If you’re a musician, in a band, or solo performer, and you are aspiring to be able to make that your full time work, then one of your main goals, (aside from writing better songs, and making your live performances better) is to grow your audience.  Sounds pretty obvious, but it’s also a pretty broad statement.  Let’s get a little more clinical for a minute… Increasing the number of people who like (and will pay for) your music and the ancillary goods surrounding it is a quantifiable mission that you can constantly work on, and there are many things you can do in effort to continually achieve this goal.  My advice would be to always think, and be, strategic with your efforts.

Start by targeting someone.  Zero in on who is more likely to enjoy your music.  To figure out who you could target, try stepping outside yourself for a second and think about these questions, and make sure your answers aren’t just your wishlists of heroes… be as specific and realistic as you can, it will only help you more.  Start by imagining your album in the bins at a record store.  What section is it in?  If it was in a campaign flyer alongside other releases from other artists… what other artists are they?  If you were on tour opening for some other bands, what bands would it be?  Make a list of those artists and look each of them up on iTunes.  For each one, make note of the “listeners also bought” lists… it will give you more artists who appeal to a similar demographic as you will.  Try the same thing on Amazon too.

So now you have a list of “like-artists”… note, these artists don’t need to “sound like you” because I’m sure you would like to consider yourselves unique or different from them… instead, consider these artists as musicians who would  most likely appeal to the same group of people that you would appeal to.  Then study what those artists have done promotionally… see what websites feature them, what magazines/blogs talk about them, what bars play them, etc.  Find contacts at those places, introduce yourself to them, and start building relationships with those people.  Focus on those places to get your music featured.  Also, go online to your like-artists social network pages, and you’ll have a direct window to your demographic.  Scan their myspace friends, see if there’s any common factors… are they mostly male, female, is there an age-range that stands out, do they live in suburbs, urban centres, what countries, etc.  Don’t just start friending their fans out of the blue, but if you want to, send introductory messages to their fans who are from your hometown or from towns where you have concerts upcoming, something like “hi, XXX, sorry for the uninvited message, but we’re an independent band from XXX, we noticed you’re a fan of XXX, and because of that we thought you might like our music too.  Here’s a link to our page, and if you like what you hear, we’d love you have you as a friend.”  Just know that you’re message to them is unexpected, so be polite, somewhat apologetic, and brief.  And don’t add them as friends, let them add you.  It’s a slower process, but it weeds out false-leads… you’re far better off with 100 friends who asked to be your friend, than 1,000 people who accepted your unsolicited request.

Get active in the fan-groups of these artists, and don’t just go there to shout about your band.  Talk to the fans, talk about the other bands, ask questions, etc.  People who like what you have to say, will check out your profile, and then check out your band.  You don’t need to talk about your band, you just need to have conversations.

It’s not about shouting, it’s about targeting the most-likely candidates for a successful campaign, giving those people something meaningful (a friendly greeting, a conversation, a free download, an invitation, etc.) creating a relationship with them, and ultimately helping them to discover your music.

Thinking strategically about your promotional actions, and targeting specific demographics will give your efforts more focus, more efficiency, and ideally more success.

This is not what it takes to be successful

As promised, today’s post is about trying to “buy your way in.”  There are several ways that musicians try to do this… they think that if only they could buy advertising, or if they could hire an indie publicist, or a radio promoter, or buy their way onto a tour, then people would hear their music and fall in love with it, becoming lifelong fans in the process.  There have been bands who were born from very rich stock, who have paid for everything I mentioned above, and more, and it still hasn’t gotten them anywhere.  I’ve seen bands spend thousands of dollars on everything from pyro, to a tour bus, to radio advertising, to all sorts of crazy things.  And even more heartbreaking are the bands who scrape and scrimp and save, to be just able to afford to spend their hard-earned cash on something like this… the problem is that while all those things are valid and useful things to have, they are also all a part of a strategic marketing mix that needs to be properly timed and well executed by trustworthy business partners.  Engaging these things too soon, in efforts to jumpstart a career is an extremely high-risk proposition, and not something I recommend, until the time is right.  They’re most certainly not the first things you should be thinking of doing, in efforts to begin growing your fanbase.   Sure, money can buy your way into a door that may have been shut before, but it’s not going to keep that door open for long.  It’ll be up to your talent to keep that door open.  And never underestimate the public, because they are too smart to be fooled with flash and cash…

