STOP SENDING YOUR FANS TO THE FOOD COURT
STOP SENDING YOUR FANS TO THE FOOD COURT
If the social media sites go up in flames, will your fans know where to find you?
☕️ Enjoy HEAVY METAL EMAIL? Upgrade to a paid subscription, buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi, Venmo (@Seth-Werkheiser), Cash App ($ethwerkheiser), or PayPal, and / or buy me something from my Bandcamp Wishlist 🖤🖤🖤
P.S. I’ll be in NYC the week of Feb 20th. Let’s hang out.
-SETH WERKHEISER
Use the emails you get from other industries as inspiration for your own newsletters.
For example, I got this email from Venmo recently:
The main point of the email was the video, but the links wasn’t to the video on YouTube - it was on the Venmo site.
You already know where I’m going with this.
When you drive someone to YOUR site, you control the branding, the vibe, the links, the experience.
When you drive someone to YouTube, your video is now competing with content that is algorithmically alluring to your fan! Oh no!
Your site can be set up to feature your upcoming tour dates, new products in your store, a pre-order package, or an email sign up link - all things that are buried under the “SHOW MORE” link in the YouTube description area.
Look, you command a room, and you command your narrative online.
So lead your fans.
Lead them to your website. Show them your newsletter.
Not all your fans hang out at the food court at the mall anymore, subsisting on a diet of pizza, smoothies, and chicken nugget outrage.
Social media is the food court at the mall, where your posts appear next to sports news and racist tirades, and the landlord keeps raising the rent.
It’s time to leave the food court at the mall.
Stop building your entire existence on rented property, and set up your own website + newsletter.
WEEKEND TASKS
Here’s four things you can do before Monday:
When’s the last time you cleaned your LINK IN BIO links?
Buy a domain name from Hover (that’s a referral link) and think about setting up (or updating) your website.
Make your own “pick one” images (like this one), and put it on your website. Have your band mates chime in and make it a whole feature - hey, it’s what all the music sites do, and people click on ‘em! Get ‘em clicking to your site instead and sell some albums.
This one fucked me up Double check and make sure you set up 2FA for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and just about every other service that is critical to your operation.
LISTEN UP
Billed as “avant-garde Death Metal,” TENTACULT from Sacramento CA just released ‘LACERATING PATTERN’ this week.
Email me: seth@closemondays.com
-SETH WERKHEISER