069: Make the Machine Work For YOU.

Wherein I discuss a mindset & method for artists to grow faster on social media.

REAL QUICK HEADS UP ON MERCH ORDERS: Those awaiting hats, thank you for your patience! We sold out of runs TWICE now. That’s crazy. We finally got our 1st re-order delivered and Ally has shipped them off to the post office Saturday! So expect those soon. Know that when you are ordering from us, you’re not only supporting this club, BUT also we support local small businesses who are making the hats and shirts, like Revival in Pittsburgh, and the notebooks are printed by Laurel Valley in Latrobe, PA. I know we could get things cheaper and faster via China or P.O.D. But I really enjoy working with small businesses and supporting the local economy when we can.

TODAY’S POST WARNING…

It’s going to be a long post today, but I think it will be enlightening for artists who want to grow on social media or struggle with social media in general.

Be sure to read ALL of it on desktop, I think it will be too long for e-mail here.

I’m putting my OTHER HAT on now, the strategic direction/marketing side, because I want more artists to learn a little of what I’ve learned over the years so it can help you.

I have some true INSIDE DOPE to share with you on how these platforms actually work.

No hacks. No shortcuts… but once you know how it works, then you can make these platforms work for you, instead of feeling like a slave to them.

I know it can feel overwhelming, or like complete BS, that you are made to feel like you have to be on EVERY damn platform.

I want you to know this is the EXACT method I used to get monetized on Instagram, attract brand deals and partnerships with major brands, even with just my LITTLE following.

You don’t have to be big for this work.
You can even start at ZERO.

WHO EVEN CARES?

First: You need to know as an artist before you go launching an Instagram/Threads/TikTok, or whatever;
who are you trying to reach and why?

If you’re only connecting with other artists, I mean if your audience is just built up of other artists, that are all trying to achieve the same thing, (And that can be fine, it’s what we do here) your reach is going to be pretty limited.

I hear artists judge other artists and themselves by saying things like “they only has 200 followers….” or “I don’t have enough people following me to matter.” (real quotes)

You have to stop thinking THAT way and start thinking creatively and deliberately.

Second: Figure out WHY you want to be on social media at all.

There a couple main reasons why you may why you, as an artist, want to be on social media or building a social account…

The first reason is just to allow your work to be seen by multiple people and to be enjoyed and that’s pretty wholesome and great.

OR

Or you’re trying to build a business from your art which could entail selling your own artwork doing commissions getting hired for different jobs or even being paid to post on social media.

Ask yourself WHO ARE YOU SPEAKING TO?
What is your target audience.

For example, if you’re an artist like me to speaking to other artists like you right now, that’s great. That’s fine. But if you’re trying to build a business selling to other artists? Not so lucrative. (by the way, we have killer merch for artists here.)

But if you’re an artist, that’s looking to sell paintings of flowers, or some other niche, you’re going to want to find the places, the people, the communities where those people are they hanging out.

It might very well be that none of them are on instagram… so why would you be putting energy there?

Some people will call this “building personas” and that’s the common way of thinking about it in social media marketing. It’s a bit flawed and outdated because it lacks the authentic personal context of people’s lives.

What is the REAL JOB TO BE DONE?

I want to challenge you to think about the job to be done.
Why is someone ordering that painting of a flower?
Why is there a community built up around this niche you’re in?
What is the “thing under the thing”.

I’m just going to use the flowers topic as an example, because it’s pretty generic. But what if you found out there were a certain group of people who collect mini-flower paintings. And you would assume they were just gardeners or old ladies. But you come to find out via conversations that many of them share a story. They bought that flower painting to remind them of a loved one. Or that specific flower had some inside meaning.

Suddenly a whole world of context and messaging opens up to you if you’re really looking.

Really unpacking those WHYs of your audience of your target audience is going to be a key to your social growth.

You know what? I hate saying or typing “target audience”. Sounds predatory in some way. I don’t like it. I cringe when I hear it or see myself typing it.
Let’s instead call it… YOUR PEOPLE.

For example, the biggest mistake too many artists make is they just start out with their Social media accounts, their Instagram, their Facebook and they just decide to randomly post their art occasionally.