Instead, why not make sure you’ve exhausted everything you can do on your own first?  The major superstar artists can’t develop strong relationships with their fans because there’s too many of them, but your fanbase is probably a size that’s manageable enough that you can.  You can personally respond to your fans messages, wish them happy birthday on Facebook, ask them questions, listen to what they have to say, and form strong bonds with them.  Personally invite fans to your shows, throw fan appreciation barbecues, do things that show your fans you care about them, and that you think they are special.  Evoking that feeling in your existing fans is going to spur them on to share your music with their friends, and that’s how it will grow.  Be creative with your fan interaction, and do things that make sense for your band, that will resonate with your type of fans.  All that is going to go a lot further than throwing some cash around in efforts to shout to a large number of people really quickly.  For an indie band, that’s just a band-aid solution at best, and a colossal waste of money at the worst.

If ever you catch yourself thinking something that starts with “if only…” always remember, there are no shortcuts to being successful.   It takes hard work, talent, and dedication.  Being a great musician is going to get you much farther than spending a ton of cash on shouting at people if you’re not.

It's easy to measure how effective and how ethical you're being when you are promoting your band.

As a band who wants to spread the word about your music, promoting yourself is a great investment of your time and money.  Just please think twice before you spend your money on promotion, and also make sure you’re being smart about how you promote yourself.  A simple way to check and see if you’re being both ethical and effective, is to imagine yourself on the receiving end of your own marketing.  Imagine that someone else is communicating to you about their band, using the tactic you’re considering using.  Be honest with yourself, and if you would either ignore the effort, or be annoyed by it, then don’t use it yourself!

Some common tactics that I’ve seen bands use, that I don’t recommend you try, include  “flyering outside another artist’s show” and “parking a van with a banner on it outside a major concert.”  They are perfect examples of bad promotional behaviour that simply comes off as noise.  Flyering is like “shouting from a rooftop” and it doesn’t work anymore.  Can you remember the last time you were handed a flyer for a band as you were leaving another artist’s concert that actually prompted you to look that band up online, go to their concert or buy their music?  I can tell you when the last time I did it was… never.  That’s right… not once in my life.  It’s simply not an effective way to spend your time or money.  A van with the banner on it is just another example of the type of in-your-face interruptive advertising that modern consumers have trained themselves to ignore.  This is the same as billboards, print-ads, pop-ups, banner ads, spam email, TV commercials, etc. and they are becoming increasingly ineffective, and so please if you decide you still want to try some of these methods, know that one of the only ways you can possibly be really successful with them is to do them differently or more creatively than people are expecting you to.  And be aware that even then, it won’t work every time.

Also, being in an independent band, your funds are most likely very minimal, and I would like to suggest that as an independent artist, paying cash for any form of online advertising is never a good way to spend your hard-earned money.  You can’t simply buy success, (this theme will be the central idea in my next article) and I bet that with a bit of thought and effort you can think of many really great ways you can more effectively engage another artist’s fans online without spending any money advertising to them.

Another absolute no-no, is to trade email lists with other artists.  While this may seem like a great shortcut to growing your own list, it’s not.  Don’t do this, ever.  Not only should you have so much respect for the privacy of the folks who give you their permission to contact them that you should never want to give your list information to anyone else, but this type of privacy breach is actually illegal in many countries.  Even if you’re in a country where this is not illegal, it is still a bad business practice that will only harm the relationship that both bands have with the particular fan (the band who gave the email address, and the band who sent the email).  The fan is going to be angry with the unsolicited email from a band they know nothing about, and they’re going to be even more angry with the other band who has obviously given away their personal email address to someone else.  Please never do this.

To close this article, I’d like to repeat what  I said in the beginning.  A simple way to check and see if you’re being both ethical and effective, is to imagine yourself on the receiving end of your own marketing.  Pretend you’re the music fan, and someone else is trying to sell you on their band, using the tactic you’re considering using.  If your initial reaction is to ignore the effort, or be annoyed by it, then don’t use it to promote your band either.

For more suggestions on how to ethically grow your fan community, check out these articles.

Okay, so this post is a little bit overdue, but life happens, right?  And it’s Wednesday now, so time to get back on track.

