First impressions are lasting impressions. Your actions on a daily
basis reflect how you are perceived as an artist. Often you are seen before
your music is heard.
There are common tactics that are perceived as ‘amateur’… in other
words, the artists that are really out there killing it and making a living
from their music (whether on an indie or major level) aren’t going about promo
in this way – yet these tactics are so common, that most artists mimic what
they see others doing instead of learning how to do it themselves, the right
way.
The difference between bad marketing and good marketing is, bad
marketing talks AT people, good marketing talks with them. Everyday I watch
artists, that might potentially have good music, throw their dreams down the
drain little by little with every unsolicited link they send out in hopes that
someone will listen to their song and ‘put them on’. Understand that you
need more than just a listen. I repeat: YOU NEED MORE THAN JUST A LISTEN! You
need people to engage with you. You need people to share your music with their
friends. You need them to want to buy your merch and come to your shows. There
is no official blueprint to how to accomplish that, however there are definite
ways that DO NOT WORK but yet these tactics are so very common. It’s time to
put a stop to this now.
I’ve had numerous discussions about this on Twitter, through email
etc. but I’ve decided to write an article on the subject to really make things
clear. Once you are done reading this article, I hope that you are either
giving yourself a pat on the back because you do not make these mistakes, or if
you do, I hope that you change your ways and come up with an actual plan that
will really help you reach your goals (because these tactics surely aren’t
going to cut it!).
Here are a list of common promo tactics and the reasons why they
aren’t effective:
Promo Tactic: Sending out unsolicited links via twitter.
Why It Doesn’t work: Twitter is a social networking site. SOCIAL NETWORKING.
Understand what that means. Twitter is a place where things can get spread very
quickly, however in order for that to happen, the content must be engaging and
‘retweetable’… Twitter is not to be used strictly for promotion, it doesn’t
work that way. You can spend hours sending out your link to individual people,
it will not do anything but waste your time and annoy people before they even
listen to your music. You must take a step back and realize what you are doing.
If you have to @ people with a link to your music, that just means that you’re
not interesting enough for people to actually pay attention to your tweets.
Twitter can be great for building and promoting your brand, but
not if you use it strictly as a promo service. You must build your clout by
engaging with others, releasing quality content and building a following that
looks for you and pays attention to your tweets.
Promo Tactic: Sending out unsolicited emails.
Why It Doesn’t work: There goes that unsolicited word again! That’s why it
doesn’t work. Do YOU open random spam emails? Do you realize how many emails
people get everyday? Do you really think that your email stands out with the
title ‘Check Out My Music’ or ‘Music Submission’ when sending to a random
person that you have never spoken to before? Come on now, you must think before
you do. Email marketing is an amazing way to promote yourself, however you
should be building your own subscriber list, filled with people that know who
you are and want to hear from you. Emailing random people that you have never
spoken to before is a waste of your precious time that can be spent being more
productive. Also, how do you even know if that person accepts submissions? Most
artists send out emails to people without doing any research on that person.
They don’t even know why they are approaching that person, I guess it’s just to
see if they can get someone to listen.
Promo Tactic: Posting a music video to
someone’s Facebook and/or tagging a bunch of people that you don’t
know in your status.
Why It Doesn’t work: You are talking AT people instead of engaging with them.
Just because you are friends with them, doesn’t give you the right to promote
your mixtape or freestyle all day by tagging them. You should be making sure
that your posts are attracting viewers, so that when you post something, people
look for it without you having to chase them.
If you noticed, there’s one common word that was
used in all of those points… the word is UNSOLICITED. If you are unsure of what
that means exactly, it basically means ‘not asked for’ – so if you are sending
anything unsolicited, that means you are sending it blindly to someone that you
do not even know, hoping that you’ll get a response. WRONG!
