FOUR THE WEEKEND: MORE OF THE SAME IS LAME
Don't win the race to the bottom
You may have seen this image from Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre around socials. It’s from their 2021 article ‘A little greyer and a bit more rectangular,’ where Dr. Cath Sleeman dug through 7,000 photos of objects from back in the 1800s to the current day.
We can see this in the heavy metal world in terms of sameness - same looking websites and social media feeds.
For a genre with such imaginative artwork, tour posters, and shirt designs, we can be pretty bland when it comes to actually promoting these things in creative ways.
Look at the band Vile Creature and their nod to Geocities-era websites:
What you create is unique to you, and sets you apart from everyone else, so let the world see just how magical you are with every image, and video, and chunk of text.
How the fuck does any of this tie into running a newsletter?
For me, it bums me out knowing how much blood, sweat, and tears we put into our craft, and then we push it out to social media where an algorithm decides if that hard work is even seen by your own fans. That’s fucked up.
Like I wrote in my last newsletter about Cody Cook-Parrott who has been on Instagram since 2012:
Getting 300 likes with 80,000 followers means that just 0.3% of their audience clicked like, no doubt because most of those 80,000 followers never even saw their posts.
So even if you managed to grow to 80,000 followers, most of your fans won’t see your pre-order announcement, or the sale you’re having, or the call for people to come to an upcoming video shoot.
So let’s not sleep walk in our efforts to get the word out. The Twitter / Facebook / Instagram world ain’t what it used to be, and it’s never going back.
THAT is why I want my heavy metal pals to start heavy metal email newsletters, so all the cool things they’re making actually get seen my their fans.
They ain’t sexy, but they work. Let’s do some good work.
FOUR THE WEEKEND HOMEWORK:
Get off social media for a minute, and visit the websites of a few of your favorite bands. While you’re there, buy a shirt if you can afford to do so.
Halloween is on October 31st. You’ve got all weekend to whip up a special offer, a give away, a video message - SOMETHING - for your fans on Monday.
Check out ‘Setting up your Substack for the first time’ and have your email newsletter up and running by Monday.
Thanksgiving is right around the corner - get on Google and find how you can support or volunteer at your local food bank.
SMART THINGS FROM SMART PEOPLE:
“During any given hour, there are millions of tweets, photos, videos, podcasts, articles, and newsletters published, and you’re going to be competing with them no matter when you post. There’s no magic golden hour for content distribution.”
This (again) from Simon Owens's Media Newsletter, answering the question “how important is it to post on the same day and the same time every week?” Consistency is key, sure, but aiming for the exact TIME of day isn’t always the most important part.
“It’s fair to say that Instagram and Facebook have become platforms that use their users, with your feed feeling like some sifting through cat litter for whatever nuggets of whatever it is you logged on to see, a thing that is becoming increasingly hard to remember.”
From Where's Your Ed At, and that is spot on - ‘sifting through cat litter for whatever nuggets!’
Got questions about starting an email list? Need a kick in the pants? Reply to this email (seth@heavymetal.email). Free free free, just hit me up.
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