When I wrote about building your community online by thinking like a fan, I mentioned that a similar philosophy can be applied to the offline world as well.  The same type of actions, getting involved in existing communities, asking questions, getting involved in discussions, frequenting sites, supporting other artists… it all works online and it all works offline.

Since you make a certain genre of music, and since that means you probably LIKE that genre of music, then you’ve already got everything you need.  You know the local nightclubs/bars that cater to that music, you know the local bands that already play similar music, and you probably know some of the other people in your town that like similar music.  So get out there, and have conversations.  Get involved in the existing community.  Support the other musicians making music in your scene, get to know the bar owners, bookers, and fans of the genre you make.

The key is to get out there and get involved BEFORE you need something from them.  The first time you talk to the local bar owner better not be when you want to perform in their establishment.  The first time you talk to the local band that’s filling that club better not be when you want to open for them.  And so on.  Get involved, be supportive, ask questions, get to know the fans, the bands, the bars, everyone you can.  Be a solid member of the existing community, and you’ll slowly build your own community.  People will know you, and you will know them.  And that will make them want to support you.

Start locally, in your own town.  Stay active, and stay involved.  And since you can’t play in your own town every week, that gives you lots of time to start getting involved in similar communities in the surrounding towns.  Before you know it, you’ll have a network of bands with which you can swap shows, a network of bar bookers that you have personal relationships with, and a network of fans who feel a strong connection to you and will be willing to support you.

That’s how it begins.  And it’s up to you to continue to nurture it, and make it grow.

First become part of a community, and then focus on leading it

There’s a lot of talk these days about community-building, and many look to that as a modern strategy for spreading a band’s music.  While I do believe that it is a great strategy, many bands tend to overthink or underthink this strategy – some are too selfish, and for some reason it seems all natural behaviour of interaction and human nature can go out the window when it comes to promoting a band.

To build a community online, one not-recommended method is to take a passive approach… like start a myspace page, post some tunes, and wait for people to find you and friend you.  Then only communicate with those people that have reached out to you.  That’s okay, in that, at least you’re only talking to people who have expressed previous interest in you.  However, it’s certainly not enough, unless you manage to catch lightning in a bottle, and make a song that takes off virally, spreading through the online space like crazy.

Another poor approach to community-building could most-politely be called “the aggressive approach.”  You know this approach when you see it, and the results are the bands who have a billion friends on Myspace, and very little plays.  These are the bands that send email after email (or facebook event after facebook event) about their songs and their shows to anyone they can find, regardless of whether they have permission, and regardless of whether it makes sense or not.  Some “clever” bands even think that if they friend all the attractive women on Myspace, that their true target fans would be fooled into thinking the band attracts those folks to their live-shows, and that somehow the true fans would be more inclined to be a fan of the band because of this.  Does this make any sense to anyone?  Seems to me it would be much easier and more effective to focus on your target fans to begin with.

The truth is, the best way to build a community online is to start by getting involved in existing ones.   I guarantee you there is already at least one, and most likely several places online that exist for people who might like your particular sound to already be congregating and discussing other bands who are somewhat similar to you.  Take a minute, think about your band, and your music.  Think about yourself too.  You probably make a similar sound of music to the type of music you personally like to listen to (or at least one of the types of music you listen to.)  That’s because you’re a fan! So get in touch with your inner-fan, and think like that!  And don’t ever forget, Online is the same as “The Real World” because it IS the real world.  It’s still people talking to people.  We just use new tools to communicate.  But the rules don’t really change.

Let’s for one minute pretend you don’t make your own music, but you are an avid fan of punk rock… you would go online and find messageboards, facebook groups, myspace friends, twitter friends, blippers, fan-pages, artist websites, blogs, online magazines and local-scene websites that all focused on the music you like, and you would get involved in the current conversations.  You’d ask questions, make comments, have discussions, talk about music you like, check out the music that other people were talking about, etc.  What would end up happening, naturally, is that you would develop friendships, meet new people, find a group of folks who you agreed with often, bonded with, and felt connected to.  That is called building a community online.

You wouldn’t go on, only post things that you wanted to say, never comment on anything that is already being discussed, never answer any questions people ask you, and only talk about one band.  That’s ridiculous, no humans interact that way, and no one’s ever made a friend or bonded with anyone from having a one-sided conversation like that.  So don’t promote your band like that!

