Category: Social Media

WHERE TO NEXT?

I’ve been thinking about how we get away from social media, or spending less time on our phones, and I think it’s less about dumb phones or apps and more about people.

As Priya Parker has said recently it’s less about “self-help” and more about “group-help.”

Social media has isolated us so much that we thinking breaking free is a solo endeavor, when I think it’s more of a group effort, with the support of other people (I host three Zoom groups per week, ask me about ‘em).

Getting away from social media isn’t just quitting, it’s about starting something else, or a return what came before.

So, where to next?

EVIDENCE IS YOUR MARKETING

From my new post ‘YOUR EVIDENCE IS YOUR MARKETING‘ over at Social Media Escape Club:

“I saw someone marketing their music production services in text, outlining the discount, the expiration of the offer, and who might be interested.

No evidence, just details.

Their website showed the albums they worked, a display of musicians who trusted them with their art, their vision.

That’s evidence.”

From my time in the music industry, this was the foundation for so many bands in the metal and hardcore world. I didn’t find out about bands like Dillinger Escape Plan or Meshuggah from social media posts, I found out about them from friends who saw them and told me I need to hear them.

There was evidence; good sounding albums, word of mouth from their live shows. That was the marketing.

I know we’re in this always on / short form video world right now, but there are people out there making a living without being online 24/7 and without making short form videos.

I know a writer working on TV shows and they aren’t on social media. I know a musician with “just” 225 Patreon supporters and an email list and they’re making a living doing what they love.

Instead of trying to impress strangers, present your evidence to the right people in your own creative orbit.

IMPRESS HUMANS, NOT ALGORITHMS

“We work to impress algorithms in hopes they’ll share our stuff, when we should be working to impress our readers so they’ll share it with other humans.”

I could talk about this all day (oh wait, I already do), but for real.

A performer on stage doesn’t seek out new listeners during the show, they must focus on the people right there in front of them. If they do a good job, perhaps they’ll talk to a few people afterwards, and get them to join their email list.

Hopefully the next time you play in the area, they bring a friend.

If you impress the people right there in front of you, the dream outcome is them telling a friend. Posting about you. Sharing your work with others. Telling their friend who writes for a publication, or runs a radio show.

Everything starts from within. Make sure you’re making the work you wanna make. Then, share it with friends. Play in front of 12 people on a Tuesday night. Write that blog post that will only get 5 “views.”

Then do it again tomorrow.

SOCIAL MEDIA WOULDN’T HELP ME

Wes: “…just bumming out my sponsors, you know. Like, they’d probably appreciate it if I drove the feed a little more… that would help them out a lot. I see that aspect — but it wouldn’t help me.”

That’s the big thing with not being on social media that a lot of people forget. That if we’re not staring at our phones for hours a day, then we’re doing something else. In Wes’s case, that’s obviously skateboarding, reading magazines, taking photos.

What happens when we reallocate those moments everyday? Moments add up to minutes and then hours, and for what? Like Wes says in this video, the internet never ends, there’s always more to read, view, watch.

A magazine ends. The day ends. The album ends.

Let things end.

(link, Dino)

SEEKING QUIET INPUTS

Great quote from ‘All we watch are millionaires,’ from Dense Discovery:

“Seeking out lesser-known voices isn’t just an act of cultural curation; it’s a philosophical stance, a refusal to let attention be the only metric that matters. Because the most interesting stuff usually happens on the margins.”

Link via Input Diet by Manuel Moreale

Manuel goes on to say, “I’m starting to believe that a phoneless life is, for me, the ultimate goal.”

Remember when people used to say they didn’t own a TV? Or a car?!? Someday not owning a phone is gonna feel the same way.

THERE IS NO RULE THAT SAYS WE HAVE TO STAY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

If we can go back to vinyl records and film cameras, we can go back to blogs and RSS feeds.

The common excuse is that no one will go back to blogs or RSS feeds. Yet we never say the same about film cameras or people that buy vinyl records. Sure, if we mean people as in everyone, then sure, no one will go back. But vinyl sales continue to rise, and people keep taking photos with film cameras.

Do we need permission from the masses before we do something that might bring us joy?

The urge to JUST POST something on social media is strong. You post, someone leaves a comment. Or likes it. Action, reaction. But I post this on my blog, and…. seemingly nothing happens, which I know is not true. This is a living, breathing archive of my life’s work, and anybody who visits can enjoy it.

SOCIAL MEDIA BUBBLE BURSTING

Before social media, we had the blogs, right? The forums. The websites.

Getting traction meant being mentioned on any of them. You wrote something, someone else liked it, they linked to it.

This was actually my job in 2008 when I was working in Audience Development at AOL.

We had writers who wrote stuff, and then we emailed relevant sites (well, blogs) so they’d hopefully link back.

This was a long process. We were basically fucking cold-emailing the editors of these sites! We had to make reports and shit.

Along comes social media, where “everyone” sort of rushed to because blogs were getting bought up by megacorps, plastered in ads (CPMs were going down down down), and drenched in SEO slop (we’ve had slop now for decades, long before AI).

The thing I’m getting at – was while some folks benefitted from the early social media days – traction, eyeballs, listens, etc. it was inflated. It was artificial. The bubble had to burst, and I think we’re seeing that now.

Things existed before “everyone” was on social media, and now we’re going to have to figure out how to do that again.

We can’t rely on 10,000 people seeing a thing. We need to get 50 people really into what we’re doing before we hit 100.