Category: Internet

PUBLISH TO YOUR WEBSITE

It happened again. Another person was suspended from Facebook, and then they couldn’t reach their fans.

Zuck deactivated me for a few days (was mildly mortifying) but it sparked some thoughts on what I feel insta is doing to our creativity / individuality

I’m also in the process of backing up every post, story, caption I’ve ever written and publishing it on a WEBSITE. It’s very 2010, would recommend 

@shopedelano on Instagram

Another app or service is not going to come along and magically replace Twitter or Instagram or whatever. The open web is here, as it’s always been. No lock in, no “walled gardens,” no algorithms.

But we’ll miss the likes and the RTs, the acknowledgment when we can post just a few words about a movie or a sports event and then at least 5 or 7 people will hit the like button, and we’ll feel like we’re not alone, or just shouting into the void.

I know this, because I’ve been writing on this blog since early 2018. It can feel pointless just writing all these words over the years, and not seeing some sort of acknowledgement.

Though I liken it to a conversation with an old friend. There’s no ROI. There’s no hack for a good phone call. No algorithm to crack with a best friend.

You just write, in public, for everyone to see. If it resonates, great. If it doesn’t, well, you have an excellent online journal that won’t suddenly disappear when Facebook’s server short circuit.

SELF-PROMOTION CAN BE SANE

Oh my goodness, this from Delon Om, in an interview with Authority Magazine, talking about the ‘5 things I wish someone told me when I first started.”

Meritocracy is a myth. I always believed that my art would speak for itself- that its merit would earn recognition and validation. Unfortunately, I have learned that is not the case.

It really does feel like the loudest people, or those who devote the most time to social media, are the winners. Like @DonnaMissal said:

“Color me bitter but im tired from yrs of begging for money to pay other artists like directors even half their rate while teens with ring lights are signed for millions.”

Yes, “putting yourself out there,” or doing “self-promotion” is needed, but it doesn’t have to look like what everybody else is doing.

Sure, in the short-term you can build an audience like that, but as Professor Pizza said in a recent interview with me at HEAVY METAL EMAIL:

“The mental math equation went from ‘What do I think our fans would like?’ to ‘What do I think will break through the algo that our fans will tolerate?’ The short answer is you have to start looking at and leveraging trends, which by-in-large, are fucking lame. We’re a thrash band comprised of ghosts of vengeance. We shouldn’t be doing funny hand dances, or the running man.”

I fully believe you don’t need to get on TikTok. Why? Because you’ve already got fans that you’re not reaching on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. Not because your content sucks, but because of algorithms!

Now you have a choice – play the algorithm game, or don’t play the algorithm game.

Make your thing so good that people will type your domain name into a browser to see what you’re up to. Have an email list, so you can send an email to those people every now and again.

This is how we did it pre-2006, before Twitter came on the scene. And the internet is still here. People still go to websites to buy things.

They can go to your website and buy things. It’s possible.

GOOD SONGS DIE WITHOUT GOOD PLANS

“Write good songs.”

This is the advice one of my close friends (whom I work for) gives to bands asking how to “make it.”

Of course, this is leads to further discussion.

“Great songs with a bad plan fail,” says Amber Horsburgh.

How do write good songs? Write bad ones. And you write bad ones by writing a lot of songs.

Yes, inspiration may come from the heavens and bless you with a hit.

But even then, you still need to know how to craft and mold that idea into an actual song.

So you gotta work.

That doesn’t even mean posting something everyday. You can do this quietly, without sharing with the world.

Write as often as you can. Do your thing as often as you can.

As I wrote about a year ago:

So don’t look too far into the distance. Make your mistakes now, get your bad stuff out of the way this year. Your work today is to keep piling up your art, your work, your magic.

Learn Your Lessons Each Step of the Way

YOU NEED DATA

Photo by Kris Møklebust from Pexels

TikTok hit one billion users globally in September, while Facebook still as almost three billion.

Yet here we are, in 2021, and there are fans of your band who still don’t know about your latest release, tour, or merch drop.

Imagine if you had the email address of everyone that bought a ticket to see you play over the last five years. You could then email them the next time you’re coming to town.

Guess who has that email?

The website they bought the ticket from.

Not you.

Imagine if you had the email address of everyone that streamed your song on Spotify or Apple Music.

Guess who has that data?

Not you.

Sites like Spotify, Ticketmaster, Amazon – they have SO MUCH FUCKING DATA, and they make so much money from knowing who buys what at every hour of the day.

Meanwhile, you put out three albums, went on seven US tours, and you can’t email a single person who paid you money for the honor.

You don’t need to be on TikTok. Your friend of 10 years who supports you and loves you, but doesn’t go to shows much anymore doesn’t even know about your new album. You think being on TikTok is gonna help?

