How solo artists can use content as a bat signal
(So your audience can find your work.)
You stare at the word publish.
You think: Why does it have to be so aggressive? Publish. Okay yeah, sure, that’s what the button does, but must it be so severe? So final?
You scan your latest missive, checking for typos, or formatting errors, or maybe even some mystical, copywritten clue, hiding in the work like messages from Stairway to Heaven played backwards, confirming that it’s all drivel, you should delete the post, and crawl into the sewer.
Getting no particular confirmation either way, you fling your index finger toward the publish button. It goes click. Now comes the horror.
The waiting for something to happen.
So like a 6th grader looking out onto the darkened gymnasium of their first dance, playing it cool but completely losing it inside, you scan your feed.
Notes about someone’s breakfast with 1k likes.
Songs with 500,000 plays.
Films with multiple nominations.
Newsletters with 500 paid subscribers…
You know that you’re supposed to be “consistent” and “show up in people’s inboxes” and “shout your project from the rooftops” and “be loud” about it. And yet the gap between the things you publish garnering 4 likes max and someone else’s content with 500,000 views + a SXSW premiere seems laughably agape.
It’s at this doom-scrolling moment that you consider deleting yourself off the face of the internet for ever and ever, deciding it’s better to NOT have loved and posted than to never have posted at all.
The sewer it is.
“Content” vs. Signal
Whomst among us has not felt this way?! If you haven’t, then congratulations, you are extraordinarily well-adjusted to the internet.
But for the rest of us, this is the struggle.
Maybe not all the time. But for at least some of the time (usually when we’re trying to grow an audience or raise money or book a job), our cosmically low conversion rate from reader to subscriber/viewer/fan feels Sisyphean and stupid. Like we’re just churning out content for the algo and doing absolutely nothing of use for our actual, material lives.
It’s very easy, verrrry easssyyy, to understand why someone would throw their hands up and not try at all.
Making “content” is a grind.
Making “content” to feed the algo is end stage capitalism.
Making “content” can be extraordinarily bleak and flat out there on the World Wide Web.
BUT. I’m going to be a little controversial/not cool, and offer you an alternative reframe.
If you’ve thought “It takes too much time to make CONTENT, I want to make ART” then I’m lovingly, gently taking you into my arms, squeezing your shoulders like I’m your good-natured, no-bs football coach, and telling you something important:
Content is the signal, art is the destination. And your audience won’t find you without a signal.
I know it’s not cool to say. So many folks on the internet love to hate on content. I also love to hate on content! There’s so much bad bad out there!
But all the more reason to reimagine it.
And all the more reason to get abundantly clear on why and how content is working for your personal goals, instead of bowing to the Gods of More for More’s Sake.
It makes sense to me that you might throw your computer at the wall if making content is about generating as MUCH as OFTEN as possible to grow as BIG as possible.
But what makes more sense to me is you having a distinctive, smart, colorful, exuberantly-YOU plan in place to send out the bat signal to your audience, driving the conversions that actually make a difference in your life because your audience feels connected to everything you write and the relationship between you is mutual and loving and generative.
And let me be clear: the bat signal comes in all shapes and sizes.
There’s no one right way to do it.
It’s what’s fun for you, valuable to your audience, and connected to your values-based goals.
The bat signal is a party.
You’ve gotta start the party, invite people to the party, host the party, and let everyone know when the next one is coming up.
That’s how you go from grinding out “content” to making luxuriously easy-to-open-when-I-see-it-in-my-inbox signals.
WAIT! Do not Panera your content.
Now look, there are 100 places your mind probably just went:
Maybe I should start a podcast!
Maybe I should start 17 extra Substack publications for each one of my nascent interests!
Maybe I need to work on my Notes-posting strategy!
You went there because you’re smart and you have a billion ideas buzzing around your brain at any given moment. So this is a good time to remind yourself to stay strategic.
Decide on your one, main goal. Ask:
What goal is so important to you that you could cut everything else out and just focus on that one thing?
An extra 5k a month?
Audience Growth?
Career prospects?
This isn’t Panera, baby. Pick one.
Once you have your main meaty goal, then your content can be anything you want. But before you start churning out 74 new podcast episodes, let’s think about this:
It’s not enough to send out just any old signal. It has to be strategically directed toward the audience with whom you’re attempting to connect. Ask:
What is the point of this content?
Why do you need to make it?
What would the bat signal be pointing them towards?
What do you want your audience to do?
It can’t be spamming the group chat with WATCH READ SUBSCRIBE.
It’s gotta be a one-of-a-kind invitation, handmade by you with glue sticks and doilies, especially crafted just for them.
If that’s what you’re offering, how could they possibly resist?
Consider this your own invitation to get your content party started.
(And if you want a little more direction, just beyond the paywall is an easy template to come up with at least 5 new bat signals content ideas for your audience in the next 5 minutes.)