They’ll get followers like their Aunt Sally or their cousins or friends from high school or colllege. Those people really don’t have an interest in their art, they might just think you’re an artist and that’s that’s great. The kind of people who think “how cute!” it is that you’re an artist! They think it’s “such a nice hobby!”

UGH.

Those are NOT the people that you want to be following your work.

So why do you want to be on social media in the first place?
It’s probably brand awareness for your art.
It shouldn’t be to feel lousy about yourself.

Figuring out who your ideal audience is going to be, who is your ideal customer, that’s the first real big key. FIND YOUR PEOPLE.

It does help to know your personal pillars or your brand pillars for your art. What’s important to you? That will help you figure all this out fairly easily. I have another video on my channel about this it’s the pillar exercise.

How many social platforms do you even freaking need?!!

I know it can seem overwhelming to have to check all of the different platforms and engage everywhere and you may find yourself thinking.

You might end up feeling like you have no time to do the actual artwork.

And honestly this could lead to a lot of personal burnout. And as a Creative, you want to totally avoid that.

I suggest choosing 1 to 3 social platforms to build your art brand or personal brand on.

You can change those in the future but learn to get good at just one or a few rather than trying to tackle them all and cross-posting everywhere.

Their Hidden Agenda

When you know your reasons for being on social, and who you are trying to speak to, next you want to understand how these platforms actually work.
What is their hidden agenda?
And they DO indeed have a hidden agenda.

And it’s this.

🗝️ ALL of these platforms simply want you to use the platform.

🗝️ And they want to keep you on the platform for as long as they can in one session.

They want you to use the functions of the platforms as often as you can.

The real secret to how all of these algorithms work.

I know this for a fact because I’ve had personal conversations with engineers from YouTube, Meta & Apple. And they all say the same things.

You will see a lot of tips and advice out there from so-called “experts”, but it’s really just their best guessing. Most times it has nothing to do with how these platforms actually work.

And that’s why you hear a “hot tip” like “Man you need to add trending sounds to take off!” so you do it, and it doesn’t work for you. Because…. that’s bullshit.

It was pointed out to me, from someone who worked at META specifically, the platforms themselves are telling you what they want you to do.

Maybe not directly, or out-loud, but it’s right in front of you.
Hidden in plain sight.

All of the features, tool actions, and when they move the features or buttons around and things like that, the engineers who are building these platforms want you to use these tools.

I was told the ideal session time for a user was 15-20 minutes.
The machine is learning and trying to get you to have increased in-app time by serving you MORE things it thinks you’ll love. This is why you keep falling in rabbit holes and meme traps.

Every time you use one of the tools or options it’s sending a “signal” to the machine.

This is “machine learning”. And it gives them data that helps them improve their products.

In return, they reward you by showing your account to more people.

For example, do you just post once a week on social media? Are you just kind of randomly using the app? Do you accidentally fall down a random rabbit hole and meme-trap?

90% of people that are using social media are just randomly using it for checking in on their friends, seeing what the drama is out there? And escapism.

And that’s where you, dear Art friend, come in.

Because your channels, your profile, your art, CAN BE an escape for somebody else. For that audience (YOUR PEOPLE) that you’re trying to speak to through your art.

Use this knowledge to make social media work for you. It actually made social media FUN for me again when I see it through this lens.

Take Deliberate Actions (TDA!)

This is how artists and creators can conquer social media and build minimal viable audiences of true fans. This is how you put the machine to work for you.

You’re going to start using whatever platform you decide deliberately.

The first thing you need to keep in mind is… EVERY ACTION you take on social media sends a signals. The more signals you send or that end up happening because of you? The more the platform LOVES you. And it will reward you by showing your profile to even more people, organically. That’s how it works.

So think of your actions and choices on social media very deliberately.

I want to challenge you to NOT turn on a social media platform unless you’re willing to dedicate at least 20 minutes on that app and performing the following method I will describe below.

Think about that a second and how that will work. You’re hitting the “sweet spot” for ideal session time. When the machine knows you’re “on” probably somewhere around the the 5-10 minute mark it’s going to begin showing your content or profile as “suggested” to similar people. Why? Because it wants other people to take actions that you will notice. Example, you’re about to turn off the social app and suddenly you see notifications pop up of a new follower, a new comment, or suddenly something in your feed makes you think…. “okay I’m just gonna check this out real fast then I’m done…”

None of it is by accident.

