BUILD AN OFFLINE COMMUNITY AND MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES SAD

Social media companies want you sitting on your couch consuming as many ads as possible. It feels like a leisurely activity, but really you’re working very hard to increase shareholder value for massive corporations.

Sara Eckel wrote about this in ‘The People Who Don’t Want You to Sleep,’

“Social media companies don’t want you to go out and have fun with your friends—they want you to look at pictures of your friends having fun without you.”

Eckel references the the book Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention–And How to Think Deeply Again, in which former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris says “You can try having self-control, but there are a thousand engineers on the other side of the screen working against you.”

Breaking this habit takes more than just deleting the apps. It takes intentional action, which is what Joi Katskee is doing.

Joi (pronounced Joe-ee) runs Electric Radio Club, a weekly two hour radio show. But she also started bringing people together in real spaces to talk about music (watch the video above for the whole story).

Sure, it’s always going to be hard work to get the word out and get people to come out, but whoever shows up, well, that’s who shows up.

This is the work worth doing because it builds real world connection, unfazed by algorithms or “reach.” Social media platforms fear this, since now they are the ones missing out, unable to monetize our gathering and sell our data to advertisers.

So how could you apply this to your work? How do you get closer to the people who enjoy your art? What does it look like to do that in s sustainable way?

Years ago I ran a Patreon for my heavy metal trivia project called Skull Toaster.

That was bringing in $240/mo, and I was sending out a lot of stuff every month. Zines. Mystery metal CDs that I’d buy at the local music store. People could sponsor questions, and I’d make those hand written THANKS images and put them on social media.

I did a few virtual metal trivia hang outs, but I should have done more. I hid behind the social media posts because I was terrified of getting my questions wrong in a live space.

But like

Scott Perry recently told me, “fear is a compass. It only shows up when we’re pointed in a direction worth exploring.”

What would happen if you did a Zoom call with the people who follow your work? Or if you planned a small dinner with other creative people in your orbit?

Say we use the internet as a tool to make the plans, and then we close the laptop and build with the handful of people in front of us – then what?

What could we do that we’re avoiding because we’re scared?

Raise our rates? Fire that client?
Post that musical performance from our bedroom on YouTube?
Delete your music from Spotify? Delete Instagram from your phone?
Join that class. Teach that class?

And what are we hiding behind?

Making a dozen more vertical videos for 2% of your fans to see?
Updating our About page for the 20th time this week?
Spinning our wheels trying to get our website to look just right?
Waiting to reach a certain number of followers before we believe in ourselves?

You know what the scary thing is. Now go do it.

CLEAN UP YOUR LINK IN BIO, RETHINK YOUR PITCH, AND MIND YOUR KEYWORDS

// FOUR THINGS TO DO

1. CLEAN UP YOUR LINK IN BIO LINKS

If you’re still using one of those Link In bio services, take this weekend to clean it up. My god, I’ve seen some artists with 50+ links in those things. Do you expect fans to dig through all those? More choices just means your fans aren’t even going to click anything.

Consider putting all the things you’re linking to (YouTube videos, music, upcoming appearances, store) on your own website, then just simply linking to your website. One link to rule them all.

2. CONNECT DIRECTLY

Hardly anyone knows about your latest project, let alone something you did three weeks ago (or three years).

Send a link to three people and let them know about it. Doing this takes minutes and is probably more effective than posting on socials for 95% of your audience to miss. Send via email, text, or DM. Just be cool about it.

3. RETHINK YOUR PITCH

Are you asking people to “subscribe for updates” to get people on your email list? Maybe promising a 10% discount?

Remember, you’re competing with Netflix, social media, family, new albums, holiday plans, and a million other things – rework your pitch.

“Say, “follow our adventures as we leave for tour in a month. Sign up so you don’t miss a single photo of our adventures. Sign up so you don’t miss out on all our crazy tour stories.”

There’s a reason media outlets ask, “got any crazy tour stories?”

It’s because stories sell.”

4. MIND YOUR KEYWORDS

Got this bit from ‘Discoverability for illustrators’ by Tasha Goddard via Robyn Hepburn:

“While emailing is more about outreach than discoverability, I have heard that art directors and art commissioners will actually use the search facility in their email app (e.g. Outlook or Gmail) as a first point of call after any in-house databases – so they might type ‘room illustration, colourful’ or ‘collage illustrator, newspaper’ etc. into the search bar to see if they have been sent any work by a relevant illustrator.”

Keep this in mind when reaching out to art directors and venues and other people you’re pitching for potential opportunities.

Want some direct help and guidance? Check out my 1:1 GET STUFF DONE WORKSHOP, and let’s do some work.

PROCREATE IS MULLET MARKETING

More mullet marketing, this time from Procreate.

Business up front (static website, text, one image, tiny button), party in the back (posting a compelling video on Twitter).
https://socialmediaescapeclub.substack.com/p/make-sure-youre-not-mullet-marketing

I still have a Twitter account on my desktop so I can watch videos like this, and that’s a good thing because, of course, it’s not on their website.

