Category: Work

EVIDENCE IS YOUR MARKETING

From my new post ‘YOUR EVIDENCE IS YOUR MARKETING‘ over at Social Media Escape Club:

“I saw someone marketing their music production services in text, outlining the discount, the expiration of the offer, and who might be interested.

No evidence, just details.

Their website showed the albums they worked, a display of musicians who trusted them with their art, their vision.

That’s evidence.”

From my time in the music industry, this was the foundation for so many bands in the metal and hardcore world. I didn’t find out about bands like Dillinger Escape Plan or Meshuggah from social media posts, I found out about them from friends who saw them and told me I need to hear them.

There was evidence; good sounding albums, word of mouth from their live shows. That was the marketing.

I know we’re in this always on / short form video world right now, but there are people out there making a living without being online 24/7 and without making short form videos.

I know a writer working on TV shows and they aren’t on social media. I know a musician with “just” 225 Patreon supporters and an email list and they’re making a living doing what they love.

Instead of trying to impress strangers, present your evidence to the right people in your own creative orbit.

IMPRESS HUMANS, NOT ALGORITHMS

“We work to impress algorithms in hopes they’ll share our stuff, when we should be working to impress our readers so they’ll share it with other humans.”

I could talk about this all day (oh wait, I already do), but for real.

A performer on stage doesn’t seek out new listeners during the show, they must focus on the people right there in front of them. If they do a good job, perhaps they’ll talk to a few people afterwards, and get them to join their email list.

Hopefully the next time you play in the area, they bring a friend.

If you impress the people right there in front of you, the dream outcome is them telling a friend. Posting about you. Sharing your work with others. Telling their friend who writes for a publication, or runs a radio show.

Everything starts from within. Make sure you’re making the work you wanna make. Then, share it with friends. Play in front of 12 people on a Tuesday night. Write that blog post that will only get 5 “views.”

Then do it again tomorrow.

THE LONG GAME

Started a music blog in 2001.

Launched a metal blog for AOL Music in 2008 (7 years later).

Starting posting metal trivia on Twitter in 2011.

Sorta co-founded Metal Bandcamp Gift Club in 2016 (and so broke I didn’t have a checking account).

Got back to blogging again in 2018.

Started doing D2C email marketing for a record label in 2020.

Started writing on Substack in 2021 with 19 subscribers.

Changed the name to Social Media Escape Club in 2023.

Stuff takes a minute, friends!

CHANGE IS CORE

This theme came up in a recent Zoom meeting I was in:

“I took a sabbatical from my work as a photographer last year but I have a feeling my time as a commercial photographer might be coming to an end. I’ll always love photography and I’ll always be a photographer, but I feel my life force pushing me in different directions. When I tell my friends I might stop being a commercial photographer, they ask, but what will you do! And I realise how interesting that question is, and how we can limit ourselves and others when we think change is hard and things always have to be a certain way. In fact change is core to a vibrant, meaningful life, and we should expect change at any moment, without notice.”

From “reprogramming” by Rebecca Toh.

DO IT FOR A DECADE

This is so spot on, from Joan Westenberg, from their piece “There is Only One Hack: Do it for a Decade.”

Social media rewards visible bursts of activity. You can post about your new productivity system, your ambitious goals, your monk mode month, locktober etc. You get likes and followers for performing optimization. But you don’t get progress.

When I think of how I started a music blog in 2001, I sometimes get confused, like… wait, was it really that long ago?

All the different people I worked with, the oppurtintues that came up, the things I fucked up, made up, and made right… I can’t believe that next year it’ll be 25 years of somehow still being in the game.

It’s absolutely not about arriving, or outrunning a bear – you just have to run faster than you friends, and never stop, I guess.

(link via Bradley Spitzer)

JUST START BLOGGING

Fuck a Square Space, fuck a newsletter, fuck a social media platform and just freaking write, preferabbly on your own domain or least something you pay for so you can export yoru work if it ever goes belly up.

Fuck the full-width photos. Fuck the buttons. Fuck the H2 tags.

We’ve spent hours everyday posting and consuming social media content. Now it’s time to get radical. Reverse thrusters and lock in the auxiliary power. Pull the emergency brake and abort, it’s to get back to blogging.

Every new blog post is a signal to the reader, the curious visitor. There is no confusion, there is no navigation, there is THE FIRST POST.

It’s the menu, it’s the directions, it’s the manual – we start here. Today, this first post. This is where we start today.

Don’t like it? Scroll down, there’s another post. Not for you? Take a hike.

I guess I could say this blog is a failure for not landing me some big giant six figure client or whatever, but I’d say it’s a success because it’s fended off any shit-ass hiring manager from hiring a ding dong like me and that’s fine.

This blog is a signal. This is me. This is what you get. And it’s not ever video!

But the blog serves a purpose. Each post is like an email to the universe, a signal saying “this is what you get.”

Some might be curious and dive in. They might even email you.

Otherwise all those busy, cluttered, slow loading square space sites are just bogged down with static photos, text that was written three years ago, and a bunch of buttons to “sections” where it’s just more of the same.

Fucking write on your blog like your life depends on it because I’m thinking right about now it does.

CHOOSING THE WORK WE WANT TO DO

More record label clients would be great for my bank account, but I also know what it’d do for my sanity. Most industries have systems, but some just never manage to to get out of their own way.

Like Seth Godin says, “Choose your customers, choose your future.”

I attended his Freelancers Workshop many years ago. The biggest takeaway – get better clients.

“It’s possible, but alas, unlikely, that better clients will simply appear. That outsiders will realize how hard you’re working and will show up. Alas, while it may seem unfair, it turns out that you don’t get better clients simply by working hard. It’s much more productive to take the steps necessary to attract them and keep them instead.”

It’s true for clients, it’s true for fans, it true for customers.

THE WORK BUILDS A FOUNDATION

This week I ​spoke​ with Angela Hollowell (Please Hustle Responsibly). She spent six months making a film.

“I’m getting a lot more recognition as a writer, producer, and film director… way more than I did in four years of writing every day on social media.”

In the present, hard work gives no clear indicator that it’s a good use of time.

Posting on socials feels like work, and if something gets just two likes, post again in an hour. It’s work, after all!

But which gets you the gig three years from now, or prepares you for a bigger challenge down the road?

Which builds a foundation?

MAKE THE HEART MOVE

“What does it mean to have a positive impact on a life? How intimate does that connection need to be? Understanding your scale — the scale that moves you — is critical to understanding with whom and how you should work, how you should live.”

Earlier in this piece, Craig Mod talks about working at Flipboard and hitting a million users, saying, “I didn’t feel my heart move.”

So then searching for the things that make your heart move, whether it’s one person a day or a 100 or a 1000. Helping add light to the world, add joy to the darkness, somehow, someway.

DELETING MORE APPS

Thought provoking piece from Joan Westenberg:

I deleted everything.

Every note in Obsidian. Every carefully crafted “second brain.”

Every Apple Note.

Every to do list.

Every article on my “read later” list.

Every productivity system I’d built over years. Gone in seconds.

And I felt zero panic. Just an overwhelming sense of relief.

Got talking about this on Alex’s ‘BAT WRITE’ co-writing hang out recently, and he made a good point of actually saving the thing, to have it as reference for later. I like doing that with this blog, and I also have a running note in my Bear app, too.

But again, here we are – I’ve added this to my blog. I can see this a week from now, or five years from now, and I love that.