Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
This is it, right here (from Neil Mason):
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.
The algorithms will always work against you, but for now you can always DM a fan, you can always reply to someone who likes your work.
The vault is still open, take what you can get.
This from ‘In 2024, the Tension Between Macroculture and Microculture Will Turn into War,’ by Ted Gioia:
I’m still puzzled why NPR and CNN and Harvard and other legacy institutions haven’t set up on Substack. But they clearly have zero interest in doing so—even if they could make money and expand their audience.
Yet these same institutions launched on Threads the very first day. They couldn’t sign up as soliders for Mark Zuckerberg’s new empire fast enough.
Also true for bands, record labels, and independent musicians.
That somehow the thing that has ruined our lives will also save our lives, our careers, our music, our art.
I don’t fucking get it.
These social media platforms are not on our side. Spotify is not on our side. Fuck, Bandcamp hardly seems to be on our side, now.
Can Substack shit the bed, too? Absolutely (and some will say they already have).
But with Substack I can export my fucking email list and go somewhere else. I will always have that. The day I’m fed up and walk, I didn’t lose a fucking thing.
Spending more than one god damn hour on Threads is just building share-holder value for Meta and making sure Zuck can top off his yachts gas tank this weekend.
Straight up, this post ‘How “Building An Audience” Is Different From “Finding Clients”—And Why It Matters‘ has haunted me since I read it.
Its conventional wisdom of more fans, more readers; more subscribers are somehow the answer to every problem.
This makes sense of course for someone who does podcast editing (like the author of this post); sure, reach out to your network, and find paying clients. Word of mouth. The power of your reputation.
BUT… what about the artist who posts about their new work on Instagram and only reaches 12% of their followers?
This is why social media pushes more – because 12% of more is at least better, right?
Whereas, if you could simply email and reach 100% of your fans, and former customers, with a message about your new offering, you could earn a living, or at least pay your phone bill.
I’ve been thinking of making videos for social media, and starting a YouTube channel. These two things are sort of expected, right? If you’re seeking to make an impact, more people seeing the thing can’t hurt.
But what about the almost 700 email subscribers I have already?
If I make a great video for them, and it’s so good they tell three other people, then I’ve done my job. If it’s a dud and no one watches it, then I’ve learned something new.
But to take the time to build a whole new YouTube channel from scratch?
Why don’t I hone my message, my style, my technique with nearly 700 who’ve already bought into what I’m talking about?
Saw someone complain on a social media platform how they lost access to their Instagram account, and how this seemingly happens every year around the holidays.
Then they went on to say,” anyways, here’s my new Instagram account.”
I just don’t get it.
It’s like, “I keep getting bitten by snakes, but anyways, I’m going go play with some more snakes.”
Why do any of us keep investing in these platforms that treat us like shit?
On the left, the Salomon website. Three images, hardly even 350 pixels wide.
On the right, the Salomon Instagram page, a carosel of five, giant, screen filling images.
As I wrote in “DON’T MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA YOUR TROPHY CASE,”
We’re quick to posts our biggest moments on social media.
The “SOLD OUT” marquees. Massive crowds from stage. The plaques. Photos with our heroes and fans and friends.
We take photos of ourselves standing in Times Square with that big Spotify digital ad in the background.
We’ll share those slick DSP images on social media, showing off our placement on a cool playlist (like mine, below).
It’s the same even if you’re not in a band: we post all our most interesting photos, the imagery that shows off our unique, creative spirit, the videos that capture our spontaneous, magical energy.
We don’t put any of it on our website, then complain that nobody goes to our website.
Imagine making your website the MAIN place to see your latest photos, your behind the scenes, your deepest thoughts, your biggest BANG.
Instead we’re all giving our best stuff to social media platforms for free in hopes that a few people can even find a link to visit our store.
And who even reads this way? Back and forth, big sections of white space? Might as well put some pop up ads in there, too.
People LOVE the social media feed – photo, text, photo, text, photo, text.
It’s how ZILLIONS of people consume the internet these days.
And websites are still out here with tiny fucking images, text that zig zags all over the place, and letting social media platforms get all the attention by offering a better reading experience.
