I loathe how these dumbass clickbaity article titles increase my engagement. What a shitshow. Do I feel dirty doing this? Yes. Do I know that you know that I’m being facetious? Probably. Will I ever stop being my cynical self in these articles? Fuck no.
And that’s kind of what this article is about today. Since we no longer need to read the invaluably generic dipshit insights that Barbara or Edward over at Vice or Jezebel or whatever have to share thanks to chatGPT (and now Bard from Google which is insanely better & faster IMO), here’s the quick generic shit you would have read on some other buzzfeedy website. You’re welcome, and don’t read further if this is the shit you came here for, and have no idea what this newsletter is generally like.
Ooooh, you made it past the fold! You must be here for my sarcastic breakdown of this topic. Welp before I get into my thoughts about some things, and some actual parseable information I’ve observed, I want to ask you to follow my new Twitter account for this substack: @VoidTransmitter, if you haven’t already.
Part of what spurred this article was actually me completely giving up on trying to grow my presence with just my personal account at @Orbtastic and on Instagram alone. The problem is simply that after my account getting suspended (still funny, because hurrrrr suspension) 14+ months ago now, it has never been the same. I got the account back after a fuckton of appeals, but the “explicit content” toggle is grayed out and I can’t “un-restrict” my account. Contact support you say? What support?
Mostly I was feeling really fucking guilty after interviewing so many amazing individuals, and being unable to get eyes and ears on what they have to say, and their artwork. It sucks, you know? You do all this work, you bring other folks in on it, they take the time to be a part of your vision, and then you share it only to be met with this fucking bullshit:
So I caved, and committed to the headache of starting a new account. I took the advice of the sage @ISombres and a number of other friendsI trust implicitly, and decided to go through with it. Sigh. So many accounts.
Now one of the things here I want to share with you here, is how to do this without burning out. I read
pretty often, and am honestly impressed with how this dude blew the fuck up over a year. It’s a success story financially and from an organic engagement perspective, but it is not realistic for me for a variety of reasons. So I’m not sharing how to be a great and famous “web3” personality/content creator. Nope, I’m sharing how to do what we do as creatives with multiple accounts, or simply, multiple endeavors we are pursuing.The answer is fucking simple: Community.
Cliche? You fucking bet. There’s a reason stuff like this gets overplayed and overused in campaigns, casual discussions, and self help bullshit. It’s because it fucking works. You think you can go through therapy and become a better person without an external support network? Good luck cementing your mental health. Interested in building an art gallery? See you in 10 years. Starting a business by yourself? That’s the path to misery without company.
More importantly, if you want to grow as an artist with a social media following, it is impossible to do this without a group of people you trust. I think at the core of it is having an account that is capable of gaining visibility, and a group of people to grow with. If one share gets you 2 follows, and 2 more shares from them get you 4 more follows, well you know how the rest of this exponential equation works out - in theory.
More important than the numbers, is the quality of engagement. If you’re not paying for followers or ads, organic growth is your only option. And that only works if people are genuinely interested in what you are doing, or are at the very least, supportive of who you are, and what you are contributing to the same ecosystem they inhabit. This is how communities actually grow on a sustainable level. If everybody is there solely for a quick financial gain (read: flip), once you have sold a first round of anything, your “community” will disappear.
The other piece here that is important for multiple accounts, is having a group of people you trust so you can split the load! Whether that means they have access to your project’s account (like I do with Iterative), or are simply a group that is ready to immediately RT your posts, this is how you grow without burning out. Side note: don’t build an echo chamber; welcome new opinions, and encourage folks to share them.
One last thought on this topic, is on the importance of knowing what your goals are clearly. I’ve talked about this in the past, and I’m still not going to flesh it out in this article, because it’s such a monster of a topic, but you have to understand what success means for you personally, and then set some achievable goals. So let’s talk about what the fuck we’re actually here to do.
What’s your vision?
The idea with Orbisms, is not to simply monetize content. It’s necessary if I am to keep doing this, and I would love to be a full time writer and podcaster, in addition to making art without stressing about income, sure. I’m an artist at the very foundations of my identity, and I need to create things to stay sane, and this means I need to be able to balance work and art life to survive. But my intentions go beyond that here.
My vision with this publication and podcast is to create a repository of information for others to access down the line. As digital and physical art realms continue to merge, and traditional financial systems prove repeatedly to be completely undependable, I think the blockchain and all the implications that come with digital provenance become undeniably viable in the long term. I want folks to see both right now, and in the future, that there is a very diverse community of us that are not just here for a cash grab. And that there is a model for treating artists with respect - not just socially, but also by supporting them financially.
And with social media, I think it’s important to reflect this vision accurately. You can’t do it in one tweet, or even 5. It takes time to get the “vibe” out there, get a community talking about it, and then really just drop the facts every once in a while. As the group grows, and folks begin to engage more, it becomes possible to find better ways to express it all. You may be a good writer, but you can’t consider all perspectives. You may be a good painter, but you can’t convey all subject matter just how you want. You may be a social media influencer, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a complete fucking asshat.
All of that to say, come connect with me and others about this. Start a discussion on Discord. Drop some thoughts on Twitter. Or just send a pigeon (see: RFC 2549 for details).
What’s your vision? What approach has worked for you with social media? Spill the beans!
Also I just dropped the latest in my legacy suspension work series on Foundation. Give it a share if you like it!