Your bridge to reaching new fans and getting them to love you and give your music a chance is amazing content.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’ve heard that one before.
Just like I hear all the record biz people talking about how social media is so important in today’s marketplace.
Trouble is very few, and I do mean a VERY few people, really know what that means.
The ones who know are easy to spot. Simply because you CAN spot them means they’re on to something.
Huh? Think about that statement for a second.
Makes sense, right? If I become aware of you it requires more than some kind of interruption to my attention or clever introduction (I’m speaking of “me†as any consumer or industry person).
That is to say that even after a clever introduction, PR move, or epic interruption to my attention, something else has to happen for an artist to stay in my awareness.
Otherwise it’s here and gone.
The difference between those that “do social media†and those artists and companies that know what they’re doing is the work that they’ve done.
The more work they’ve done (therefore the more work you do) the more they discover what works.
Cracking the code requires kissing a bunch of proverbial frogs to find a prince of a strategy and it’s different for everybody because everybody is different.
You actually have to start posting content on a regular basis (duh, consistency IS KEY), and then watch what works, what doesn’t work, and what works the best.
The content has to be relevant to the consumer/future-fan, not to you.
The content has to be personal to the consumer/future-fan, not to you.
Hint:  It’s about THEM not YOU.
If you can manage to create content that is relevant and personal to both you and them, God bless, you’re really on to something.
If you provide content that is personal and relevant to THEM, they’ll look forward to consuming it and they’ll share it to be cool in their respective communities.
This requires more than just reposting thoughtful quotes.
What can you do, aside from your music, that will provide value to them? If it’s valuable to them, it’ll be valuable to their community so they’ll share it because your valuable content makes their content more valuable.
That’s a lot of “valuables†but you get the picture, right?
Think about the foodie videos. I’ll bet everyone of you has at least watched one and shared one.
It could be informational, educational, motivational, comedic, etc. If they like it, you’ll know.
You have to create content expecting nothing in return. I don’t expect anybody to read these articles, listen to the podcast, and do business with me. The only thing I expect and hope for is that my information helps you improve your approach and find success reaching an audience with your music.
But some of you do choose to work with us in some capacity and we are eternally grateful.
Get it?
When you strike that chord, when you really touch that button, you’ll know it.
There will be an immediate positive measurable reaction.
If you are asking the right questions it may not happen right away, but eventually your subconscious will reward you with a big win.
For instance, a few weeks ago, I had a client come up from Dallas to do a photo shoot, do some songwriting, producer meetings, and label services meetings.
I’ve known that this artist (who is 17 years old) is a huge fan of anime. We’ve messed around with some content that has anime in it whether it’s been images or GIF’s of any combination of these things that we’ve synched to a recording of hers.
Of course, Pokemon is anime.
You’ve all heard of the marketing sensation PokemonGo by now.
In between the meetings, she was playing PokemonGo.
I don’t know why it didn’t click sooner but the important thing is that it clicked.
In an attempt to create images that really express my artist’s personality, my image consultant (Neill Skylar), the artist’s mother, and I were all about the Pokemon obsession.
Alora (the artist) is a Pokemon “Master†and has these pins to prove it. (I am ignorant about all this Pokemon stuff but intrigued because it’s so huge).
One of the costume changes had her showing off her “Pokemon Master†pins.
She’s a rock artist (think Paramore and Icon For Hire) so I informed Alicia, our make-up artist, that we would build on the look throughout the shoot and the last costume change I wanted some wild over-the-top make-up. I had discussed with Alora a sort of David-Bowie-like-Ziggy-Stardust craziness to the look. Alora’s last outfit was a custom anime, super cute mini skirt with a leather looking rubber bustier that was badass!
We got to the last portion of the shoot and Alicia started showing me pictures in an attempt to drill down on exactly what I wanted. I knew I wanted it over the top but I still didn’t know EXACTLY what I wanted.
One of the makeup pics that caught my eye was of a beautiful set of cartoon lips; only they were real. Alicia was honing in on something that at that very moment was still lost on me…a look that would exemplify Alora’s Pokemon fascination.
