Category: Internet

Don’t Let Your Likes Disappear

Photo: Lyndsey Hansen Sunderland from Twitter

Each day on social media a 400 page magazine shows up on your doorstep, bursting at the seams.

And everyday, the previous day of wonder and delight has begun its walk into obscurity.

David Sark from Twitter

This is why I added the LIKES section to my Daily Loops videos. I know from doing the “blog thing” over several years that there are times when I’ll go back through my archive and find something I forgot about.

In that moment in the past something grabbed me, it was enough for me to hold onto it, to put it on this site, my little corner of the internet. Even if I don’t have hoards of readers, I have me, and I want to re-live and re-experience some of that magic.

Crocodile Jackson from Instagram

So my LIKES section is a collection of things that catch my eye, or my ear. For a bit I was embedding the Tweets or Instagram posts, but I fear that one day they could disappear.

And to think some people aren’t even on Twitter or Instagram, and they can’t see that magic, those bright colors, the rich hues of music and noise.

So now I’m adding those things to my site, adding a link to the source (of course), and looking forward to 2025 when I can come back here and see the magic that got me through the pandemic, this moment in time that people will talk about 100 years from now.

Delight Your Current Fans

The fantastic Andy J Pizza gives some solid, practical advice in this podcast, talking all about using social media for your benefit while being mindful of the cost.

One of the biggest take-aways – stop focusing on new followers and instead put effort into engagement. People who follow you are the fans at your show, the friends at your gallery show, the people who bought a print.

Keep putting out killer work so you’re top of mind for the people who already raised their hand and said, “I want more of this.”

Revue Joins Twitter

I played around with Revue back in late 2019 for Metal Bandcamp Gift Club, but moved to Mailchimp because I needed to control more of the sign up process. Fair enough.

Then today Revue announces they’ve joined Twitter, which is an interesting move, and I think plays into what I’ve been talking about for awhile: use social media to build your email list.

Social media can be great for the quick, off-the-cuff conversations, and lots of good can come from those conversations! But having an outlet for longer form thoughts, fleshed out ideas – email is a great medium for that. And no doubt Twitter is going to make it easy to build your list with this integration.

And if you’re still wondering what you’d even put into your own email newsletter, please read ‘What Would I Even Put in an Email Newsletter,’ which I wrote back in 2018.

Daily Loop #23

It’s the weekend, so I thought I’d try shooting one of those play through videos for a loop today. Sometimes I forget to add a real bass line, as I’ve been playing since 1991 (though haven’t kept up in the last decade).

Shot the video with my iPhone XR on a tripod, then Airdropped them to my computer. From there, pulled everything into ScreenFlow, lined everything up, adjusted some of the video controls (brightness, contrast), and that’s it.

LIKES:

“I often think abt how much we repress during this pandemic in order to wake up, go to work. To be forced to live our lives while 100’s of thousands die in the background. & I think abt how once ends & we can finally process, the scale of national trauma we’ll be reckoning with,” @catcontentonly

Source

No One Asked

Loved this bit from the Extra Paint podcast with Meg Lewis, at about the 16:30 mark; about making stuff that no one asked you to create.

Not hired. No committee. No poll. Just making something because you want to see it in the world.

I started Skull Toaster in 2011 (oh my god, TEN years ago) because I wanted to put something on Twitter that didn’t send you off to read something elsewhere. I wanted to put the meat right where you were; on Twitter. No one asked.

No one asked me to start ‘Goodnight, Metal Friend,’ but I wanted to hear dark ambient and drone metal songs with NO DRUMS, because dammit I wanted to fall asleep to it! So I made it, and now I’ve made 12 mixes and a few fans! NEATO.

If want to stream, stream your thing. Write your thing. Post your videos. The world needs to see your own unique, different, oddball stuff because some people like unique, different, oddball stuff! Right now it’s just hard to get any traction because of all the algorithms and noise on social media. But do your thing, put it on your own website and promote it.

No one asked, and that’s fine.

