The algorithm is the new industry
Andrew Schulz: “100 clips is 100 ways of discovering me. An hour on Netflix is one.”
Music biz guru Bob Lefsetz on why you gotta master social media:
If you want to win you’ve got to play online. That’s your base. And it’s comprised of many elements, not only all the streaming services, but YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, even Facebook. Figure out where your people are and go there. And know you’re investing in yourself. The old days of casino careers is over, trying to get noticed so someone will buy and now stream you…Go your own way, but make sure you’ve got followers.
Same with comedy. More so, probably. Every comic’s gotta publish clips online, preferably a constant IV drip of content.
There is, so far, only one proven fact in digital publishing: The more you publish the more successful you are. Nearly every influential success, from Trump to the New York Times to DeuxMoi, is based on frequency and constancy.
Even the “I don’t wanna play that game” comics are coming around. Ignore social platforms at your own peril.
(Honestly, I find it disheartening that comedy is now being directed by Mark Zuckerberg and the Chinese government but here we are. Wrote about all that a while back: Why “the creator economy” sucks for creators.)
Moving on, here are some good resources to check out…
One great guide is Josh Spector who publishes For The Interested, a free newsletter featuring “ideas to help you produce, promote, and profit from your creations.” Here are some of his posts re: comedy and comedians. And here’s one about getting more followers on TikTok, one on Twitter, and another on Instagram. You get it.
Brian Morton, President of Operations, at New York Comedy Club is working magic on the club’s social media channels and posts all about how he does it and other tips on his Instagram account (usually in his stories). He talks about it on this (Chanel in the City) podcast and this one (She Does Stand Up Too?) too. On the Chanel one, he mentions Matteo Lane as a success story:
Look at what's working for people like Matteo Lane. He has been consistently posting reels in the right way, with great captions, with great titles…I think in the last year he's gained 400,000 followers on Instagram…as a comedian. You are a f*cking business. Realize that you're a business and you are your own businessman. You are the person that will make yourself successful or not. You can't wait on people.
To that end, there’s plenty to learn by watching social success stories like Andrew Schulz, Sam Morril, Mark Normand, and Alingon Mitra (who even got himself the URL TikTokComic.com) – they’re all killing it on Instagram (and elsewhere). It helps they’re all hilarious and spent years honing their acts before this new paradigm took over. You can get all those followers but if they show up to see you live and you can’t deliver the goods, they probably ain’t coming back next time.
Schulz deep dives on his approach in this podcast with Colin and Samir:
And here’s a piece from marketingexamples.com on how he built his following: The marketing genius of Andrew Schulz. It mentions how crowdwork/riffing helps fill the tank in order to keep those clips coming.
With every new joke his channel grew. But coming up with fresh comedy every week was insane.
So Schulz started honing his improv. Because learning to roast the crowd meant new content every night.
He'd film every show. Sometimes 7 in one weekend. Hoping to get one electric clip for YouTube…
“100 clips is 100 ways of discovering me. An hour on Netflix is one.”
Now seems like a good time to mention you can also follow me on Instagram, TikTok, & YouTube.
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2 substacks is 2 ways of discovering you!
enjoyable as always, bud!