Category: Social Media

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?

ADS COMING TO THREADS

That nice user experience you’ve got on Instagram Threads will end right on schedule, of course.

“Threads is still a loss leader for Meta financially, though it can certainly afford to fund it indefinitely. Internally, I’m told execs are thinking about turning on ads in Threads sometime next year, though the exact plan is still up in the air.”

Yeah yeah yea, they’re thinking about it. Of course they are, and will. That’s how companies make money.

It’s remarkable how Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification” playbook is followed like a road map by these shit companies.

“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Via The Verge

TOO MANY OPTIONS

Photo by Seth Werkheiser

The more I think about the marketing machine, and the how and the why and the strategies involved, the more it all seems impossible.

Like, everyone who wants to “get the word out” about their thing is competing with a million other people doing the same thing. Some of it rises to the top because it’s what everyone is talking about – tech reviews, AI, sports, Star Wars, etc.

Other folks who do stuff that’s not quite as “big,” well, they’re lost in the fray, unless we’re talking about BookTok, of course.

But like, do “we” need to be in all these popular online places to make it? Is it required?

I think about the tiny Chinese restaurant I visit in Palmerton, PA. They’re not on social media, nor do they need to be. People in that town (or people passing through, like me) want Chinese food.

They have it. That’s a simple and direct choice.

And I feel like when you have that immediate want, say, for Chinese food, you’re going to look locally.

And if the grass is getting too high in your yard, you have to get someone to cut it.

But a lot of other things – how to draw, people who talk about email newsletters with creative people (that’s me!), how to write better… there are a zillion options for everything out there, and no real guarantee that any of them are going to help in the end.

Chinese food? That’s simple. You can solve that problem in an hour.

All the other creative / strategy / marketing stuff? Endless variations of possible solutions, directions, and options.

NO QUICK FIX

Photograph by Seth Werkheiser

Social media sold us on the idea that we can just post and lots of people would see it. 

This was true for a moment, but it was a house of cards. As more and more people post more often 24/7, there are only so many people who can see everything that is posted.

The “reach” was a lie. It helped lots of people, yes, until it didn’t. So now, as we enter a post-social media world, we’re left searching for NEW apps and algorithms, but it’s just more of the same, and it will likely end the same way.

Resist the quick fix, the shortcut. One subscriber to your email list is worth the work, the struggle, the grind.

SEARCHING

Photo by Seth Werkheiser

Love this from Mehret Biruk:

“I’m not searching for gmail.com, I’m searching for something, something of the past. That feeling. When I first learned to want and be wanted in a specific way; differently. All of it happened over the internet, the devices, the notifications. And what can I do about it now? Except hope that with enough time, enough effort, I will learn to forget the notifications. I will learn to want and be wanted in other ways; differently. Offline.”

From ‘Angry and curious‘

I do the same with email. Let me check one more time. Before a run. After a run. When I get home. As dinner is heating up. During dinner.

I’m searching for something. That email from someone that will sweep me off my feet. The job offer. The opportunity that gift wrapped from the universe just for me.

As Mehret says, time to deflect this feeling into something in the offline world, without a screen. I feel I get this more and more just by being outside. Finding myself stepping away from the computer more often. Going for walks. Long runs. Using my camera more often.

The search online never ends, but time on earth sure does.

RETURN TO THE WEB

The only thing holding us back from having the internet experience is ourselves.

“Nothing about the web has changed that prevents us from going back. If anything, it’s become a lot easier. We can return.“

This from Molly White, in a piece called ‘We can have a different web.’

We can set up websites for cheap, using a multitude of tools. We can create directories, or field guides, or fan pages for anything we want.

We can link to each others things from our websites, our newsletters, our DMs, our Discords or forums.

It might feel slower, since techbros at social media giants have been feeding you the Kool-Aid that without them you’ll turn to dust, but that just ain’t true.

EARLY TWITTER USER

I’ve been going through so many old photos and images since ditching Apple Photos, and found this from 2013, a screen shot of Twitter, with my Twitter user number as evidence of being one of the first 3,000 to sign up for the service. Un freaking real that I used that service for 17 years.

I THOUGHT YOU WERE CRAZY

I got a DM today from a reader of Social Media Escape Club:

“When I first started reading your posts I thought you were crazy. Honestly.”

They went on to tell me how they’ve been ignoring social media for any sort of promoting for their project, and – SHOCKER – it had no effect.

I’ve talked to a lot of artists about all this social media / “having a newsletter” thing, and I’m telling you, people have been beating their heads against a wall with this stuff, but also suffering from a bit of Stockholm Syndrome.

“A proposed condition or theory that tries to explain why hostages sometimes develop a psychological bond with their captors.”

Yes, there are folks who have a positive or neutral relationship with social media. If that’s you, fantastic.

Just because you don’t have a problem with social media, does not mean people experience the platform in the same way.

For some, social media is dreadful, which is then made worse by the idea that without it you’re doomed. And that’s a horrible place to be.

RELYING ON GREY BOXES

Cal Newport makes a great point about artists and creative people being on social media.

If our work is on social media, we leave the chance of “being discovered” to a grey box. An algorithm.

But the “old way” of finding and discovering things on the Internet was through blogs and directories.

Posts and link dumps curated by real humans. DJs on live radio stations. Writers that reviewed music in magazines.

It was slower, sure, but I don’t think we need any more “36 new songs released today” posts, do we?

I think it’s time to get back to directories again. DIY style. Curated links to resources to duplicate tapes, make zines, and lists of art galleries by city and state.