Connect with 3 new fans each day, and you’re building a broad and deep audience.
Imagine — 1,095 new friends who can open doors to opportunities and insights.
Create value and connect.
Start there, then rinse, and repeat.
Make sure you figure out a way to connect in a sustainable and energizing way. If it’s pure pain and misery, you’ll end up quitting the quest to get your social media followers to your email list.
I answered this question on Substack Notes, but putting it here too because someday Substack as a Platform won’t exist.
Q. Honest question — how do you treat building an audience without a social presence? I mean you could be active here on Substack (which is also an evolving social network). Still, I’m curious about your view on distribution channels, specifically for relevant people who might be interested in your content. From Itay Dreyfus.
A. The people who’ve already signed up deserve my best writing, my best “output.” And if almost 900 subscribers of Social Media Escape Club (woah) aren’t sharing my work on their networks, then I need to get better.
Growing up in music, we learned about bands because friends saw those bands and told everyone. Those bands were THAT good.
So I started making videos JUST for my subscribers (free + paid). I started doing Zoom hangouts with subscribers. Getting to know my readers more and more has helped me write better posts and continue to grow just from people sharing my work.
And I spent a lot of time trying to network on social media channels – I had over 2500 followers on Twitter, 600-ish on Instagram. I made videos, designed cool things, all that… but that was time spent seeking MORE eyeballs, time I coulda have been spending on the people who’ve already subscribed and said, “Yes, I want more of this.”
I deleted my Twitter account last summer, Instagram on January 1 of this year, and LinkedIn will be next.
Because today? This newsletter is where I’m at. This is where I’m showing up. If you don’t wanna click over here, that’s okay.
There’s a Taco Bell commercial featuring Portugal. The Man – not for their actual music, but as a “feature” to highlight how broke the band was, but at least they could eat at Taco Bell.
It’s almost as if Seth Godin knew what I was going to write about today:
“When things don’t go the way we hope, one alternative is to look hard at the system that caused the problem. And another productive strategy is to figure out what to do with what we get, instead of seeking to find the villain that’s causing our problem.”
Right now, phones can shoot music videos, laptops can become studios, taking pictures with a disposable camera is chic, and we can post everything to the internet in seconds.
But the days of posting something on social media and getting 10,000 people to see it are over. That ain’t coming back.
If you’ve been a subscriber, you know I always say this – it will never get easier to reach your fans on social media.
Don’t blame Spotify, or Apple, or Meta – these are all companies that were built to make money for shareholders. They’re doing their job; are we doing ours?
Are we making the best art that we can?
Are we writing 1000 words a day?
Am I practicing my bass for 15 minutes a day? (No, I’m not)
If you were the lone creative weirdo in high school back in the day, well…, you’d better read some books and find some magazines because you’re on your own.
Now we have websites, Zoom, internet radio, email, and a thousand messaging apps – there’s no reason to do any of this alone.
We know the villains in the current landscape. We know what we’re up against.
Time to stop playing games we don’t want to play (and can’t win), and figure out what’s next.
My three quick ideas on that:
Write a good newsletter to your fans that they’ll want to read
Set up a website and fill it up with all the cool stuff you do
Delete the social media apps from your phone this week
Will that raise streaming rates and bring back organic reach on Facebook? NOPE. But it’s action, something we can do right now, and it’s a step toward new possibilities.
