Category: Social Media

Just Keep Copying

Tweet via Austin Kleon

I’ve been telling people over the years that they better start an email list. Social media is on a collision course for the sun (or a Nazi takeover, whichever happens first), so better to get ahead of that disaster with an exit plan. To me, that’s an email list.

Everyone has an email address. If everyone has social media, they had to use an email address to sign up for the account. Every. Has. An. Email. Address.

That doesn’t mean everyone has a tidy email inbox, but that’s their own fault. They probably follow 234234 social media accounts, too. Lost souls.

When discussing email lists, after the initial “ewwww, how boring” faces, the subject turns to “well, what would I even send out?”

Well, copy somebody’s style, even if you’re not copying their emails. What do the cool brands bands and labels send out to their social media feeds? Ummm, cool photos. Some quirky copy. Probably mentions of places they’ll be, or things they have to sell. Congrats, you’re now an email marketer.

Now, the first email you send out will suck compared to the tenth, but you have to start at number one, so just get it over with. Sign up for a Mailchimp account, make some mistakes, and before you know it you’ll have your own style.

Twitter Actually Made Money

The social media sewage pool that I call Twitter actually turned a profit, its first since 2006.

It may not grow into an advertising behemoth like Facebook, but at least it’s no longer sinking. And if it can keep turning a modest profit, that’s something—except for lingering problems of abuse and hatred on the platform, and the rampant bot problem that may or may not have affected the 2016 US election and the UK Brexit vote.

If you’re trying to get noticed on Twitter, good luck. They are not in the business of sending you free traffic, and I’m guessing soon we’ll see more throttling of traffic from feeds that just send out link after link, begging for a click.

MAKE IT AWESOME

I’m not trying to knock writing on the web, I’m really not. But holy damn, when you can watch a video like the one above, when Cory Henry launches into this solo? Watch out!

I’ve said it before; the writing of a seasoned pro appears exactly the same as an unpaid intern when presented on a website. The pixels, the fonts, the layout – serioualy, after 10+ years of meandering on the web, side-by-side, at first glance, it’s the same.

Sure, after reading a few lines you’ll tell which is which, but those are precious seconds that add up over the course of your day, a month, a year. Add in the fire-hose of shovel blogging, “me-too” editorials, and you see where I’m going with this.

Watch Henry’s solo (around the 4:00 mark, linked here) and you’ll see it – you won’t need to guess if it’s worth your time.

A podcast host either has it or they don’t, like a room full of musicians either bring it or they don’t. 

Because, dammit, you see it. The click-bait headlines. The social media tricks to get people to follow a link. You can just taste the tactics these days, can’t you?

Make the gates of joy and awe spring open when you release your thing. Every day. All the time.

ONE TO ONE WINS

How you treat your customer when they walk into your business.
Hello, customer.
Hello, store owner.
Nice day today, huh?
Gorgeous!
What can I get you?

When you see a customer on the street.
Oh, hello customer!
Hey! Hi there! Day off?
Yea, running errands!
Hah, it never ends, huh?
No, but that’s okay.
I’ll see you around!
Take care.

And now, how you interact with your customer on social media.
10% off today!
We close at 5pm.
Tomorrow we’ll have a special.
Don’t forget, we have gift certificates!

When it could be this:
Hey customer, great photo! That’s a great hiking spot.
Oh, thanks! Yea we love it there.
Have you done the Lake Loop with the kids?
No, we haven’t. Might be a bit much for them.
I hear you. We took our three year old on it one time, but he did okay.
Oh, really? Maybe we’ll try it sometime.
Take some photos if you do!
Hah! Will do.

Which one do you think is going to have a lasting impact?

Does it scale? Nope.
Can you schedule a conversation like this? Nope.
Can you automate it? No.

But I bet your coffee shop doesn’t have a self-checkout line, either.
Your tattoo shop doesn’t have an auto-ink booth, right?
As a photographer, you don’t send your Robo-Photo-Bot to a wedding, right?

