Hey, you probably know someone who got locked out of their Instagram account earlier this week, but hey, soon you’ll be able to sell NFTs through their shitty app!
Hopefully you didn’t have some product roll out or big announcement to make, and were blessed to still be able to access your account.
Like I wrote about a year ago, “Your 2022 is going to be a bloodbath if you rely 100% on socials to keep in touch with your fans. Especially if you lose access to any of your social accounts.”
Seriously, what’s your plan?
Elder lost access to their Facebook account back in September and according to this recent IG story they’re still locked out .
Access to 78,000 Facebook followers gone, and now they’re left trying to get word out to their Instagram audience of 42,500 fans about the situation.
Even if they reach 10% of their fans on IG, that’s just 4,250 people.
Seriously, what’s your plan?
This is absolutely not a knock on Elder - that shit happens.
So what are we doing? Today? This week?
Started by getting your fans to subscribe to your email list:
When fans buy from your webstore, make it easy (and enticing) for them to join your newsletter.
Run giveaways and capture emails (use Gleam, KingSumo, or roll your own with Tally)
Tell fans on social media to sign up (while you can still reach some of them)
You’ve worked too damn hard for too many years to lose contact with all your fans just because a 3rd party platform shits the bed.
SMART THINGS FROM SMART PEOPLE:
“Send a decent email even if it's not perfect.
Getting the impression and staying top of mind outweighs waiting for the perfect email.” (From @thePhilRivers newsletter)
Write a decent song, take a decent photo, paint a decent sunset - perfect is the enemy of done. Keep producing and refining what you do over years (then decades), then keep going.
“Patreon, once the only creator paywall platform in the game, lost 70% of its value this year, though, not because people aren’t making money online, but the opposite. Influencers, once tethered to the algorithmic whims of a home platform, have freed themselves and become a creator economy, which now encapsulates sex workers on OnlyFans, writers on Substack, and every form of content producer in-between.” (From ‘The great unbundling is already happening’ by Ryan Broderick)
Lots of talk of Twitter and Facebook crumbling, but what happens if Patreon implodes? Yikes.
“Maybe I’m alone in thinking this but it’s so funny to imagine a point in the future where I can’t listen to the music I enjoy anymore because a company founded by billionaires crashed and burned.” (@World0fEcho)
“When our competitors are raising their prices,” said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, “that is really good for us.”
We’re doomed.
Have questions about starting an email newsletter for your project? Just reply to this email (seth@heavymetal.email), and I’ll get you going in the right direction.
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