art & content: promo a-go-go
I was thinking more and more on this subject that I touched on last week in terms of content and branding for writers and it seems especially prescient to be having this discussion as people are diving off Twitter and into the lifeboats of places like Blue Sky and Threads. I feel like so often, writers see social media outlets as ways to promote other things like publications and books and other kinds of press they garner as writers, but my favorite writers are the ones who use it, whatever platform they are focusing on, as a vehicle itself--not just to direct traffic in a given direction, which feels really frustrating when you're not quite sure if they are willing to go there and if they are, whether they made it safely. The internet is a crazy place, prone with clicks and distractions. I am totally guilty of scrolling along, opening an article or a publication, and then in the three seconds I wait while the page loads fully, I've forgotten it and moved down along the feed. )
I can also sometimes feel like annoyingly beating a drum no one wants to hear. Loudly and without end. And yet, however many times you promote a book, people will still miss it, due to algorithms and post-covid attention spans, and all kinds of other reasons. They will be surprised when you tell them you have a new book, even though you've been promoting it constantly for months. In an era of constant content, stuff gets lost or drowned out in the signals.
And yet I've seen people, writers and otherwise, do really cool things with all these platforms, even here on blogger, where I remember in the heydays of poetry blogdom, there was some really beautiful and intricate essays on aesthetics that weren't so much about promoting any one thing or other, but juts existing in the world as a vehicle for making and sharing. Ditto on Tumblr, Youtube, even Twitter (I was reminded by the upcoming film trailer of how obsessed I was with the Dear David Twitter and how much I love Youtube ARGs and storytelling through social mediums.)
The way I have shifted my thinking a little this past year is how social media works for me as a writer and artist. I am still totally promoting things, and well, I guess myself as a creative, but instead of seeing the platforms and what occurs there as a means to an end, kind of like the car that drives your audience and readers to the dance party (and hopefully everyone gets in the car and you don't lose a few out the window) But instead seeing social media, wherever you like to land best, as the dance party all by itself. I've been posting a lot more art and writing and related reels this month--not particularly to drive sales or traffic, but just to share and it feels good. Some of it, of course, more driven to advertise the new book or point out new shop offerings, but just as much not. It occurred to me that I feel like socials offer many more potential eyes on your stuff than other kinds of publication. And what's more, not necessarily other poets only (though I imagine algorithms obviously still skew to other writers, but not exclusively.) Sometimes I just make stuff for fun for Instagram or Youtube (I tried Tik Tok in the spring, but it was clunky for me on my phone and the views were not substantially different from IG reels. (actually Youtube shorts outpaced both.) Stuff that's only tangentially promotional for any particular thing.
This content feels perhaps the best out in the world since there are less markers of whether or not you are failing like a stack of unsold books sitting there waiting for someone to notice you. You make it--be it poem, be it collage, be it a strange little reel and it's out there in the world.I used to avoid posting poems in these spaces, "saving" them for journals and serial rights, who probably are gonna give you 9 nos before you maybe get a yes. And then trying to get readers to that publication and your poem once it's out (and if it's out and the journal doesn't cease publication before it's actually live--a tragic effect of post-pandemic closures.). While I love the community aspects of journal publications, I've been splitting the difference and dividing new poems between submission packets and just posting a lot of them on IG. Often this content feels like a better ROI of time than submitting every single poem traditionally. I've been doing this with rejections as well, esp. for pieces I really like and don't feel like flinging them back out there again and moving onto sending out other projects. (also this allows me some flexibility for sharing poems one by one that are coming in impending zines without worrying about eventual withdrawals on long-wait submissions. because I do want to share them, but I d rather fo it on my schedule than someone else's.
But then there is also a danger in doing this--the platforms themselves are iffy and subject both to algorithms and self-destruction (ahem,..Twitter). Occasional shadiness. Things get real hot and go cold real fast for no good reason, which I suspect is why business advisors tell you to keep eggs in many different baskets. But there is only time for so many baskets. I am mostly an Instagram user, though I do share similar things and more on FB, but less as an artist (though that too). That's more from freind-walled protected content, pop culture, random silliness. Everyone is there, including old college and HS friends, relatives, old co-workers. These people are rarely on Instagram unless they too are creators of some sort. I use a lot of other sites for tools--Youtube for video, Flickr for storing images, Pinterest for my own inspo reasons (not just art but also fashion and decor). And this place, its own kind of of black hole where words go in, but it's hard to hear them hit bottom. I joined Threads a couple weeks back just because I liked the idea of it, but have found, like Twitter, I don't have much to post (and maybe even less b/c its a phone app entirely and I hate typing on my phone.)
So far, I've just posted some links to blog posts here over there and don't really find myself clicking in to the app a tenth of as much as I do IG, so it may not be all that useful for me personally, but it will be interested to see how things shift and change like the sea...
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