’ on Monday, November 28th Metallica has not taken their foot off the gas:

Twitter posts: 17
Instagram posts: 18
Facebook posts: 19

That’s over 50 posts since MONDAY.

Remember – you’re an artist; get creative in repeating all the cool things you’ve done on socials, in your newsletter, and on your own website.

The multi-media world is busier than ever, so casually mentioning your latest offering once or twice ain’t gonna cut it.

Someone told me this decades ago, when I was running my first music blog;

“I know I can come back to the site in an hour and something new will be posted.”

The websites we visit most frequently are updated frequently.

When I ran Noisecreep for AOL Music there was a time when we posted 20+ times a day.

That got a lot of people to the site.

Your social media feed is updated basically every second.

We post to social media several times per day, or at least a few times a week.

Meanwhile, our websites collect dust.

Then, when a casual fan finally visits your site, they see old products and out of date photos. Then they bounce.

Why am I harping on websites so much when I mostly talk about email newsletters? Because getting people to your website on a regular basis makes it easier to get people to sign up for your email list.

Instead of freely giving Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk all your “exclusive” content (which they monetize, then turn around and charge you to reach your followers), publish the bulk of your work on your own website.

Don’t ask for an email address on the first date.

Show off your fine qualities on your website. Update it often. Feed it your videos, your quips, your rants from Twitter.

Get someone to visit a few times. Maybe they buy something and opt-in to your email list.

Then you can reach that fan without worrying about social media algorithms.

Do you need a sign that you should be in full control of your online presence?

How about two signs?

The Tankcrimes record label has been locked out of their Facebook account for over a month, which means they’ve lost contact with 28,000 followers.

Then there’s Topshelf Records, who had their ads account hacked and “had almost $20k in fraudulent charges,” and now they can’t tell their 35,400 followers on Instagram or 55,645 followers on Facebook about their new releases.

Any of us can be locked out of our social media accounts at any point, seemingly for whatever reason.

Own the direct connection to your audience, or else white knuckle the chaos of the daily social media shit show and hope you never lose access to your accounts.

Instead of freely giving Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk all your “exclusive” content (which they monetize, then turn around and charge you to reach your followers), publish the bulk of your work on your own website.

Why? Because ‘social media is the food court at the mall and the landlord sucks.’

Not all your fans hang out at the food court at the mall anymore, subsisting on a diet of pizza, smoothies, and chicken nugget outrage.

Social media is the food court at the mall, where your posts appear next to sports news and racist tirades, and the landlord keeps raising the rent.

It’s time to leave the food court at the mall.

Your art is your restaurant.

You set the menu and you set the hours. You adjust the lights, the atmosphere and the vibes are up to you.

Treat social media like a billboard, and use it to drive fans and curious seekers of your magic to your creative establishment.

Social media platforms are out for themselves.

They are not in the business of sending you free traffic.

They don’t care if you’re locked out of your account.

They take your art, you send them traffic, then they ask you for payment to reach the fans who clicked FOLLOW.

Update your website.
Send a weekly email newsletter.
Burn down your social media accounts.

I’m pissed.

Promoting your creative work should be art. It should spark curiosity, wonder, and delight.

Facts ain’t art:

• “We talked to Brad about how the band got started. [LINK]”
• ”Jen tells us how she launched their label. [LINK]”

Yes, you talked to Brad, and they told you things.
Jen talked about the start of their label.

They didn’t just say, “yeah, we started the band in high school, and played a few shows.”

They probably told you about their horrible first show, or that they met their guitar player for the first time at some weird diner on the far end of town.

Jen maxed out two credit cards, and sold their vintage NES collection to finance a record they believed in.

Tell stories, not facts.

Stop posting “NEW VIDEO [LINK]” on social media or in your newsletter.

Post how filming got cut short because a thunderstorm rolled in and all your gear got covered in mud.

• “We had to replace $3000 in music gear after shooting this video [LINK].”
• “We spent 17 hours in the blazing sun to shoot this video.”
• ”This is the same warehouse they filmed the fight scene from the Matrix.”
• ”The cell-phone we used as a prop in this video was actually our bass players from 2002 – who else had one of those?”

Your project isn’t just competing with other bands and labels in your genre, you’re competing with Disney and HBO.

• “Din Djarin found a baby Yoda. [LINK]”
• ”The Roy family run a company. [LINK]”

Unpaid interns can write those facts. That’s safe. That’s easy.

Sell it like a new movie, an up and coming TV show.

No one cares that you talked to someone. We all talk to people everyday.

But stories sell concert tickets, vinyl, recurring monthly subscriptions to Disney+ and Netflix.

Less facts, more stories.

An online radio station recently asked to feature my Goodnight, Metal Friend show. Exciting!

But first, they only wanted to communicate via Facebook or Instagram messenger. Eh.

Second, there was some wild online calendar set up that I’d have to monitor on my own, and submit my mix accordingly, without much guidance.

Third, the show would have to be exclusive to them for a bit, which I get, but I already send the mix to my email list first. To my fans.

I passed.