You need data. You need an email address. You need to know who bought your fucking EP last week, and three years ago.

That information is so important, there’s no way that Spotify, and Facebook, and Ticketmaster will share it to you. It’s valuable data, and they make money on the back of your hard work.

They hold the power, you don’t.

Start an email list.

Everyone Can’t Be Everywhere

I keep coming back to this move to the next thing. Things like SnapChat, TikTok. The joke of how, “oh, that’s for young teens!”

Am I stuck in the past with this email marketing stuff?

But then I think how I’m probably not going to get hired by someone that’s deep in the TikTok world. My next freelance client probably isn’t coming by way of a video clip that dispappears in 15 seconds. Like, fuck, I don’t even know if that’s still a thing with Snapchat.

Is the idea of selling vinyl records preposterous in 2021? Totally. CDs and cassettes, too. But people, mostly older people, still buy them.

And there’s a lot of those older people in the world.

In the same way there’s a lot of younger people in the world who aren’t buying vinyl records, and CDs, and cassettes.

I think these large groups of people can co-exist, and just do what we do.

The older musicians we know and love aren’t switching it up, adding dance beat bridge sections, or doing clean vocals, or making silly videos (well, some are old dudes are making silly videos). They’re making what they’ve always made.

Are we missing the boat, then?

At some point we have to let the kids have their thing.

Things like razor scooters. What the fuck?
Some of the youthful slang, right?
Okay, most of their music.

So why this guilt, or sense of obligation that these apps that come out, that we somehow have to be on them, too?

Is it the idea that “well, that’s where everyone is?”

Again, kids that rocking razor scooters (or whatever they’re called) probably aren’t buying Red Fang records. Like, why do we need to hang out there?

Sure, lots of adults are on TikTok, drawn in by the “un-ending stream of video content.”

I get that.

But everyone can’t be everywhere.

Everything isn’t for everyone.

Facebook is in flames, and it’ll take Instagram with it.
It will only be a matter of time before Twitter finds itself in the same position.

Are we really these nomadic digital citizens, that when one host dies, we must seek out a new one to attach ourselves?

You still need an email address to buy concert tickets, listen to music on a DSP, or buy records. That’s not changing.

Maybe it’s okay to skid off the runway of the firehose of updates and breaking news, and just get back to the shit in front of us.

Including that vinyl we ordered six months ago and we forgot about, and there it sits on our front stoop, waiting for us.

Heavy Metal Email

About a year ago I messed around with Circle for Metal Bandcamp Gift Club, but it was a bit much for what I needed. I’ve since moved the community side of that lovely group of people into Discord, where we have a nice 16 people hanging out throughout the day. It’s chill, and it sure beats hanging out on Twitter all day.

I’ve since started using Circle again, but now for something brand new: HEAVY METAL EMAIL.

UPDATE: As of 10/24/2021 I decided to move HEAVY METAL EMAIL over to Substack: https://heavymetalemail.substack.com/welcome

It’s a community for heavy metal folks to learn how to use email newsletters to break free from the social media rat race.

Very niche, I know. By design.

It’s for people in the loud but lovable metal music community – the musicians, the artists, the designers, the photographers, the producers, the makers, the story tellers, and everyone else who loves the power of the riff.

We’re gonna use social media to drive fans to your email list.

And we’re gonna make your email newsletter great, too. It won’t be for “updates.” Our lives are too varied and rich to sell as “content.”

We’re gonna figure out ways to take everything we’ve been shoveling into the social media empires, and re-purpose it for our newsletters.

No more fighting algorithms. No more figuring out what the social media networks want this week. Nah. Fans first. Art first.

Food Courts Aren’t Where You Sleep

It feels like our stories are like handbills, lying all over the floor after a show.

We post random photos on Instagram, tell stories on Twitter, post “behind the scenes” looks on IG Stories, post a little on Facebook, dabble on TikTok and / or Snapchat.

We’re absolutely stuffing our handbills (or flyers, whatever you want to call them) into the hands of anyone walking by, and then heading to the next corner to repeat the process.

And along the way, we look back and maybe we picked up a follower or two, had some fun interactions. But when we come back to our home base, our website, there’s cobwebs and no one to welcome you.

It feels productive to be on the social media treadmill all day, and when we’re not it’s easy to feel like we’re being lazy. But those are lies.

Social media is where you hand out flyers, but at a certain point you gotta head back to the venue and play a show.

From Stop Handing Out Flyers

Bolster your website everyday. It’s all you got.

Make your music, put it on the website.

Make your videos, put it on your website.

Make your art, your poems, your photos, you wares – put it on your website.

Your website is your home.

Social media is the food court.

Use Your Face and Your Voice

ABOVE: the TLDR version of the text below

I’ve been following Loom for awhile, and using their super easy video making software for my Close Mondays operation for awhile now. I didn’t even realize it, but I made 36 videos with their software, dating back to November 2019.