Photo by Vlad Fonsark from Pexels

Daily Loop #18

Today I beat Instagram. Today, on MLK Jr. Day. I scrolled once, twice, and knew the comfort that it brings. I could just crawl back into bed, pull the covers up, and swipe, swipe, swipe.

But I cracked open Abelton Live, plugged in my gear, re-arranged some stuff, and got to it. Maybe saying “got to work” is a bit much, but maybe that’s true, as well.

If you write, you’re a writer.

A friend told me recently she met Victor Wooten, the amazing, other-worldly bassist. She mentioned that she was taking lessons from someone he knew, so he exclaimed, “oh, so you’re a bassist,” to which she replied, “well, umm.. I mean…”

She told me he squared up, looked her in the eyes, and said, “you’re a bassist.”

LIKES

“To our LGBTQIA fans and fellow musicians: we love you. Thank you for being who you are. Metal (and the rest of the world) is stronger because of your voices and power. We are grateful for y’all.” @khemmisdoom

Daily Loop #17

Don’t discount yourself. That’s something I struggle with a lot these days. “Oh, I just ran a mile today,” is something that came out my mouth recently, when just 4-ish years ago I couldn’t run a mile without being in pain for a week afterwards.

I’m tempted to discount this loop today, as there’s so much more that could be done here. Better arrangement, better mix, more vocals, more sizzle, more pop… the list goes on and will never end.

But this baby got out today, and that’s all that matters. This is the public facing audio treat, and that’s final. It’s not the final mix, and frankly no one cares.

LIKES

“blasting shoegaze while driving means turning it down every five seconds to make sure that the weird noises in the song aren’t coming from your car,” @dniellechelosky

“I’m not one for ‘told ya so’s but in 1989 when David Duke won the state House seat in Louisiana, some of us said this was an inflection point in American politics. This wasn’t just the logical result of Reaganesque racial dog whistling. It was something different,” @timjacobwise

“I’m just thinking again about how many lives would have been saved had the US had competent — or even vaguely interested — national leadership when the pandemic hit,” @AstroKatie

Video by Anthony from Pexels

Daily Loop #16

Today’s Daily Loop gets a little raunchy, featuring a vocal sample and a mish-mash of other sounds and debris. Still getting the hang of the APC40 but woo, I love it.

LIKES:

“I love @YouTube and put a music video on there the other day… how can this be happening? I don’t want my fans or anyone to be funding hate or violence,” @selenagomez

https://twitter.com/Ang_Ramm/status/1350308428569337856

Daily Loop #16 Video by C Technical from Pexels

Let Your Work Cook

During a recent Instagram Stories doom-swipe session, I noticed Kendriana post about one of her posts being removed because IG thought it broke some rule. A physical trainer I follow had their entire account wiped out because of some unknown one-and-done rule breaking (thankfully they got their account back).

With each day that passes, it’s never been more important to move your followers to your website. To your email list. Get your biggest fans to follow you to a platform you own.

Social media is so enticing for artists, photographers, musicians, etc because of the instant feedback. The interaction. The release of endorphins that come from instant validation.

The entire system is built on that, but it’s a system to benefit them, not you.

You feed their system day and night with content, with engagement, with interaction. In turn, they harvest your user data, habits, track what you look at and like, and sell it to advertisers.

So long as you keep feeding social media your time and effort, they will make lots of money.

The alternative is update your own website. Send an email to your newsletter subscribers.

Neither give you the instant feedback, but stop and consider that instant isn’t alway better.

Sometimes you need to let your work cook.

Make your site something that’s so rad that people would miss it if it were gone (via Seth Godin). Make it something that is a part of people’s lives. Something worth typing into an address bar (or even bookmarking).

Make your thing so great that people will trade you their email address and the sacred access to their inbox just to keep up with you.

When you spend four hours a day on social media, you helped sell a lot of ads.

When you fill your site with two years worth of content, you had a body of work. Anyone with a web-browser can see your talent.

Your magic.