So if I want to share this video with a friend, I have to send them a link to Twitter, instead of Procreate’s actual website.

https://procreate.com/ai

Rather than driving traffic to their own website – a place where they control the branding, the story, the message – they settle for this:

“But Seth, if someone wants to know more they can just click the link!”

That post on Twitter has basically 3 MILLION VIEWS, and if they’re lucky 1% clicked that link, which is 30,000 people.

On the internet you get ONE SHOT to pull someone. Making them click a link to somewhere else might sound like it’s not a big deal, but you can’t be clicking links all day either – there’s just not enough hours in the day.

I’d like if I could just send the link to the Procreate page, so a friend could check out that video, or at least skim the text to see their stance on AI.

I bet Procreate would like to have 3 MILLION PAGE VIEWS, too.

But Procreate will fine. They have lot of smart people working on this stuff, I get it.

So, let this be a lesson for you as a smaller business or artist—your video probably isn’t getting 3 million views, which means you won’t get 30,000 clicks to your website either.

I’m not saying don’t post it on Twitter, but put the video on your website, too!

P.S. my god, the video isn’t even on the Procreate YouTube channel (they haven’t uploaded a video in almost a year), which is only the second largest social network on the planet.

Statistic: Most popular social networks worldwide as of April 2024, by number of monthly active users (in millions) | Statista

Find more statistics at Statista

YOUR ART NEEDS MORE OF YOUR ART

I believe a few things in my line of work:

Let people know what you’re doing.

By this, I mean when you have a new song, exhibit, drawing, or idea, you should share it with your audience or your fans.

Like Rick Rubin says, “make stuff, and show it to your friends.”

Let people know what you’re doing in a way that is as creative as the work itself.

Established artists can send out a flyer with a BUY NOW button because they have the luxury of being established artists.

Radiohead and Beyonce can drop a surprise album because they’re Radiohead and Beyonce.

You’re not Radiohead or Beyonce.

Posting “here’s my new thing” and a link gets lost in the river of content, because everyone posts “here’s my new thing” every hour of the day, week after week, year after year.

“Meritocracy is a myth,” says Delon Om. “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’s never been easier to distribute your work and get it seen by a million people by lunchtime, but because everyone can do that, it’s also never been harder.

This video from Noah Kalina documents how he captured a photo and made it into a print, which sold out in a few hours. To my knowledge, he only mentioned this offering in his video, which “only” got about 900 views in a month, but his work doesn’t just speak for itself. His work is the work, and his art is the art. It’s all Noah Kalina.

He didn’t just post “new print for sale” on his Instagram Threads and call it a day.

He spent many hours making that art and told his friends about it in a 100% Noah Kalina way.

Bobby Hundreds doesn’t need to write 500+ word newsletters, he’s Bobby Hundreds! He could easily get away with posting his random thoughts and links to new endeavors. But I imagine someone like Bobby has so much creativity coursing through his veins that he’s compelled to share more about the big things he’s doing.

QUESTION: How can your creative spirit inform how you tell your friends about your work?

MAYBE YOU DON’T NEED MORE SUBSCRIBERS

What if the people receiving your emails forwarded it to friends? What if they copied the text from it and posted it on social media? What if your words traveled from the inbox into Facebook group chats and meeting rooms?

When was the last time you sent a newsletter that got 10 replies?

If none of those things happened — not even close— maybe getting more subscribers isn’t the answer.

From social media to Substack Notes, people post in the void. No comments, likes, or engagement of any kind.

Hey, sometimes things don’t work!

Your “questions to everyone” or “open invites” have good intentions, but after a dozen or so attempts, it’s time to reassess your strategy.

Stop asking “everyone” and start actually asking people.

➡️ Reply to someone else’s post. Go into the comments section of another post, or another Tweet, and reply there. Be the person that people love seeing in the comments section by being insightful, gracious, and / or funny.

➡️ Email someone directly in your network. If you’re hoping those people even see your original post and take the time to reply is a long shot. Instead, reach out and ask them. Say you’re looking for their insight for an upcoming post.

➡️ Invite someone before inviting everyone. If you’re just getting started in hosting video hangouts, live sessions, or workshops, consider inviting a few people you know directly. See if you can get three people to commit before announcing to “everyone.”

➡️ Go beyond “just sharing” and make it a big deal. Make a whole post about it. Go deeper than typing “THIS,” and explain why this piece resonated. Don’t just “curate your feed,” rolling the dice hoping that 10% of your audience might see it. Take the time to write about something (or make a video or an audio snippet), and share it directly with your audience in an upcoming newsletter (where 99% of your subscribers will see it in their inbox).

Soda section from a grocery store in Palmerton, PA

“Yeah, but Seth, I just want to post my thing and go do other things,” you might say.

Well, you see the results that “just posting” gets you.

Also, how can talking to your fans, audience, and readers be a waste of time?

Setting a timer for 15 minutes and communicating with real people five days a week will probably get you more results than the hour you spend making one Reel for 153 “people” to see (and which will never be seen again after 12 hours).

Does it scale? Fuck scale, do the work.

The strategy of “just posting” ain’t working, and it’s not going to get any easier to reach your fans in that way as we roll into the second half of 2024.