HEAVY METAL EMAIL

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YOU CAN'T RELY ON THE "BIGGEST CLICK DRIVER ON THE INTERNET"

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YOU CAN'T RELY ON THE "BIGGEST CLICK DRIVER ON THE INTERNET"

Make your own luck by doing amazing things

Seth Werkheiser
Nov 16, 2022
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YOU CAN'T RELY ON THE "BIGGEST CLICK DRIVER ON THE INTERNET"

heavymetalemail.substack.com
Photo by Harry Cooke

Elon Musk is full of shit with this Tweet, which he’s since deleted.

Ask any managing editor or writer or social media manager or founder of Punk Planet and they’ll tell you the same thing; Twitter is not great for driving traffic to your site.

That’s a bummer when you’re promoting a new album, tour dates, or new products in your store.

And it can be demoralizing if you’re asking your fans to subscribe to your email newsletter and you’re not getting a lot of sign-ups.

Let’s see how that went for someone on Twitter this past week, shall we?

Linda Bloomfield has been doing #OpportunityTuesday on Twitter, sharing job opportunities with her 16,500 followers every week.

Twitter avatar for @LindaBxx
Linda Bloomfield @LindaBxx
Twitter is on fire, so I need to find a new home for #OpportunityTuesday! Subscribe below to get 10 PAID opportunities for artists, creatives & freelancers sent to your inbox every week instead. Still free to access (or you can choose to give £1 a week): opportunitytuesday.substack.com
Image
1:31 PM ∙ Nov 11, 2022
269Likes207Retweets

Since then she sent her first email and mentioned that a, “whopping 1204 of you who have signed up so far!”

If you take 1,204, and divide by her 16,500 followers, that’s a nice 7.2% conversion rate.

In the internet world getting even 3% of anybody to click anything is good, let alone visiting a site and subscribing to a newsletter.

Much of that, though, is having built a reputation for something cool and useful (sending out job postings in the creative world every Tuesday), so when she says “hey, we’re moving to an email newsletter,” her already devoted fans followed her.

Which is why I say the ‘ole "Sign up for updates" line “is for department stores and car dealerships.” It’s boring.

Can Metallica get away with that? Yes, but you’re not Metallica.

Your art is still magical to your fans, so spend some time crafting exactly what your fans are signing up for, like

Tegan and Sara
's newsletter:

caption...

Updates? Nah.

“Tegan and Sara talk to each other about music, writing, art and life using voice notes, annotations of lyrics, personal essays, video conversations, and unreleased music.”

And note that they have, “thousands of paid subscribers.” Hmmm.

  1. Tell your fans what they’re signing up for.

  2. Make it easy for them to subscribe.

  3. Deliver on your promise.

It will never get any easier to reach your fans on the various social media platforms than it is today. It’s only going to get harder.

Best bet is to not even play the game. Start an email newsletter today and reach your fans directly.

QUICK BITS:

“Ten minutes on Joe Rogan is worth a year of tweets. It’s far better as a way to find people or information.”

That from Matt Taibbi on Twitter, which spark Musky-boys reply that Twitter is “the biggest click driver on the internet by far.”

So, you probably can’t get on a super big podcast, but you can get on other podcasts, make videos that people talk about, create websites that people visit. Make amazing stuff with good people, in real life and online. Put things into the world that will outlast a Tweet (and probably the company).

“The native and ad-free Patreon player allows creators to upload their content directly to the platform, select thumbnails for their videos, and view audience data like view count. Creators will also be able to select who can view the video without worrying whether links will be shared outside of subscribers.”

From The Verge; gee, it only took until late 2022 for this to roll out, but this is probably a good thing for lots of Patreon users.

GOOD TWEETS:

Twitter avatar for @realrockershit
fuck this! fuck that! im a demon! badass!!! @realrockershit
Bands need websites again. Even a blogspot. IG can't be the only way for people to find you
9:46 PM ∙ Nov 15, 2022

“But no one goes to websites anymore,” says some guy who spends all his time on Discogs, buying concert tickets on various websites, and refreshing his web-based email for UPS delivery updates.

Twitter avatar for @TURNSTILEHC
TURNSTILE @TURNSTILEHC
BEST ROCK PERFORMANCE BEST ROCK SONG BEST METAL PERFORMANCE @RecordingAcad THANK YOU FOR THE GRAMMY NOMINATIONS ❤️ THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING PART OF IT
Image
8:04 PM ∙ Nov 15, 2022
4,647Likes951Retweets

Even though I lost my glasses and ended up paying over $350 for new ones so I could drive home I wish nothing but three wins for Turnstile.

Twitter avatar for @Bloodflaps
The Great Cold Swatness @Bloodflaps
I'm imagining an NFL game with Matt Pike and Dave Mustaine as the announcers
2:35 AM ∙ Nov 14, 2022

Got questions about starting an email newsletter? Reply to this email (seth@heavymetal.email) or leave a comment.

☕️ Support HEAVY METAL EMAIL: buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi, Venmo (@Seth-Werkheiser), Cash App ($ethwerkheiser), or PayPal. You could also level up and upgrade to a paid subscription here on Substack.

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YOU CAN'T RELY ON THE "BIGGEST CLICK DRIVER ON THE INTERNET"

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