No, because every one to one interaction is priceless. It’s valuable. It can’t be outsourced, and you can’t just get some unpaid college intern to do it.

DESIGN FOR CUSTOMERS

Goodbye “blogs as media empires.” The signal to noise ratio is too high, and the buckshot approach (more content = more page views) is doomed to fail. You can only carry so much coal on the locomotive of “content is king.”

And the idea that an app or HTML5 or social media is going to save your media outlet or business is wrong. If you don’t have customers you are doomed. A coffee shop can’t stay open if people just come in for the smell everyday; it must sell a cup of coffee on occasion.

You need to read ‘Don’t “design for mobile”, design for your customer relationship.’ If you don’t have people who will actually buy something from you, you can’t last.

Do you think companies are going to keep throwing money at media outlets that aren’t bringing clicks and engagement?

This was dug up from the Wayback Machine here.

Here Until It Isn’t

Good morning, friends. May this day be filled with firecrackers and assorted jabs to the fragile jaws of your airborne enemies.

Okay, so this wasn’t really written on this blog in 2013, but it’s something I posted to Twitter, which someday won’t exist. If I don’t pay my hosting bill, this will go away. I don’t have much say about the future of Twitter, but MySpace, AOL Music, and RDIO all came and went.

ENGAGE

I don’t think it’s possible to “do a media site” these days without engaging with an audience. My favorite barometer of this? I can visit most any US city and have lunch with someone. Or crash on their couch. That’s from 10+ years of doing music blogs.

I don’t care about 80k followers. I care about 100 people I can get coffee with.

To move to the next stage in the social media evolution, brands need to start focusing on actively engaging their fans over a sustained period of time. An active fan is one who has a relationship with a brand and, at least once a month, reacts to posts on the brand page, indicates a liking for various content, retweets a brand’s messages or creates original content on the page.

I built Skull Toaster from the ground up based on the idea of engagement. The result? Paid subscribers and merch sales, with no banner ads, no Top 10 lists, and no SEO tactics.

If I can make $1 Tweeting metal trivia, you can increase your income by engaging your customers in human ways.

Coffee shop: engage with your customers about upcoming events and local issues instead of just Tweeting your specials.

Music lessons: send tips and links to artists you admire instead of just “new student specials!”

Musician or label: engage your fans about other stuff: baseball, ‘South Park,’ movies, video games.

Bike shop: engage your customers with amazing bike videos that you find online. Send out photos from recent rides.

It’s about more than hyping what you do (HEY, READ MY POST! WATCH OUR NEW VIDEO! 10% OFF AFTER 5PM!), and just being someone that people want to talk to.

And when people talk to one another, sometimes it leads to sales.

Or at least a coffee.

YOU JUST HANDED ME A CDR AND WALKED AWAY

If you’re reading this, I probably @replied you and your band because you followed me (@sethw) on Twitter.

What you’re doing is the cyber-equivalent of handing me a CDR at a show and walking away.

A bit about me:

I played in all sorts of bands from 1991 to 2001.
I booked shows. I built websites for bands. I published zines.
I founded Buzzgrinder.com back in 2001.
I was the founding editor of Noisecreep.com for AOL Music.

In those 20 years I have never discovered or fallen in love with a band because someone handed me a CDR and walked away.

But during those 20 years I’ve made a lot of friends, and those friends were in bands, or ran labels or distros or booked shows. I discovered and fell in love with a lot of great bands because of that.

So if you think randomly following me on Twitter is going to help you, you’re wasting your time. And it’s a shame, because I know a lot of great people in the music industry, like publicists, engineers, A&R people, writers, editors, label owners, managers, bloggers, promoters, and tour managers.

Use this advice if you want. @reply me on Twitter, or shoot me an email.

Let’s be friends.

Then maybe I’ll listen to your music.