There's Got To Be A Better Way

The digital space can be an all consuming deep dark rabbit hole for indie artists. Navigating all the recommended do's and don'ts, trying to figure how to crack the algorithms to get more traffic moving your way without breaking the bank - it can be an exhausting nightmare. OR it can be a really fun game. It's all about the power you give it.

The only difference between the two mindsets is how and where you focus your thoughts and energy. Social Media platforms are designed to keep you hooked in this endless loop of dopamine hits and withdrawals. Basically, it's an environment where every move, every click, every hesitation, every everything is being hyper analyzed, packaged as data points and sold to advertisers. The platforms are designed to ping receptors in your brain that make you feel good about yourself...feeling loved, accepted, etc...using likes & views metrics to give you a picture that your brain interprets as "I am loved". But the flip side of that is when your content does not get the engagement you need to trigger the "I feel good about myself, I am loved" button, then you feel "bad about yourself". I realize this is an over simplification but you get the idea (or a more in depth look at this, I highly recommend watching The Social Dilemma) and around and around the cycle goes - if you let it.

So what does this all have to do with indie artists trying to build a fan base? Well, it places already self-doubting music creators, by nature of being creators, in an endless loop of approval, disapproval. Acceptance, rejection. Feeling loved and unloved. And this is hard on anyone but especially hard on artists because we create to connect. We are driven to connect and be heard and understood. So when we don't get that fix, the "boost post" button starts glimmering like a shiny beacon saying "click me and you will feel better. It's only $25. And you will feel better." Until the next withdrawal...and then, well it's only $40, I spend more than that on Starbucks coffee in a week, what's the harm? And on and on it goes as you get sucked down the rabbit hole giving these billionaire social media moguls more and more of your hard earned money in a desperate attempt to feel better about yourself and the off chance that you'll find some fans.

Depressing, I know. BUT here's the thing - You???? Can ???? Take???? Your ???? Power???? Back???? !! Yes, you can! Stop giving your power away to these platforms and letting them dictate how you feel about yourself. Start looking at it like a stats game. Focus your energy on conversion metrics instead of vanity metrics. Vanity metrics make us feel temporarily better - my video got a million views! My Tik Tok got 500 likes! Vanity metrics is about the appearance of things. What it looks like to other people. Lots of views and likes makes me look good and then I feel good. It presses the "people love me" button.

Instead, move toward conversion metrics. You can't control the reach your post will get. The algorithms decide that part. You can increase it with a well targeted budget but you'll drive yourself crazy trying to outsmart the AI and just when you think you have it figured out, they change it anyway. But what you CAN control is your state of mind, how you feel and how you interpret what's happening. If your post gets a reach of 1000, the only thing you want to monitor and assess, and only from an analytics standpoint (not an "I am worthy/not worthy" standpoint) is the engagement. Of those 1,000 people who saw your content how many of them engaged? What kind of engagement? Likes? Comments? Follows? The percentage and nature of engagement is the only thing that matters. That's the indicator that tells you your content is connecting. That's the tiny first step in creating enough traffic to start migrating some of that traffic into a trusted environment where you can build your one on one relationship and build your fan base. It's just a game of numbers. It's stats. And math. Nothing more.

When you come to it from a place of "let's monitor the math", it can become a really fun game. When you no longer give these platforms the power to manipulate how you feel about yourself, then you are truly in control. You can use these tools for what they really are - pay to play advertising platforms disguised as social connection. Use the platforms for what they are designed for and it becomes more enjoyable and less frustrating because the expectation is better aligned with the outcome.

The better way to use the digital space is to leverage the opportunity in your favour which starts with taking your power back. Move from emotional triggers to analytics. Don't get sucked in to the vanity metrics game giving these platforms the power to manipulate how you feel about yourself in any given moment. It's a game. Plain and simple. So go play! Have fun with it.

That's the better way.