J
Jak Angelescu
Guest
Hey everyone! I was browsing through the media section on here to see what everyone is working on, and I see that it still seems to fall short of garnering any real, true help/feedback/attention. (Example: Forum posts will have 20 responses and riff videos won't have one)
So I thought of some things I may be able to offer as advice to help get some attention on your videos, and maybe help bring some engagement over there. Don't forget, you all can tell me to go fuck off if you want to. I'm just gonna still be a dick and offer this advice anyway.
1. Be An Active Community Member - I learned this from the fabulous @Jamie London , that to garner more social media attention to your page, comment on other people's stuff. No one cares about you if you just drop in once in a blue moon to throw up your Shreddy McShredface (@chris_is_cool reference, anyone?) clip of you showing off and then you leave forever. No one will truly care to give attention over their FRIENDS that are here. Yeah, we're friends here. And friends/good standing members earn our love and respect.
2. Avoid Posting A7X ReRuns - Yeah we get it. You and 10,000 other people on this site can play (enter the top 5 A7X solos/songs here). Show us something we haven't seen, like maybe you demonstrating WHY it's your favorite song, your techniques you learned to play the solo. So many students come here and want impressions from posting impressive A7X content and while it's great, we've all been seeing it for the last 4 years. Try showing us something of their songs/solos that you're WORKING on, something that's a goal. Students aren't going to be apt to engaging in the 166th rendition of Nightmare
3. Make Improvs/Jams Have Purpose - Not a lot of people are going to be apt to spending 7 minutes watching your jam sessions. So I think it would be best for students trying to go this route to upload 1-2 minute jam sessions with a purpose, such as "Revisiting This Scale To See If I've Improved" or "Trying To Improvise Using Super Locrian". Or even hell, "I'm Finally Loosening Up!"
4. Titles Are Everything - Jamie also taught me that in social media, ASKING for attention garners attention. If you're jamming, say "How Does My Bm Improv Make You Feel?" Or "What Kind Of Vibe Does My Chord Progression Give?" Or even more simply so, "First Solo Attempt! Feedback Please!" People love to talk about themselves. So inherently using this kind of tactic in your titles can give you feedback while allowing the viewers to be egotistical fuckjobs.
5. Avoid "Hit and Runs" - I see it way too often that students will post up their work and we never see that work again, nor do we see it improve. We post something up once and we never revisit it to (use Title Technique here) say "OMG! I Finally Landed This Solo!" Have a story to tell, and make it longer than one chapter. If you're working on a song, post it so much that we first hate you for it and then are forced to like it because you blow our minds that much.
I'm not saying this is the RIGHT way or the ONLY way. I'm just going off of personal experiences, and also common booboos I'm seeing on the media page. Notice how on the forums section, students will say "What picks do you use, how do you bend more properly?" And it gets LOADS of reactions. Try to apply this in anyway you see fit on your riff videos, even if you want to talk in the beginning.
Okay, I'm done
So I thought of some things I may be able to offer as advice to help get some attention on your videos, and maybe help bring some engagement over there. Don't forget, you all can tell me to go fuck off if you want to. I'm just gonna still be a dick and offer this advice anyway.
1. Be An Active Community Member - I learned this from the fabulous @Jamie London , that to garner more social media attention to your page, comment on other people's stuff. No one cares about you if you just drop in once in a blue moon to throw up your Shreddy McShredface (@chris_is_cool reference, anyone?) clip of you showing off and then you leave forever. No one will truly care to give attention over their FRIENDS that are here. Yeah, we're friends here. And friends/good standing members earn our love and respect.
2. Avoid Posting A7X ReRuns - Yeah we get it. You and 10,000 other people on this site can play (enter the top 5 A7X solos/songs here). Show us something we haven't seen, like maybe you demonstrating WHY it's your favorite song, your techniques you learned to play the solo. So many students come here and want impressions from posting impressive A7X content and while it's great, we've all been seeing it for the last 4 years. Try showing us something of their songs/solos that you're WORKING on, something that's a goal. Students aren't going to be apt to engaging in the 166th rendition of Nightmare
3. Make Improvs/Jams Have Purpose - Not a lot of people are going to be apt to spending 7 minutes watching your jam sessions. So I think it would be best for students trying to go this route to upload 1-2 minute jam sessions with a purpose, such as "Revisiting This Scale To See If I've Improved" or "Trying To Improvise Using Super Locrian". Or even hell, "I'm Finally Loosening Up!"
4. Titles Are Everything - Jamie also taught me that in social media, ASKING for attention garners attention. If you're jamming, say "How Does My Bm Improv Make You Feel?" Or "What Kind Of Vibe Does My Chord Progression Give?" Or even more simply so, "First Solo Attempt! Feedback Please!" People love to talk about themselves. So inherently using this kind of tactic in your titles can give you feedback while allowing the viewers to be egotistical fuckjobs.
5. Avoid "Hit and Runs" - I see it way too often that students will post up their work and we never see that work again, nor do we see it improve. We post something up once and we never revisit it to (use Title Technique here) say "OMG! I Finally Landed This Solo!" Have a story to tell, and make it longer than one chapter. If you're working on a song, post it so much that we first hate you for it and then are forced to like it because you blow our minds that much.
I'm not saying this is the RIGHT way or the ONLY way. I'm just going off of personal experiences, and also common booboos I'm seeing on the media page. Notice how on the forums section, students will say "What picks do you use, how do you bend more properly?" And it gets LOADS of reactions. Try to apply this in anyway you see fit on your riff videos, even if you want to talk in the beginning.
Okay, I'm done
thanks for the advice Jak! 
and yes, I noticed more engagement too and it's really gratifying to have feedback or just some support. I def love to receive it and so I always try to give back. But I totally agree that coming here once every like three months to post a perfect shreddy video and then leave does not make a lot of sense and won't get you lots of engagement. I mean this is a school, and personally I like to see the students showing their practicing, their attempts at a song, a solo, a scale, their improvs, a song they wrote and want to share with us, their tutorials to help another student and stuff like that.