Think like a fan, be a part of the existing community, have conversations, make friends, and talk about all sorts of bands…yours included, of course.

And if you’re in a band, and are having difficulty getting started, email me. I’ll try my best to help!

Next post… I’ll talk about how this can apply in the offline world.  Or in the meantime, maybe you can tell me?

See you on Wednesday.

- The idea for this post came out of a conversation I recently had with @withabullet.

It's easy to use, but its easy to misuse too.

So you’ve signed up for Twitter.  Congratulations!  It seems to be all the rage right now in the music industry.  Bands and industry people are registering for the site like crazy.  So how do you make this Twitter thing work for you?  How can you use it to help promote your band?

The key is to make sure that’s not your only goal.  What you should be trying to do is become part of a community of people who most likely will enjoy your music, and want to hear what you have to say.  And build your numbers up slowly and organically.  Don’t just sign up, start following a bunch of random people, and make your only tweets promotional in nature, like saying “check out my band on our myspace” over and over again.  In fact, a really good idea is to upload a profile picture, customize your profile page, fill out the BIO line, display the link to your website/myspace, and post at least five to ten tweets (see below for more on that) all before you start following people you don’t know.

On Twitter, it IS okay to follow people you don’t know in real life, so that’s a plus.  People are far less protective of their Twitter followers/followings than they are of their Facebook friends.  So go ahead and search Twitter for key words of conversations that might indicate that a person may like your music, and follow them.  For example, if you are in a band that sounds like MGMT, try searching for things like “Hipster Runoff” and definitely “MGMT”.  Find people who are already talking about the genre, follow them, and start talking about them too.  Be honest… “hey, I love MGMT as well.  I play in a band and they are a major influence on our sound.” is a good start.  It’s honest, to the point, and conversationally promotional.  Then, if the person @replies, and asks you for the link to your Myspace, go ahead and give it to them.  @replying is a public conversation, so then anyone reading that conversation will see your site as well.  And the people who are actually reading the conversation, are the people you want to reach!  Jump in, and start talking to people.  Just don’t come on too strong… you wouldn’t walk into a house-party full of strangers and just start shouting “HEY, I’M IN A BAND… CHECK US OUT!”, so don’t do it online either.

The other key to twittering effectively, is to tweet often, but not too often, and to balance your tweets between promotional tweets, personal tweets, and conversation tweets (either asking a question, or @replying to one of your followers posts).  Working Twitter into your daily routine takes a bit of getting used to, but you need to make sure you do it.  Here’s an easy way to get into it.

Start by tweeting three times in a day.

Make one tweet your “promotional tweet”… things like “in the studio, laying down vocal melodies,” “just posted a new song on our myspace, hope you like it!” and “new tour dates announced!  check them out here.” are all basic examples of promotional tweets.  Give a bit of information that people who follow you would care about.

Another of your tweets should be the “personal tweet.” These are designed so your followers feel connected to you, the way your friends in real-life are.  Say things like “Deciding between Pizza and Chinese Food for dinner.” or “going snowboarding tomorrow, stoked!”  Basically whatever is really going on in your life outside of the band.  Even though they seem mundane, when you’re a fan of a band reading these tweets, they can seem really exciting because they are the window into the band members personalities… and that deeper fan-band connection is what they are looking for.

Finally, the third tweet should be your “conversational tweet.” These are designed to further embed you in the community, and stimulate interesting discussion.  These don’t have to be about music, or your band, because they are to show that you’re interested in what your followers have to say, and that you’re paying attention to them too.  Things like “@follower, nice new tattoo you got there!” or “Question – what do you think of the new U2 single?”  And if someone asks you a question, make sure you @reply back to them too.  These tweets all show that you care about what the people who follow you have to say.  And again, just think about this from a fan’s perspective… imagine if your favorite band was actually listening to what you had to say, responding to you personally, and asking you questions… you would immediately recognize that as a sign they cared about you too… and think how that would make you feel!

This is the power of Twitter for musicians.  Promotion, fan-connection, community-building, relationship-developing.  Use it to truly endear your audience to you. In three simple tweets per day.  (a measly 420 characters of daily effort.)

PS – Fan relationships are precious…don’t abuse them.  Don’t do any of what I’ve mentioned above if you don’t actually care.  A one-sided relationship is really easy to sniff out, and it’s more detrimental to you than if you didn’t do anything at all.