Promo Tactic: Paying to perform at a local showcase:
Why It Doesn’t work: Way too often a ‘promoter’ will come along and throw a
‘HOTTEST IN YOUR CITY’ showcase or something along those lines. They decided to
throw this event because they know they can get 10 clueless artists to pay
$100-$250 just to get on stage (because they don’t know any better). Once they
accomplish this, they now have a packed room full of other artists and their
‘entourages’ that are only there to support who they came for. So the artist
ends up performing in a room full of people who are generally not interested in
supporting anyone except for who they came with. How does that benefit an
artist? IT DOESNT. It just puts money in the promoters pocket. Money that you
could have put towards something more beneficial, like promotion for your album
or getting your tracks mastered. Sometimes the ‘promoter’ will even try to
‘woo’ you by telling you that ‘so and so from big named records’ will be in
attendance to check out your performance. Damn gets them every time! But
artists that learn the biz, understand how these scams work, and they
understand that no 1 person is going to come along and magically ‘put you on’,
therefore it doesn’t matter if the label rep is half-assed watching your
performance, they can’t do much for you anyway! Honestly, you could of gotten
more out of an open mic than you did out of that showcase. But it’s ok, now
that you made that mistake, you know not to do it again.
Promo Tactic: Paying to get a slot on an unknown DJ’s mixtape:
Why It Doesn’t work: Let me say this, before you pay for any sort of promotion,
you must do your own research. There are many unknown radio stations, DJ’s,
Promoters, etc that will ask you to pay for a mixtape slot, or a radio
interview, or a placement on their website, etc however that does not mean that
you will receive any exposure from it. You need to research, find out how many
viewers they really get, check out their website, are people really tuning in?
Does that DJ get any exposure himself? If not, how do you expect them to get
you exposure? If that website only gets 50 views a day, but they are asking you
to pay $250 for a spot on their home page, is it really worth it? It seems that
artists get so excited that someone wants to interview them or someone is
offering to get them a spot on their website, that they forget there are other
things that go into it. You have to bring yourself back down to earth and
really analyze if things are beneficial to your career.
Promo Tactic: Buying likes, followers, views etc.
Why It Doesn’t work: It’s fake. Fake people and fake numbers don’t get you real
support. You need to keep it organic. Having 100 real fans is better than
having 2000 fake ones. You need to start small and build out. Those supporters
that you already have are a power team. You need to keep them interested and
have them help you spread your music.
”Artists tell themselves that if someone sees
that they have 100,00 likes that makes it more likely it’ll be viewed. The
problem is that they can buy 100,000,000 views – that factor alone won’t gain
interaction.” – Tony ‘TheConnect’ Guidry
Promo Tactic: Only promoting online or vice-versa.
Why It Doesn’t work: Both online promotion and in your face street promotion are needed
to build a buzz. There are many artists that hide behind a computer but no one
on their scene knows who they are. Then there are artists that could care less
about social media because ‘they are hot in these streets’ however they don’t
realize that Google practically runs the world and even if you do meet someone
that can potentially help you, the first thing they are going to do is look you
up online. Your ‘but I’m hot in these streets’ attitude must reflect this
online as well or else your falling short.
So you’re probably thinking, you told me all of these things not
to do, so how do I do it the right way? You have to attract people to
you, not chase them.
It’s pretty simple actually – post extremely good engaging content
on a consistent basis. I’ll repeat it. All you need to do to continually grow
your fan base is to post good content that is engaging and interesting to your
current and potential fans.
Supplying great content is the key to growing your fan base. If
your site isn’t getting traffic, if you’re not getting any re-tweets on
Twitter, if you’re not getting many likes on your Facebook fan page it’s
because your content isn’t important or useful enough to the audience your
trying to reach. It’s that simple. You’re not raising the bar, helping people,
entertaining them, changing lives, and inspiring your readers to take some form
of action. If you were, your audience would grow.
Remember, social networking is exactly that – NETWORKING. You need
to show your personality while at the same time providing great content to your
followers. Most artists only use social media for promotion, which can actually
hurt you more than help your situation. There has to be a mix of both. You
should be posting 7-10 tweets a day with content as well as interacting with
your followers. Promotion should only take up about 20% of your time while the
rest of the time is spent engaging. Nowadays the better content you have, the
more fan base you have, it’s that simple.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BreezyB215View all posts by BreezyB215 >
Founder of Exclusive Public. Twitter @BreezyB215
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