I’m not really into this for the logistics, more spreadsheets, and Instagram DMs.

With our creative projects, what we don’t do is just as important as what we do.

I saw this bit from Subtle Maneuvers newsletter by Mason Currey, about an interview he heard with rapper Talib Kweli. Black Star put their album out on Luminary, and you had to pay a monthly fee to hear it.

I want to go back to how you’re releasing the album and the statement that you’re making with it, but it’s also a risk putting your music behind a paywall like that.

It’s a risk for who?

I mean, maybe that’s the wrong question. But putting it behind a paywall means…

That means the artists get paid. If you are truly a fan of Black Star, then you will respect the fact that what made sense for us, business-wise, was for us to put it on Luminary and get paid regardless of what happens in the music business. If you bought the Black Star album in the last 20 years, you paid Universal Records, which is one of the biggest companies on Earth. You know who you did not pay? You did not pay Black Star, because we didn’t see any of that money. You know, people come and say, “Hey, what about what I want? I want the vinyl. I want it on Spotify. I want…” What you want does not matter. Know what I’m sayin’? What Black Star wants matters.

Remember – it’s your artistic journey.

If you don’t wanna make a TikTok account, don’t do it.

If you don’t wanna release music on cassette, don’t.

Don’t want to set up features via DMs? Don’t.

Am I throwing away an opportunity? No. Because my goals are my own, and your goals are yours.

Go do what you want.

If you give your fans a link, they’ll click it.

Well, hopefully 5% of your fans will click it, but hey, that’s how this stuff works.

That 5% is pretty valuable so make it count.

Like Toby Morse says, “one click, one chance.” No, wait…

See what Tegan & Sara did here in their recent newsletter? A nice personal message from Tegan to their fans about covering a song:

“I love the song ‘Sweet But Psycho’ by Ava Max. I somehow missed out on the moment this song was massive when it was released in 2018, but came across it recently when I was building a new running playlist. The song is a great, classic pop song. Easy to write off. Some of us are inherently suspicious when something is so catchy. But recently, Spotify suggested the acoustic version.”

All that, then a sweet note about learning the song as a warm-up while rehearsing for tour. Ahem, tour. WINK WINK. Tegan & Sara are going on tour.

You click the link, and you can see the dates and buy tickets.

My point is – if you’re an artist that’s maybe not as big as Slipknot, why not tell a story?

• First time on the road? Tell a story about the farthest you’ve ever drive for a show (I drove eight hours into a blizzard because my friend wanted to see Abnegation in Erie, PA. We saw Brothers Keeper in a big warehouse that weekend, too).
• First time selling at a market? Write about your experience of other markets you’ve been to, the people you met, why you started your creative project in the first place.
• Are you a grizzled road dog? Come on – you’ve got stories; TELL THEM. Write them out, make it a video, make an audio clip with your bandmates.

Sure, you could just drop the tour admat on socials and your email campaign, but everyone does that. An unpaid intern can do that.

But, no one can tell your stories.

This newsletter began because I’ve been ranting about email marketing for bands for awhile now… ahem… the above image is from 2014.

Rather than keep shoveling my thoughts and ideas onto social media, only for them to wash away within minutes with all the other hot takes, gossip, and drama, I started this HEAVY METAL EMAIL newsletter in 2021.

Social media networks come and go, but you’ll still need an email to sign up for the next one, and so will all your fans.

Yes, your fans check their email.

Don’t take it from me – take it from Laura Kidd. She’s been working on her email list since 2009 and says having an email list is one of the major reasons why she can work on music full time (I’m in it, too!):

So if you’re tired of the social media rat-race, you’re in the right place.

To get caught up, here are my most popular posts as of late:

• “Get ready to shell out $20/mo to reach maybe 15% of your audience,” from ‘THE SOCIAL MEDIA PAY-TO-PLAY ERA STARTS NOW.’
• Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slipknot, Testament, Black Sabbath, Metal Blade Records, Nuclear Blast Records and more all have “Legacy Blue Checkmarks” on Twitter, and Elon Musk said “those are the ones that are truly corrupt.”
• I interviewed Matt DeBenedictis, Manager of Compliance at Mailchimp who said, “just because you’ve got 20,000 addresses, that doesn’t mean that’s 20,000 addresses that want to hear from you today.” This is a good one to read if you’re dusting off your email list from 10 years ago!
• In my post “CASSETTES & EMAIL MARKETING WILL OUTLIVE EVERY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM,” I wrote “if your posting on social media multiple times per week for just 5-10% of your fans to see, you should probably “repurpose your social media posts” and put them into a weekly email newsletter.”

If you’ve got any questions about starting a newsletter in 2023 for your band, label, photography biz, design firm, radio show, whatever (this ain’t just for metal heads) – shoot me an email: seth@socialmediaescape.club

Also, I published my first note on Substack Notes:

Notes is a new space on Substack for writers to share links, short posts, quotes, photos, and more. This will definitely be where I share that sort of stuff, rather than Twitter.

HOW TO JOIN

Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber to HEAVY METAL EMAIL, you’ll automatically see my notes.