For business, it’s sometimes nice to send a video to someone you work with instead of just a plain text email, especially when you want to show a workflow process.

I’ve also used this for not-business, too. Like this:

I made that video for Metal Bandcamp Gift Club. I link to it from newsletters that we send out, and also put on social media every now and again, too.

The point is this: All text looks like… text. But FACES. VOICES. SMILES. That’s the stuff, right there. Bands could use something like Loom to announce new songs, or shirts, or tours with images of the very things they’re working so hard to promote.

Like, love them or hate them, reaction videos work because they’ve ALWAYS worked. Ask any older music nerd, and they will fondly remember the MTV NEWS breaks… zip zap, here’s Kurt Loder talking about something. Outro music. Done. PEOPLE. VOICES. FACES.

So with the stuff Loom lets you do, you can do just a bit more than point the camera at yourself and upload it.

Add album artwork. Or merchandise photos. Tour dates. Tons of stuff. And the “big scary” part – YOUR FACE. But people like your face, they like YOU.

Again, text is great. Add an image to a Tweet. Cool. But they put faces on billboards and magazine ads and pre-roll videos. Imagine if the was just all text? BORING.

Anyways, go check out Loom.

Your Live Show Can Keep Making You Money Long After You Leave Town

A live show is the culmination of years of practice, grind, networking, and connecting with fans. It’s… a big deal. Now imagine posting photos from every show on your website. Photos of playing, with fans, load in, sound check. Then post the link on all your socials.

Remember – your website can have links to… your store. Where you have things for sale.

Imagine driving 1000+ people to your site every night, and then selling a few shirts. Or a record or two?

You do realize all the websites that cover shows are making money off you, right? They get on social media, “hey, check out our photos of so and so from last nights show in NYC!” They drive traffic to their website where they have banner ads, and prominent links to their Patreon site.

That could be you. You could be getting those eyeballs, turning casual listeners into rabid fans. Rabid fans buy merch.

The “content” you’re making sits on your socials. Yes, it looks pretty, but it could be working for you long after you leave the 3rd stop on your tour. Sell $100 per night through your website over 20 nights, thats $2000. Instead of just getting 2000 likes.

And here’s the thing – you don’t even have to do this yourself.

Since you’ll still be posting your thoughts and photos and all that to socials, you could have someone build those posts every night, without a lot of input. Let them curate the band’s photos, and maybe some social media posts from those in attendance.

Post the link on socials the next day, and drive a few hundred people to your site.

Hire someone (like me) to manage and build that. Make some money. Or, fuck, take this idea and do it yourself!

Just stop shoveling all of your life work onto social media for the likes, and the engagement, thinking the algorithm will magically make you go viral and somehow you’ll sell a shirt.

Note: this post started off as an off the cuff Twitter rant (here), which I then copied and pasted into WordPress. This post can now be updated, linked to, and read for years to come. Turn your social media posts into evergreen bits of magic on your own site!

WEEKLY LOOP for SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

Everything is a loop, it seems. We keep making the same mistakes, the same choices, the same levels of misery. Happy Sunday!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTlLe7iDHbv/

LIKES

  • “I just cannot accept that my dad’s life or anyone else’s is a fair price to pay for our “back to normal,” @Amber_Coffman
  • “9/11 hits different riding up on 700k deaths no one cares about,” @Mollyissilly
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTplApgIznu/

WORK LIKES

  • “Now when I feel overwhelmed by work I take 2 deep breaths and say, “this is what you dreamed of. That’s what this work is for. And if this specific job isn’t it, we won’t say yes to this again,” @aundrelarrow
  • “The next big recruiting platform in tech is the 32 hour work week,” @gabe_g2i
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSt-iGELsCY

MUSIC LIKES

  • “*wakes up, puts on old school metal tee* man I love this band. wonder if their singer thinks the Moderna vaccine is a plot to inject microcomputers into the bloodstream,” @mountain_goats
  • “The label I work at had ITS BUSIEST YEAR EVER in 2020 and that momentum has carried,” @turnbullet666
  • “If you’re an artist, you will be an artist no matter what. I don’t think you have a choice,” Jasamine White-Gluz via @HandDrawnDrac
  • “When you focus on building your own shit, all the doors that were once closed start opening organically,” @Breezyb215
  • “You’d be surprised how many people are willing to pay $10 for an album when given the opportunity,” @BigSto

I moved Metal Bandcamp Gift Club back to it’s old school, Yahoo style layout. If you have a birthday and love giving gifts (and sometimes getting gifts), you should check it out.

I stopped using Whoop after just five months. There was nothing wrong with it, but my head needs less numbers and things to feel guilty about these days.

May your week be filled with good food, and cool evenings on porches.