I said, “YES, let’s do the cartoon lips and what else can we do that would be wild on her face?â€
She did it and we shot it. (here’s what we came up with.)
Alora: Photography by Erick Anderson Nashville, TN. Makeup by Alicia Maynard, Nashville, TN
Here’s my point. After that shoot, I got Alora and her artistry on a whole other level. As stupid as I sound right now (and believe me I feel SO STUPID) I decided to check into this Pokemon craze as a possible “relevant pond†to fish from.
What?
Yeah, man. I’m always asking myself questions like who would like her music? Who would like Alora? Who would feel a kinship or connection with my artist enough to want to listen to her music?
Maybe there are kids obsessed with this Pokemon thing that would #1, identify with her, #2, respect her for her “Master†rank (is rank the right terminology?), and #3, be more likely to engage with her because of this common ground.
So I immediately overhauled our targeting strategy to search and connect with accounts (on Instagram and Twitter) that were as obsessed with Pokemon and PokemonGo as Alora was.
THEN the moment happened. Lori (Alora’s mom) replaced Alora’s bio pic with the image we shot of Alora showing off her “Pokemon Master†pins.
Boom.
Her engagement at least doubled overnight.
See what I’m saying?
Most of you are thinking this way already in a big picture kind of way when you’re yearning for TV exposure, coveted opening tour slots, radio spins, etc.
You want marketing but these big ticket items are not in your budget and frankly, with regards to radio, not nearly as effective as they used to be.
Here’s the trick.
Apply this yearning, this drive, these dreams, this plan of attack to your social media imaging.
You need good images.
Pay for them. Find a way. You’ll need them to set the professional bar in your market. If you get a half day shoot you’ll use those images for a year. That’s a lot of mileage in those images.
Plus, the pro images will make your iPhone images and BTS images more important and believe it or not will make them look like BTS images rather than the best there is of you.
I’ll say it again; you need pro images.
Not images from your step sister’s cousin’s pizza delivery guy’s roommate that has a real awesome camera.
Ef that.
You need someone with an eye.
You need hair and makeup.
You need a look.
You need someone with a studio that can change a bunch of looks.
Once you have these images, couple that work with all the searching you’ve been doing for clever, helpful, SHARABLE content and you’ll definitely see improvement on your social media engagement.
It takes work people.
If you do the work, you WILL eventually connect.
Stay
In
Tune.
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content, content. That’s what it’s all about people. If you’re an artist you are also a small business. I know that concept sickens some of you and is thrilling for others but it is true.
create collages, resize, add typography (tons of killer fonts) (3D image options), frame the image, superimpose logos, superimpose other images, tons of filters, touch up facial images, rotate, and crop. Play with all the different filters after you have added your text; it’s amazing how a certain filter can make your text “popâ€. PicMonkey also allows you to save as different kinds of image files i.e. png, jpg, gif, etc..
is a free software download that is super simple, super easy, and super cool. It easily allows you to upload a video and create a little movie either via a sequence of images or sequence of videos. It offers some a basic crossfade feature as well. What I really like about Filmora is that is quickly allows you to strip the audio from the original video file and either delete it or mute the volume to make room for an audio file you choose to replace it with. What if you found a compelling, super sharable 15 second video snippet and you replaced the audio with the chorus hook from your very best song? Hmmm that could be interesting exposure. Learning curve on this tool is ridiculously fast.
interesting would it be to post GIFs that were created from live shows, studio time, crazy antics backstage, road breakdowns, etc? GIF’s grab more attention.
capture. Both of these are free, of course, but they don’t allow editing.
you to add text to any image and play with fonts, colors, overlays, etc. Great tool and I’m quite happy with the price.
ont and stylistic layout will automatically change with one tap of your finger. FYI, some of the fonts require a purchase to unlock them but there is an awesome selection of free styles but they do come with a watermark. Definitely worth checking out. YES, you can share right from the app.
