Category: Social Media

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.

FEELING STUCK ON SOCIAL MEDIA

From Seth Godin’s new book ‘This is Strategy.’

When a system creates negative effects, it almost always happens gradually. Each node makes what feels like a reasonable decision at every step along the way, until the descent is far greater than we wished up for.

There’s cultural pressure and momentum to go along and before long we’re trapped – unable to get off social media, in debt, feeling stuck.

Toxic systems don’t go away on their own. Community action and peer support five us the scaffolding we need to build new systems. As those gain traction and power, the original system being to take notice and alter its behavior.

A lot of people feel stuck, and have a fear of missing out. I hear a lot of people say “well, Facebook is how I stay in touch with family” and such.

Until you get locked out, right?

Until that group with 1000 members gets shut down for some unknown reason.

Then what?

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.

INTERVIEW WITH THOUGHT ENTHUSIAST

I spoke with Thought Enthusiast about Social Media Escape Club, mantras, and Noah Kalina!

“hey… you don’t need to be loud and jump around and do stunts to connect and share your work. Like, you can just be who you are, and that’s enough, and even though the algorithm might not “reward” that, oh well. Being yourself makes it easy to sustain your work because you’re not wasting energy being someone else.”

Read more here.

DIRECT CONTENT WINS

This from Matthew Ferrara:

Imagine if you produced direct content as frequently as you produce social media content. But rather than 1% or 10% of people seeing it, it gets received by 100% of your audience. Got your attention?

Keep making Reels that 95% of your audience won’t see?

Or just email 10 people and reach all 10 of them?

Emailing 10 people means we might get rejected 10 times.

Making Reels is safer, knowing it’ll largely go unnoticed, but we still did “the right thing” according to mass marketing gurus.

NO MORE LIKES

“I do think that social media is largely a trap… for users and for brands,” says Seth Godin over at Link In Bio. “It’s purposely built to create insecurity and false proxies, metrics that get people to work for free to support the business model of the social media companies, as opposed to their own goals.”

Spending time and energy for “Likes” benefits the people who said “Likes” were valuable in the first place.

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.

THE ALGORITHIM IS NEVER SATISFIED

As usual, Seth Godin sums it up in ‘Feeding the algorithm.”

“If you’re posting on social media or any platform with an algorithm, the real question is: do you work for the algorithm or are you committed to working for the people who want to go where you hope to take them?”

I love this; “are you committed to working for the people who want to go where you hope to take them?”

I’m off social media because I don’t want an algorithm shoving garbage into my eyeballs every minute. Sure, there’s sometimes a sliver of good stuff, but I’m no longer interested in sifting through garbage. Not for anything.

Some people are afraid to leave social media. Literally fearful. It’s the FOMO, not being up to date, missing what friend’s are doing.

I do quite well not knowing what my friends are eating for breakfast, thank you.

THE BAR IS LOW

Listeners have unlimited options. They have probably 25 albums they could recite word for word and another 10 they put on for a good cry or workout.

Expanding on your “NEW SONG, CHECK OUT IT” messaging is the very least you can do.