I started my HEAVY METAL EMAIL newsletter in late 2021, writing all about email marketing in the magical music world, in a very niche sort of way. It’s not for everybody, and that’s just fine.
But it’s for 500 people right now, apparently.
This happened mostly without social media. I deleted Twitter, stopped posting on Instagram, and Facebook? My goodness, I never log in, really.
All that time saved creating “assets” for social media platforms, and “engaging,” now I just spend that time on writing. Hell, I moved to a summer schedule, posting just once a week, down from three times per week.
Most of the subscribers come from Substack, and recommendations from other people who also have Substack newsletters. And I picked up two new clients from writing the newsletter.
Maybe this “not being on social media” thing will work out fine.
I know social media is a constant bombardment of images, video, and text, but I think the most jarring part is how it’s all different.
So for me it’s bike, anti-work, bands, podcast clips in audio form, cookies, more bikes, cool camper vans, bands, bands, bands, coffee…
It reminds me a little bit of flipping through the cable TV channels back in the day, but with even less friction. And it’s not just 75 or 100 channels, it’s unlimited. You can sit there for HOURS and (probably) never see the same thing twice.
It’s like sitting there with a bag of chips, or (for me) a bag of cookies. I can just mindlessly consume them with zero thought. But then afterwards, I’ve got nothing of value, I’ve lost time, and I feel bloated.
I deleted my Twitter account 15 days ago, but I think I watched 10 hours of video on Instagram yesterday. Not literally, but it sure feels like it.
When we used to watch four hours of television a day, which would been four or five shows as we flipped around, now we watch four hours of videos on social media platforms and it’s from 10,000 different things.
After a nice six mile run yesterday (photo above), I was wiped out. So in the evening I was scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling. This kept me up, and then I got to bed late, which messed up my morning plans to travel for another adventure on Sunday morning.
Today I deleted Instagram from my phone. I feel like I gotta delete my account and just be done with it.
Without Twitter (I shut down my account in early June, 2023) , what do I do now?
Well, I go outside more, wash my dishes, organize, go on bike rides, and talk on the phone more.
In this video below Jon Wayne talks about getting away from always being in the thing you wanna make (in his case, BEATS), and getting out and doing things that lend itself back to making beats.
Living a rich, well rounded, cultural life adds to your art.
Marlee Grace wrote about having someone else manage her Instagram:
I found that as I didn’t have access to my Instagram my interest in sharpening my website and offering came into clearer focus. I opened up my books for creative advising, saw opportunities for new classes, and started organizing plans for a new website. My ecosystem is so much more than an algorithmic grid.
Now that I’ve stopped focusing on tending to an app that many people don’t even use, I now have more time to work on things that can generate income, or give me joy, or fuck, just make my kitchen look nice.
And it’s not just about monetizing my hobbies or some shit. If anything it’s about not working – more bike rides, more running in the woods, more calm, casual conversations with friends.
So when it is time to work, I’m my best, most fulfilled self.
I like this quote from New Creative Era:
THE CREATIVE STATUS QUO HAS MADE US LONELY CONTENT MACHINES
PRESSURED TO POST WITH UNNATURAL QUANTITY AND FREQUENCY
TO PURSUE OUR LIVELIHOODS AND EXPRESS OUR WORK
WE PLAY SOMEONE ELSE’S GAME
I’ve been thinking about that first line a bit, as I sort of felt isolated as a writer, as someone trying to offer up ideas. I feel like it’s me vs everyone, stacking up against everyone else trying to offer solutions and ideas in a busy, hyper-competitive world of music and culture.
Makes me think back to my high school days. I hung around creative musical people all the time, for years. The result was creative musical projects. These days, I’m not so creative with music anymore.
I wrote this in 2018:
We can’t do the “real life” thing if we’re scrolling through an app for hours a day. That’s not “keeping up” or “staying informed,” that’s taking time away from our creative pursuits! And emailing friends! Calling people. Have coffee with friends.
We are lonely content machines, cooped up in our rooms and studios trying to make everything ourselves.
The real life hangs and interactions came to an end in 2020 because of the pandemic, and I think it’s gonna take a minute to get back to that.