Most important 👉🏻 You need to stay consistent.

There are all kinds of different schedules that you could do but it’s important that you stick to a schedule of some kind. Can you grow your channels with only one post per week? Yes. Can you grow it faster the more you post? Absolutely. But it’s up to you to find the balance in your old life to avoid that burn out.

The following method can work on ANY platform. The “actions” on each may be a little different based on the tools the platforms want you to use.

This should only take you 20-30 minutes when you get up to speed.

Step one: Find a schedule that works for you.
Let’s just say you’re going to start with posting three times a week. Monday Wednesday Friday.

Step two: Stick to the schedule like clockwork.
When you post, try to post at the same time. Don’t listen to the “what is the best time to post” kind of articles. The best time to post is the best time for YOU. If you have no idea where to begin, then start at noon, maybe during your 30 minute lunch break.

Step three: The Method to the Madness
I use a method and framework I developed called 555-1212. This works great on Instagram, LinkedIn or anywhere you can search hashtags or topics. For this example let’s pretend it’s instagram. Try to do it in this order. (there’s a reason)

Set a timer on your watch for 20 minutes and see how much you can actually do.

• (5) Find 5 strategic hashtags in your niche to follow and engage with. Find the tags with a pretty decent amount of posts daily. The perfect tag for this would have several posts per hour. Go into each hashtag search one by one, and sort by MOST RECENT posts if you can.

• (5) Engage with 5 posts in each of your 5 topics you are following. Like the post, comment, but be authentic about it! NO SPAM or copy/paste. If this is a topic that you are truly interested in, and that you’re making artwork for, you should definitely find some posts that spark your interest or conversation. Ask a question.

• (5) Engage with 5 from your feed, the people you are already following. So many people just skim through their feed so fast and forget to engage with the people you followed.

• (1) Post YOUR post.

• (2) Follow at least 2 new people from across your 5 topics. (this could be 2 in #artfriends, and 2 in #drawordieclub and 1 in #whatever topic)

• (1) Start 1 new conversation in DM. This doesn’t have to be weird. It could just be DMing someone who just followed you and thanking them or asking them a simple question. It will spark some wonderful conversations and connections.

• (2) Save or Share two posts per day from across your 5 topics.

So let’s add it all up!

If every action you just took counted as a positive “signal” sent to the machine

• You just sent hundreds of signals for the machine to learn from.

• You’ve achieved or gone over their “ideal session time” - The platform will consider you a “super user” or more engaged if you do this often.

• You just connected or “touched” around 23 people individually in that one session, if not more! If you did this every day of the week, you’d touch 161 individual people. That’s 644 people you’d touch in one month (4 weeks)

• Imagine if you did this twice a day?

Your challenge this week:

• DO NOT FALL INTO THE RABBIT HOLE: Be deliberate with the method above.

• Don’t open your social media app unless you are scheduling 20 minutes to be on it in one sitting.

A bonus result beyond the growth you will achieve is…. your feeds will begin to become more curated and you’ll feel better about spending the time. You may even look forward to this process.

My feeds used to be full of random bullshit, political battles and drama. But since i do this process, now it’s begun only showing me what i engage with the most.

AVOID SENDING NEGATIVE SIGNALS:

Just as you can send positive signals to the machine, you can also send negative ones. So be mindful to NOT DO THESE THINGS:

• Don’t comment negatively.

• No trolling.

• Avoid commenting on a controversial post or drama.

• No drama. None. Ever. When you see it, resist the urge to throw your two cents in.

VOLUNTEERS WANTED! Reporting for duty!!!

If you try this method for a series of days, please DM or email me with the results you are seeing. dj@drawordieclub.com - I would love to feature other artists in the future on our Draw or Die channels to help other artists grow.

🔥This Week’s Drawing CHALLENGE!

This week’s drawing prompt is…

“DON’T FALL INTO THE RABBIT HOLE…”

Be sure to tag #drawordieclub on the platform of your choice so we can all find each other (we’re mostly on instagram) Maybe we’ll feature your art in future livestreams and content!

✏️☠️♣️
DRAW. EVERY. DAMN. DAY.
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I hope this entry gives you a different way of approaching and seeing social media. Now go grow!!!

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