ENJOY READING THIS CAUSE I WENT IN WHY SENDING YOUR MUSIC TO THE ARTISTS YOU LIKE IN A PERSONAL MESSAGE IS THE WORSE WAY TO GAIN THEIR SUPPORT I’ve noticed early on as a producer that it wasn’t easy getting my music recognized. All though I had support from one of the bigger artists in this small community of producers about 4 or 5 years ago, he wasn’t letting me on with out me having to pay my dues. So, I had to learn for my self the dos and don’ts to this online community of artists. It wasn’t always easy getting a few hundred or even thousands of plays and looking at the other artists with several thousand followers I wanted to be there with them having others praise my creations. But, like any other story it takes work to get that sort of recognition and success doesn’t come over night. In this entry I’m going to tell you why sending your music to the artists you look up to is the worse way to gain that artists support. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably leaning some where in between this is either going to be some mad rant or it’s going to be a train wreck of an opinion. But, to save you some time; it isn’t and this might actually be something that helps you out if you’re a starting artist. So, grab a coffee or a beverage and enjoy this article. You might learn a thing or two. THE PROBLEM AT HAND The current issue the new community is facing that the artists who were around longer than 4 year weren’t having issues with is getting their music in the hands of the artists who they like. We’re currently facing an over saturation of artists who are also creating content and wanting to be a part of this all. This isn’t a bad thing. I believe it’s just growing pains we’ll have to deal with as this sound extends beyond the underground. The problem is that artists with a little more reputation are constantly bombarded with messages of smaller or newer artists wanting to be supported so they’re always sending their previews to targeted artists and to who ever else is on their friends list to gather up plays and to gain followers. But, from experience clearing out your Instant messenger for any artist online to send your music to isn’t the way you want to become known and for many reasons. THE BIG NO - NO This needs to stop. You can’t go on a mad rampage through all of your friends sending your sound cloud link to every artist you like or too every friend you have. For multiple reasons for one not all of your friends even like Dubstep. Just because, they added you doesn’t mean they now you as an artist and praise you so don’t do that to those people. A lot of the artists you’re trying to gain the attention of are already busy. Dealing with many others doing exactly what you’ve been doing. So, it’s not smart to just be another ape in that crowd of Monkeys seeing and doing. You want to take a different approach. But, we’ll talk about that in a moment. The number one reason you’re ignored as an artist is because the artist probably doesn’t know you. So, having a conversation for longer than 5 minutes the first time you speak isn’t likely to happen. You have to have something to bring to the table to grab an artists attention for longer than 5 minutes at a time at first. Also, if you do take the approach I’m subtly suggesting which is having normal conversation; you can’t harass the same artist every day or even every other day. Once, a week is a better idea and you have to have something meaningful to chat about which isn’t music related. So, none of that “Can I have your opinion on something approaches” or anything like that. They’re humans too have a good chat and leave it with out sending your music to the artist. You’ll gain respect a lot faster this way, believe me. The second reason is because they probably heard your music and don’t think you’re too great. In this case they might just brush you off and not say anything to not offend you. If they think you’re cool they’ll still have a chat with you. The main point is you’ve got to keep working and growing. Don’t let it discourage you. Just keep at it. Number three reason you’re being ignored. If you’re only sending links consistently to the same people it gets annoying. When some one sends you a link and your scroll through your chat history to find the last 10 messages they sent you are all links as well the likely hood of them clicking that link is extremely low. So, you’ve got to work on a few other things to get to that point. For now I would say stop and give it a break. After a few months return but instead of trying to send a link have conversation. SO HOW DO YOU FIX IT? The good news is that it can be fixed and you can start right now to fix it! You want to target a set demographic. That is the KEY to your success in this scene as an artist. The steps to getting people to listen to your music can be summed up in a few short steps. That if you master you’ll be able to gain a decent audience from it… Building a fan base: This step mainly covers getting your music to a wider crowd you’re not trying to gain supporters to this step is relatively simple but worthy going over because you can gain supporters from taking these steps. This is to mainly get you away from your IM for advertising and getting you to promote more effectively. As your skills grow more opportunities come to you naturally. You’ll get offers on releases on labels which will get you more followers, interviews help also, and even blogs about you can drive traffic to you. But, lets cover promotion broadly. • Targeting a set demographic & audience. (Who are the people who like your music) • Peaking the interest of the audience you’re trying to get to listen to your music. (How do you create eye appealing titles and graphics to raise your click through rate) • Driving traffic to your websites. (How do you get clicks for plays and subscriptions) TARGETING A SET DEMOGRAPHIC & AUDIENCE Before any other step this is the most important. You need to identify who are the people more likely to listen to your music, how old are they, where do they live, where can you meet them in populated groups of people with the same interest to narrow down the list of places where you choose to promote. Online demonstration; Ages for those most likely to like dubstep are between the ages of 16 – 26 from any background or ethnicity. They can live any where but in more populated cities you’ll find more opportunities to find them in clubs with nights specifically catered to the niche of Electronic Dance Music or even better specifically Dubstep nights. Online, you can find them on online forums, facebook groups, and social media niche related groups. Promoting on Facebook for dubstep; I recommend you join Bassclash Records, Chronos / Styx Records, Riddim community, Riddim gang, and any other facebook dubstep related niche groups. Here you’ll find a populous of artists you can network with and chat with and go back and forth with all about production, music etc. PEAKING THE INTEREST OF YOUR AUDIENCE / SUPPORTER PROSPECT This is very simple. Simply make sure that you’re staying consistent on your post and interaction with in the group. By showing others support in their music naturally they’ll want to know who you are eventually. So, interact and stay active. The more active and consistent you are be it on facebook, live mix sessions such as Get Darker etc people will check you out if they recognize your name and realize that you’re a nice genuine person who isn’t spamming them every day and you’re consistent online with interactions and posting your music on the group page. But, realize that one can not come with out there other. You can’t just post your music and scurry away and expect for other to know who you are. Work at it naturally you’ll build networks. I just told you the fundamentals of of networking. It’s simply building relationships through interaction. All that aside it wouldn’t hurt to have a nice looking logo and cool images attached to the file you’re trying to post for others to listen to. DRIVING TRAFFIC TO YOUR MUSIC Now, I know starting out it’s rough. But, the bigger artists you’ll notice they only need to post it a few times before every one else is sharing their music for them. At the start this is why networking is vital. You’ll need to get your self on the map. Through posting on others music etc and getting involved in threads, forums, groups, live stream chat rooms and so on. I’ve met many bigger names this way which I still speak to even till this day. In your description of the music rather than just leaving it blank why not add the links to all of your websites? If your fans want to follow you and add you as a friend so they don’t miss when you have new material they’ll now be able to see it real time. It’s a smart thought isn’t it? Then knowing that facebook limits your reach once you post on Facebook you can also send it via twitter, facebook groups, an image via instagram & pintrest, and such. Maximize your reach by doing this. Starting out as an artist it’s going to be hard for you to really gain any real recognition. The biggest way you can reach a good following base from the start is to reach out to the artists on your level and start to collaborate. Collaborating is a prime way to have fun and network with other artists on your level and put two minds together to create something amazing. But, also by doing this you’re sharing your audience with one and other. So, if you both have 500 followers and each other you only have 250 of the same followers then getting 100 of the remaining 250 of the artists followers to follow you is a realistic possibility. This is one of the best ways to start off with a bang. In fact there are many of the bigger names who made it all the way to the top who at the start were all about collaborating and that paid of for them so get to work. Don’t forget that you want your fans to have a chance to interact with you as well. I’ll leave this one to your imagination. GOOD LUCK!
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 09:57:15 +0000
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