Writer, musician, wizardly guide to platform independence
This is from Steph who makes Obsidian, from ‘Style is consistent constraint.’
Collect constraints you enjoy. Unusual constraints make things more fun. You can always change them later. This is your style, after all. It’s not a life commitment, it’s just the way you do things. For now.
Having a style collapses hundreds of future decisions into one, and gives you focus. I always pluralize tags so I never have to wonder what to name new tags.
Great example here is this video from 2yn:
Loving this ‘Jazz Snacks.’ EP from Mrcus.Jones.
Check out his video ‘The Future Of Lofi Hip Hop in the AI Revolution’ below, it’s pretty solid.
Spent the afternoon trying to make some shots of me “ascending” into the heavens, as part of my Social Media Escape Club newsletter series.
I’m happy I got something to work with, and think I did okay for my first time really trying to “make” a photo.
Meta says they won’t recommend political content on Threads, and that “users who post political content can check their account status to see whether they’ve posted too much of it to be eligible for recommendation.”
As Nick Heer writes at Pixel Envy:
“Does any topic which has been politicized count? Are all posts about global warming, trans rights, healthcare, and intellectual property law considered political, or just those which advocate for a particular position? If advocacy is demoted, it likely benefits the status quo and creates a conservative bias by definition.”
And while this seems aimed at accounts you don’t follow, I don’t trust Zuck and company to throttle accounts that you do follow.
Years ago, “self-promotion” meant posting something on a social platform, and most of your followers saw it.
It was great when it worked!
Then came algorithms, and now self-promotion feels like a constant battle.
It’s not you; it’s the system.
You can’t post just once because 90% of your audience won’t see it. This is why I’d always tell people, “Promote your new song a few times a week, at different times of day!”
But then having to post, plan, and schedule starts to feel like screaming into the void.
Oh, and then Instagram says it wants videos. Twitter removes links. Facebook and LinkedIn limit your reach when you include a link. Also, don’t say “link in bio!”
At this point, it’s not even self-promotion – it’s tap dancing, juggling, or card tricks in Times Square, along with 900 million other creative people doing the same.
From Variety:
“For the fourth quarter of 2023, (Spotify) reported revenue of €3.67 billion”
That’s $3,946,534,500 in US dollars. Oh, and they added “28 million total monthly active users overall, to reach 602 million.”
In one quarter.
And you’re still posting “check out my new song” on Twitter, or wasting your time publically shaming a company that made almost $4 BILLION in one quarter.
They’ve no shame, they’re rich. They do what they want.
The question is this: what’s our next move?
How will you get new followers if you’re not on social media?
Someone asked that recently.
They also said they reach about 10% of their followers on Instagram.
Think of the energy required to get 100 new followers on any social media platform. ONE HUNDRED. You need a hit, a nice mention, some serious work.
Then, when you send out your next big post to 100 new followers, just 10 of them will see it.
You now need 1,000 new followers to reach 100 of them.
What about 10 new email subscribers?
These might be people who follow you on Instagram but aren’t on the platform very often. You can DM folks who like a bunch of your posts and send them the link to subscribe.
If you sell stuff online, you can easily contact those people and ask them to subscribe to your newsletter (or add this as an opt-in during checkout).
You could probably email 10 people this week who love your work and send them the link to subscribe.
Heck, this is probably 50 people now if you do all three of those.
Maybe “just” half of those people click the link to sign up.
That’s still 25 people you can reach 100% of the time.
That’s more than twice the number of people you can reach if you get 100 new social media followers.
And it can be done in a few days, with a few emails.
Small effort, lasting results.
“Nothing exists but social media. No one does anything offline. So the entire measure of someone’s commitment is how much they post about their commitment.”
Rebecca Solnit from How to Comment on Social Media
(via Kottke)
“This is not a hobby, this is my life,” Kazu Nakajima
The Walkie Talkie videos with Paulie B are amazing. As my curiosity about photography has ramped up, I’m devouring stuff like this, just taking it all in.
And I’ve thought this – what if I’m a photographer in my 50s?
I mean, I’m an absolute novice with any and all of it.
Internet marketing stuff? Email newsletters? Editorial planning and all that? Sure. I got 20+ years of doing that.
But what does a year being serious about photography look like? A dedicated practice? A system?
Make cool stuff, show it to your friends. Those words from Rick Rubin are stuck in my head for months and months now.
Key point in this clip from MacAndre Pierre is all about bouncing your ideas off of other people. Present an idea, refine it, and keep making it better.
Take more photos (or writing, or music), share your work with people who appreciate it, get some sleep, and do it again the next day.
