Writer, musician, wizardly guide to platform independence
When I mention my cute “Social Media Escape Plan” there’s usually some people that bring up the community aspect, and the private communications like Facebook Groups, various DM inboxes, etc.
And then I what Reddit is doing, with killing off 3rd party apps, prompting users to revolt.
Don’t build your community on rented property.
Keeping in touch with your friends and family on a platform is fine until one day it’s not.
How do I get more subscribers? More listens? More sales? More fans?
Are you kidding me?
The entire world of knowledge is in our pockets and you can’t figure out 10% of the answer?
Look at the top 100 marketing books on Amazon.
Search “marketing” on YouTube. There were probably 10,000 hours worth of wisdom upload in the last minute.
You could listen to one podcast every day about marketing for the rest of your life and never get caught up.
I’m paraphrasing Rick Rubin here, but “make cool things, show it to your friends.” Over and over again.
Complaining about social media is about as effective as complaining about the weather – it ain’t gonna change.
Make your art, write your novel, post your videos, play in front of four people… if there’s a shortcut, everyone already knows about it, which means you’re the nine billionth person in line with a tune and a poem.
This is a horrible sales pitch, but I’m offering coaching on this sort of thing now. Hire me for real, honest advice and ponderings from 20+ years of experience in the music world.
This is long, but wow, ‘Vigilantes for views: The YouTube pranksters harassing suspected scam callers in India,’ is quite a read.
Kulik and Bingham, together known as Trilogy Media, are part of the online “scambaiting” community — an increasingly popular internet subculture that involves hacking, pranking, and generally taking revenge on people they believe are conducting scam phone calls.
Absolutely not my cup of tea at all. Haven’t watched a single second of their videos. But the hustle and determination behind it? Fanscinationg.
“For Trilogy, the IRS scam video was a launching pad. “Over the course of the next year, it catapulted us into that space of like, oh shit, we can monetize this,” said Bingham. By 2017, after posting several more scammer call-out videos, they’d pivoted the entire Trilogy Media operation to scambaiting.”
Read more on Rest Of World.
Marlee Grace really sums it up here:
I noticed in my month off social media the ideation phase of my practice felt so serene, I had less money then and yet I still found myself with so much more trust. Left without the reminders that everyone else is always launching, always sharing, always has something to sell. I found myself peaceful with my pace.
YES, this is so great: “I found myself peaceful with my pace.”
I’ve stopped promoting Goodnight, Metal Friend on social media. Each new mix just goes out to newsletter subscribers first. A day later they go up on YouTube and Mixcloud.
Less promoting, and I still got a HUNTERTHEN track featured in this ‘Spectra-Sonic Sound’ mix.
Less promoting my HEAVY METAL EMAIL newsletter on social media, and I’m still welcoming new subscribers, and some of them support my work financially.
Trust that your work doesn’t need to be plastered on billboards, you don’t need to stand outside a venue handing out flyers. Let the magic go where it’s going to go.
I’ve seen lots of discourse recently over the struggle for the press outlets to keep up with the unending wave of music releases each week.
For me I think it’s so many sites trying to cover so many genres.
And also trying to do interviews, reviews, and live gig coverage.
There is just too much, everyday, every week.
I’d love to see a site that just covers the metal shows happening in PA every month.
A newsletter that rounds up 10 great beat-maker videos.
A YouTube show like the old MTV Top 10 Video Countdown.
Be editors. Be tastemakers.
The internet is wide open again. Let’s fuck it up.
Throw it a prompt, get a result, and tweak it. Edit it. Ask it to reword a sentence, or a concept. Have it summarize the last two lines, reword the intro.
Since you’re leading the writer room, you now hack it together with tape and glue.
You’re not just copy and pasting the results into an email to your client, or a pitch to your boss – you’re using your years of experience and wisdom to pull out the best parts, get your mind moving, and hopefully get to a few “light bulb” moments during the whole process.
I’ve been writing online since 2001, and chatGPT is a great automated computerized writing partner, and I’ve used it for my newsletters, small bits of client work, and some emails here and there.
For me, my biggest obstacle in starting any written project is the EMPTY PAGE.
So even if you just use chatGPT to start a written project, it can be huge.
– Write five social media captions about my new music video
– Write how this new video “hit me in the face like a ton of bricks”
– List some keywords I can use on YouTube for my project
– What big technology thing happened in 2007 (see attached image)?
Now, for anything factual (like big technological things in 2007), make sure you fact check! It’s not perfect, BUT, it’s a starting point.
Just like when things get thrown out in a writer room, you’re not going to put everything on paper and publish it the next day.
So yeah… try it out, at least to just get past the “staring at a blank page” problem. Edit. Rework things. Have fun!
Love love love this quote:
“What you need is a strategy to grow your fanbase. And as you’re growing your fanbase, you keep making music and improving your craft.”
If you write shit songs and get on stage and notice that no one is interested in what you’re playing, you’re going to make adjustments.
You work on your craft, develop your skills, and learn how to put on a show. This can take years, but that’s how it’s done.
This goes for writers, photographers, artists, whatever!
Goals are great, but what’s the plan?
Imagine waking up and posting garbage like this:
The audacity to post “Meg White was terrible” to the entire world is beyond comprehension.
Meg White won four Grammy Awards
She’s in Rolling Stone’s ‘100 Greatest Drummers of All Time’ list
She’s a 3x Platinum selling artist.
You know what most normal people do when they don’t like something? They don’t think about it.
There are 1000s of bands and albums and song I don’t care for. Think I’m going to spend energy and time and effort and mental bandwidth letting the world know?
Nah.
This, though? This new album from Carmen Jaci is amazing, and I just pre-ordered it today (it’s out March 30th, 2023).
The corporations bought up the blog thing and fucked it up (I was there when AOL was filling up the search engines, churning out websites, buying HuffPost, Seed).
The corporations bought up podcasts, and things ain’t working out, so now we’re gonna hear how “Podcasts lose their edge.”
No. Cheap podcasts that are profitable and also reach 1,000,000 per episode, and make lots of money for dude bros in suits are dead. RIP.
Now Spotify has a new AI DJ. Fuck off.
We had a thriving internet community with message boards, and email lists, and music blogs and websites, but then we relented. We all fell for the shiny objects called Facebook and Twitter and streaming music.
“That’s where everyone is,” is the biggest lie the devil ever told.
Not everyone is on Twitter.
Not everyone streams.
If you’re looking for the Superbowl Audience, sure, you better play your cards right and make the music that millions wanna hear.
But there are still record stores. Go shop at ’em.
Local music stores exist. Go buy some strings.
Bandcamp exists. Go buy a digital album, or a shirt.
Yes, the biggest players make the biggest noise, but the dam is breaking.
Layoffs, mismanagement. The consolidation of power isn’t natural.
Start your website, your email list, own your music, and talk to people and build your communities.
“If I’m missing I’m working,” as said by the mighty Chuck D.
Social media ain’t working, so in effect, you’re missing.
When I see big media outlets reaching just 3% of their audience, with full-fledged social media and marketing teams on staff? HAH.
As far as the 97% of your followers who haven’t seen that post?
You’re missing.
I know that’s not what Chuck D is talking about here, but he’s been off Twitter. Long enough for someone to say “you went missing.”
Nah.
He’s working.
Get working on things that work.
