Category: Internet

TALKING ABOUT THE WORK

“Talking about the work is just as important as making it“

Lots of truth in this statement, not just in a big “PR SALES!” sense, but even in how we talk about what we do with friends, and other people in our creative orbit.

Many artists would love for the “art to speak for itself,” but that’s not the world we live in anymore. There is simply too much art, music, news, drama – EVERYTHING – for things to speak for themselves.

Everything has its volume cranked to 11, and it never ends, and there’s more being added every minute, every hour, every day.

We get better at talking about the work by talking about it, not by trying to scream just as loud as everyone else.

Posting on social media can be like screaming, since we all have to scream to get attention on those platforms. We have to dance, or use the right trending audio, or hashtags.

Talking, though, is a lost art. How many people do you know that don’t even like talking on the phone with friends? Let alone creative directors, or booking people, or potential clients?

Talking is a lost fucking art, but it’s exactly what we need to get back to.

AVOID THE ALGORITHIMS

Instead of posting something on social media tonight, email an old acquaintance. Text someone a photo or link. Tell them about a book you’re reading. Send an email to someone you admire. Ask someone how they’re doing. Write a letter. Call your bestie.

In getting away from the algorithms and the walled garden of social media DMs, we return to a wide open world of possibilities.

THE RIGHT PEOPLE

A client who has worked with some big names wanted to build their email list, and I gave them this idea:

Think of the amazing people you worked with throughout the years, and think of all those stories you shared, and the memories you’ve made. They’ve got to have dozens of those stories to write, right?

So write that post, with that one person in mind. Then email that person a link to the piece.

This gets you around sending a boring email to “all your contacts” saying, “hey, I have a newsletter now, you should subscribe.”

Write a post that will resonate with the person you’re emailing. Yes, even if it’s just that one person. Email the person the link. Maybe they subscribe, or at least reply and you two catch up, and who knows where that leads?

It’s not always about striking it rich and getting 100 new sign ups. Sometimes the right message to the right person at the right time is all you need.

GOOD LUCK

“More music is being released today (in a single day) than was released in the calendar year of 1989.”

Lowering the bar to entry into the music world has been a wonderful thing. Along with the internet, it’s made it possible for anyone in the world to hear your music.

The problem is that every musician is doing the same thing. Everyone competing for the same listens and streams and downloads.

(source)

RETURN TO THE BLOGS

The only people who said blogs were dead were the corporate overlords who bought them all up, tried to lower costs by cutting staff, and realized 18 ads on every page turned readers away.

Trust me, I know. I worked at AOL from 2006-2011 or so. I was around the whole “let’s just make a bunch of sites, throw ads on them, and link to them from the AOL homepage” and holy shit, it worked until it didn’t, I guess.

RE-SHARE YOUR OLD STUFF

Bands have been re-releasing albums for decades.

So yes, you should re-share that post you wrote 8 months ago.

Talk about your first show 20 years ago, the award you won 10 years ago, that feature you had 5 years ago.

Celebrate your year old music video with a quick interview with the director.

Celebrate the five year anniversary of your favorite song. Favorite gallery. Favorite photo.

Everything doesn’t need to be new new new. Most everyone has never seen any of your work.

Show it to them.

BILLBOARDS ARE BORING AND SO IS YOUR WEBSITE

If your website is just a billboard, remember that no one gets on the highways to look at billboards.

If your website’s contents are just embedded content from other platforms and links to social media, it is a billboard.

I come to your website, and the only option is to… leave your website.

Imagine if I drove to your restaurant and it was just a billboard, with links to Google Maps, DoorDash, and your Instagram account.

It’s not just about the food when I go to a restaurant. Sometimes you strike up a rapport with the wait staff. You find something on the menu that becomes your favorite. Maybe the seating is extra nice, or the crowd on a Tuesday night is your vibe.

You don’t get any of that from a billboard. A billboard is for shouting HEY HEY HEY. DETAILS! WEBSITE ADDRESS!

Stop putting up billboards and expecting people to get excited.

LIFE IS TENSION

To be alive is fraught with tension – a delicate balance of having your shit together and being moments away from everything falling over the rails.

People talk about the “hot new thing” because of tension. Taylor Swift has a big tour. Great! I’d love to go. Tickets are $1000, and the nearest tour stop is five hours away. That’s tension.

There’s no tension in posting a song on Spotify or uploading a video to YouTube. That’s the easy part. Telling someone, “I posted a new single on Spotify,” is easy. An AI bot could write that. No tension.

Time to up the ante. Send the link to only ten people, and then see what happens. Show your next film or gallery with only a cryptic map to a secret underground venue under the local college water tower. Limit the number of people that can attend your next Zoom meeting.

When everything is available for everyone, there’s little incentive to pay attention; it’ll be here tomorrow, digitally or available to purchase on Amazon.

FRIENDS SHARE

Great bit from Looking Sideways:

Let’s face it, being an independent creative person amid this onslaught of algorithms and homogenous content is bloody hard and endlessly soul-destroying. Sharing your friends’ work is good for the soul, hugely encouraging for them, and a vote for the type of creative world we actually want to live in.