This zine just got 1,000+ collectors in 28 hours

RELEASE DETAILS

Creator: Train Songz

Release: train_songz zine: summer '24, #4

Format: Limited edition zine (1,714 copies)

Price: pay-what-you-wish

Status: 1,000+ collectors in 28 hours

THE STORY

On Friday morning something unexpected happened on Metalabel: the fourth edition of a zine called Train Songz launched. This on its own was not unusual. We love zines. Lots have released with us. What was unexpected was the response.

Within hours the zine had 300 collectors. In eight hours 600. Twenty-eight hours later more than 1,000 people (and counting). The fastest-collected release in Metalabel’s young history. 

We spoke with the creator — known simply as The Conductor — before it launched and came away impressed. The project began as Instagram meme page dedicated to the bluegrass musician Billy Strings (this video is a classic) that built a cult following through love for a spectacular musician and people having fun on the internet with memes.

We asked The Conductor to talk about the project and they came back with a masterclass in community building. So please, allow us to present…

The Conductor’s guide to community building

HOW DID THIS COMMUNITY GROW?

THE CONDUCTOR: Billy Strings and his band made the larger community with their hard work and amazing talent that they share with their fans near and far by touring nearly year-round. I think of train_songz as a micro-community within a community, if you already dig Billy Strings and might want to opt in to go a bit deeper, share a laugh with a meme and maybe get an old-school fanzine in the mail to read more about the band, the music, and the history of some of the old traditional songs they're breathing new life into. So in a way, the community was built on "easy mode" because Billy has cultivated such an amazing and passionate fanbase over the years.

If we want to get into the nuts and bolts of how train_songz grew to 20,000 Instagram followers and a few thousand of that group getting a physical zine in the mail, the answer is brick by brick — or should I say meme by meme? I decided to start the account last summer after riffing on some concepts with my good friend who introduced me to Billy. (He and I still text back and forth about meme ideas, and he's the co-author of the zine. This whole community wouldn't exist without his daily vibrational guidance!)

After started the account, which I got the guts to start because I thought the "Trey Songz" pun was funny enough to give me some confidence to start a niche meme account within a community I know and love, I posted darn near close to every day for a year… sometimes multiple times a day. I was obsessed with it — still am, though I've certainly pulled back from the everyday posting as I've focused more time and energy into the zine and fulfilling orders, which is insanely time consuming, though I've gotten a lot more help over the course of the year.

I got some attention at first by commenting on other accounts' posts, which attracted a few followers, and then that base just kept growing as the small group of early followers would share posts with their friends or otherwise engaged with the content in whatever way made Mark Zuckerberg's self-interested algorithm want to spread the posts far and wide.

The zine, which is like a community within a community within a community, I started when the account had around 5,000 followers, about 550 of which I was able to convince to sign up for the "ships free, pay what you want after!" zine via a Google Form, after some incessant posting of a link on my Instagram Stories. 

train_songz zine poll

I think this worked because I had spent the previous five months making memes that people enjoyed, so they trusted me enough to take the risk and see what kind of physical media I could whip up. 

The zine is really the heart of the "trian_songz community," and it's what I spend the bulk of my "train_songz time" (this is not my day job) thinking about. The memes are fun and I'll post something when I have an idea, but the true obsession now is leveling up the quarterly zine each time.

I believe if I keep putting out quality memes and zines, word of mouth will help this little community grow into whatever it's meant to be.

WERE THERE LYNCHPIN MOMENTS OR ACTIONS?

THE CONDUCTOR: I think the obsessive daily posting definitely had something to do with it. I also got a few reshares from Billy Strings, which definitely got memes and zine content in front of the right people. (Billy pretty frequently shares content from fan accounts. It's kind of him to use his platform to bring attention to that kind of stuff.) Alhough I have to say some "viral reels" were the biggest drivers of growth, beyond the Billy reshares. So I think growing it on social media all goes back to feeding The Algorithm its daily bread, fortunately or unfortunately.

The coolest thing to see, though, and what I think helped grow the zine was how many people decided to put it on their Instagram Story when they got it. It's almost a "thing" now, like people post the zine on their stories when they get it in the mail. I never had to ask…it just happened, and it was the coolest thing, because here's this zine my friend and I spent a ton of time making and mailing, and now we're getting to see it in its home. (Which again I think is less of a testament of how much they love train_songz and more of a testament of how much they love Billy Strings.)

But truthfully, I have a hard time taking credit for "growing" any of this. I see my job as more of "channeling" an energy that Billy and his band have created. People love their shows and music so much, my content (social media or physical) gives people another avenue to be a fan beyond going to shows or listening to the music. So again…I think it's Billy and his bands' hard work and talent that made the fertile ground on which train_songz was able to grow.

WHAT MAKES A MEMEPAGE WORK?

THE CONDUCTOR: Specificity. "There's no such thing as too niche!" Especially in the early days of the account, I made a concerted effort to only post about songs about trains, Billy Strings, and bluegrass. In order for an account to know what it is, it also has to know what it isn't. So it wasn't a Grateful Dead meme account, it wasn't a Phish meme account, it wasn't a general jam band culture meme account…I tried to make it clear this was a niche meme page for Billy Strings fans who especially loved the bluegrassy part of his sound and the history lesson he gives on stage each show. 

I also think consistency is huge. As I said before, I had to be obsessed with posting and finding my "voice" and figuring out what I wanted the account to be. I really like scrolling back in time and looking at the early memes and flipping up to the present, because I can see the actual visuals of the content change over time as I'm learning and experimenting.

billy strings meme

Lastly I think you gotta deeply understand the niche in which you are meme-ing. Subcultures have their own inside jokes, specific knowledge, debates…you can't be a tourist, you need to genuinely love the material. I certainly couldn't make a meme-zine community about crocheting. Sure, I know what crocheting is functionally, but I don't know its idiosyncrasies, nor do I know what makes crochet-lovers tick. So even if I know my way around a meme format, I couldn't make the requisite connecting to crocheting. The true Crochet Heads would smell a phony from a mile away.

I also never post something I wouldn't want to share with a friend. That's my test for what makes the feed or not, and I think it helps a lot with quality. If I can't think of something good enough to share with a friend…I hold off.