More here on Flickr.
Via Waxy
Category: Social Media
THREADS DEAD, BABY
Meta says they won’t recommend political content on Threads, and that “users who post political content can check their account status to see whether they’ve posted too much of it to be eligible for recommendation.”
As Nick Heer writes at Pixel Envy:
“Does any topic which has been politicized count? Are all posts about global warming, trans rights, healthcare, and intellectual property law considered political, or just those which advocate for a particular position? If advocacy is demoted, it likely benefits the status quo and creates a conservative bias by definition.”
And while this seems aimed at accounts you don’t follow, I don’t trust Zuck and company to throttle accounts that you do follow.
SELF PROMOTION
Years ago, “self-promotion” meant posting something on a social platform, and most of your followers saw it.
It was great when it worked!
Then came algorithms, and now self-promotion feels like a constant battle.
It’s not you; it’s the system.
You can’t post just once because 90% of your audience won’t see it. This is why I’d always tell people, “Promote your new song a few times a week, at different times of day!”
But then having to post, plan, and schedule starts to feel like screaming into the void.
Oh, and then Instagram says it wants videos. Twitter removes links. Facebook and LinkedIn limit your reach when you include a link. Also, don’t say “link in bio!”
At this point, it’s not even self-promotion – it’s tap dancing, juggling, or card tricks in Times Square, along with 900 million other creative people doing the same.
STOP LOOKING FOR FOLLOWERS AND GET SUBSCRIBERS
How will you get new followers if you’re not on social media?
Someone asked that recently.
They also said they reach about 10% of their followers on Instagram.
Think of the energy required to get 100 new followers on any social media platform. ONE HUNDRED. You need a hit, a nice mention, some serious work.
Then, when you send out your next big post to 100 new followers, just 10 of them will see it.
You now need 1,000 new followers to reach 100 of them.
What about 10 new email subscribers?
These might be people who follow you on Instagram but aren’t on the platform very often. You can DM folks who like a bunch of your posts and send them the link to subscribe.
If you sell stuff online, you can easily contact those people and ask them to subscribe to your newsletter (or add this as an opt-in during checkout).
You could probably email 10 people this week who love your work and send them the link to subscribe.
Heck, this is probably 50 people now if you do all three of those.
Maybe “just” half of those people click the link to sign up.
That’s still 25 people you can reach 100% of the time.
That’s more than twice the number of people you can reach if you get 100 new social media followers.
And it can be done in a few days, with a few emails.
Small effort, lasting results.
“Nothing exists but social media. No one does anything offline. So the entire measure of someone’s commitment is how much they post about their commitment.”
Rebecca Solnit from How to Comment on Social Media
(via Kottke)
INSTAGRAM IS A WEBSITE
I link to a post in my Social Media Escape Club welcome email, asking people to leave a comment about where they’re at with social media.
https://socialmediaescapeclub.substack.com/p/your-relationship-with-social-media/comments
People often say they’ve got a big following on Instagram, they hate Instagram, but they don’t know how to survive without It.
Meta has invested millions of dollars to make you believe this, but it’s not true.
Instagram is a website. People visit this website multiple times a day because it’s filled with interesting things.
Sethw.xyz is a website. People visit it occasionally because they bookmarked it or added it to an RSS reader.
EBay is a website. Netflix is a website. Your bank has a website.
Put as many photos and text on your website as you do on social media.
That’s how people “learn” to come visit your website.
Add a “subscribe to me email list” box.
“Oh, but Seth, no one uses email anymore.”
This is another lie.
Every smartphone ships with an email app already installed.
People who buy records, get direct deposits, apply for jobs, and buy things online all check their email.
Fill your website with cool stuff.
Tell your friends about it in real life, personal emails, and build an email list.
Because someday Instagram will implode or lock you out. Then what?
COMPANIONSHIP CONTENT
If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a tear lately with the “blogging thing.” Did you notice the new domain name? I’ve had sethw.com on and off since, like, 1999 or so because it went with my weird one-man-band act I did. But lately, as I’m now easing into my later 40s, I wanted something that reflected my new vibes, and sethwxyz really worked. Like, the alphabet goes wxyz, right? Seth W… xyz. Oh my god, I love it.
Anyway, since I’ve been writing or blogging so much, I’ve definitely felt different things pulling themselves together.
Like, I’m not spending multiple hours a day writing, but I do a lot of thinking and walking and taking voice notes on occasion, which I rarely revisit, but just doing them helps my brain put things together.
This brings me to this piece called ‘Companionship Content is King‘ by Anu Atluru.
“Companionship content is long-form content that can be consumed passively — allowing the consumer to be incompletely attentive, and providing a sense of relaxation, comfort, and community.”
After reading that whole piece, it was like, oh my god, no wonder I love those Noah Kalina videos, right? And he even mentioned in today’s video, near the end, how you could just have his video on in the background, you don’t even need to really watch it.
There were a few days where I’d find myself in haze after laying around and just scrolling through Instagram Reel after Instagram Reel. It was like when we were kids, and they used to say we watched 10 hours of TV a week or something, but now it’s like we consume 10 hours of video a day, but in 15 to 30-second increments, and it’s draining, as Anu says here:
“Consuming content requires attention, and everyone has an attention ceiling. This is the basis of my belief that short-form video has an upper limit. It’s not that short-form isn’t as good or as entertaining as long-form, it’s that it’s distracting and ultimately draining.
The mental energy consumed per minute of content consumed must be higher for short-form video than many types of content. I think of this as the “drain ratio” (as in energy drain) for a given piece of content or even a whole genre. (I doubt if anyone’s scientifically measured this, but I’d willingly commission a study on it).”
Maybe that’s why I like watching Craig Reynolds of Stray From The Path when he does his drum streams.
I don’t have to pay full attention, but it’s just fun to be “in the room” when he offers a sarcastic comment or self-deprecating humor.
Maybe I’m just getting old, or maybe it’s the after-effects of living through a pandemic, and things are just off, man. I’m not sure, but I just need the slow chill vibes these days.
HINDZ is another great example. A little softer than watching Craig on drums, but still… I guess it’s all about the person. I know what I’m getting from these folks, and there’s a peacefulness to that.
This is also similar to “body doubling,” or virtual co-working sessions that I’ve seen around. I haven’t really dabbled in those quite so much, but I know some people really like those.
ARTIST KEEP GETTING CRUSHED
If you haven’t seen, UMG has pulled their music catalog from TikTok, and shit is hitting the fan.
This is from Bloomberg’s ‘Soundbite‘ newsletter, from UMG country artist Cody Fry:
“I feel like I’m a person standing between two colliding planets,” he added. “It’s just hard — as a hard-working artist — to see a budding, viral trend with one of your songs that’s really awesome, in its infancy, just, like, get crushed by multi-billion dollar corporations.”
It sure sucks to be at the mercy of mega-corps who own the rights to your music, but… this is the way it is.
This is what we signed up for: letting massive apps be the arbiters of taste and culture by way of AI algorithms, with content created for free by users using music licensed from giant label catalogs.
What could go wrong?
Don’t rely on digital records.
My advice is to download your Instagram feed now! Print it out in a book (there are online services that will do this for you). Write your memoir and self-publish it; print out photos of your art, bind the pages yourself and hand copies to all your best friends and family; share your work! And share it widely and generously.
Jacqueline Calladine at Private View
“My goal with my content is to teach people how to use technology to pursue their best lives. Technology can help if used wisely. Social media works against that goal. If, as a society, we’re starting to think about ways to put some constraints on social media, sign me up.”
David Sparks