Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Take back control of your audience.
My titles will, from now on, be inspired by my favorite classic alt songs from before you were probably born. This one is by Tears for Fears and you can watch the music video.
Ok, listen. Social media platforms are turds circling the drain. We are riding on these turds and just allowing them to serve as our ride through the sewer to our eventual journey into obscurity. Is that what you want? Do you enjoy building an audience from scratch because you are fucking cool and then social media just jacks with the algorithm and buries your visibility in order to motivate you to reach into your wallet and PAY for what you already own? Yeah, get the fuck outta here. These billionaires want a share of my pie? This pie I already give to corporate greed, taxes, healthcare, insurance, lobbyists? I barely get to lick the plate I served my pie on so I’ll keep some crumbs for myself, thanks. And here’s how.
You need to start reallocating your content. The stuff that makes you, YOU needs to go on platforms that support you; assist you in growing your audience and KEEPING your audience. And this should cost people a little money. Right now, on social media, users are just vomiting content for free. Social media collects all that content and decides where it goes. You can take my Twitter platform, for example. I have damn near 32K followers, ok? My engagement rate is about 2%-3%.
Engagement rate on Twitter is calculated as the sum of: (Likes + Retweets + Quotes + Replies) divided by the number of tweets, then by the total number of followers, then multiplied by 100. Mention's Twitter Engagement Calculator uses the metrics from the last 10 tweets to analyze the engagement rate.
None of this is controlled by me. Twitter, actually, controls what my followers see from me. You can read this TRASH from Twitter about open-source algorithms or you can just believe me when I say that Twitter allows people to see what they want people to see and it’s likely that 1%-3% of my followers actually see my tweets. I also retain zero information about my followers. I don’t have any tools on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook to send an important message out to everyone all at once.
“Here is the ARC of the very first book that I wrote and a photo of me holding it” on blast to 31,000+ people:
now if I know how to math, that’s 7, 520 sets of eyeballs out of 31,000 and only like 600 of those eyeballs “engaged with it” and even less, 277 people “liked” it. That’s balls, really. Wanna check Instagram? I posted a few hours ago.
I have about 30K followers there.
4.6K accounts have been reached. How is it that all 30K do not see my post? Or even 10K? It’s because of the algorithm. Instagram wants their users to see ads and things they deem important FIRST because they want to capture that audience for things that serve their meal ticket, you, the content creator get their scraps.
So we need to be utilizing platforms that capture our audience for us, collects data (insights, analytics, emails) and sends out our updates directly to them. The three that I am currently using:
SubStack (Newsletter, Notes, Thoughts, Shared/Exchanged Content, Networking)
Patreon (Quality content behind a paywall)
and Shopify (for Night Worms, blogging, eCommerce)
I will do a deep dive on each of these platforms soon, but listen. Social media is not going to get better. They do not care about your needs at all. If you care at all about the growth of your audience, your network, staying in touch with your colleagues, support the ongoing shift to alternative platforms. Do not just fuck around on social media thinking you’re somehow getting quality juice from your maximum squeeze, you are getting the leftovers. You put in all this time and energy that draws those resources from other things (that pay your bills) and those vampires give you NOTHING.
It's my own design
It's my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the
Most of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world
I could have just subscribed based on citing Tears for Fears alone. That, and I've been enjoying your Twitter feed for some time, greedily mining new titles to add to the already teetering "to read" stack.
It was this article that clinched it for me, however. Among other things, it reaffirms what many of us (notably, Stephen King) have observed for some time now: we're the content, not the customer. I’d rather pay *you* directly for your wonderful, staccato-snappy words and recommendations.
Having said the above, I’m off to re-listen to "Head over Heels" and "Pale Shelter" for the 11-ty billionth time. Never mind that I’m nearly old enough to count that high.