Do-it-yourself promotion as (music) artist - some tips!
Hello Stemians!
Yesterday I attended a workshop about how to promote yourself as an artist, given by this pretty guy in the picture below:
Maurits Westerik - from the bands GEM and Bewilder
I think he said some pretty useful things and besides his story, we also discussed all of the personal stories from the participants (which was a very varied group) and spoke our minds about the topic. All together this was a pretty interesting session which is why I thought it would be cool to share some of it with you guys.
So, the 3 topics I wanted to point out are:
- How do you write a good biography?
- A way to use your "free promotion"
- How to deal with social media?
Let's go!
How do you write a good biography?
I think that in order to answer this question, we would have to answer the question: What is the purpose of a biography?
Well, the answer to this question would be something like this:
A good biography doesn't have to contain a complete explanation about you as artist, but just enough for people to get an idea of who you are/what you stand for and what they can expect, because this is what the purpose of a biography is: it shows people what to expect from you as an artist. Besides that it's supposed to make them curious as well! If your biography grabs their attention they are most likely to check out your music as well ;)
But then, what are people looking for in a biography? Well:
think about what you would be looking for when you are looking at other artist's biographies, or what you think are good biographies ;) A tip is to try to do some research and compare! This gives you a clearer view of what the options are and what you think is the best suiting for you. Just remember that people most probably won't be interested in how long you've been playing guitar for example.
A short checklist of elements that you could/might want to add to your biography would be:
- Who are you? Where are you from?
- What genre(s)? or what "kind" of music?
- What do you stand for? Is there a message that you are trying to send, a point you are trying to make? What is the main subject or emotion to your music?
- Who are your influences?
- Your musical background so far and what you are aiming for
Of course, you could write a lot about all of these things in order to create that "perfect explanation", but here's the thing; you should keep it short! Short but sweet ;) This makes your biography very clear (which is what it should be) and gives people the option to become curious for more!
Besides all of the above I think that the most important thing is and will always be to be yourself. If you feel like you should write your biography in a completely different way because that's who you are, then definitely do so!
A way to use your "free promotion"
First of all, to explain what I mean by free promotion I will give a couple of examples. Think of things like:
- Interviews
- Articles written about you (newspapers, magazines, etc.)
- People that share your work. Video's, pictures, etc. (for example on social media)
So, basically literally all promotion that is free to you.
Now, how to "use" this promotion? The example that I wanted to give is this: Think about what image you want to show. Think about a certain color which symbolizes you, or a hat that you always wear. Something that characterizes you as an artist (look at the picture above of Sia for example!).
If you have something like this, grab it and use it! Because this is something that people will start to notice and recognize. For example, if you always wear a yellow jacket, people will keep seeing that yellow jacket. Because of this they will start recognizing you as that artist with the yellow jacket.
Now you might think; what is the good thing about being "the one with the yellow jacket" while you want them to listen to your music, but once people notice you more often, the chance gets higher that they will give in and check out your music as well ;). I hope I explained this sort of fine, I find it a bit hard to put it into words haha :)
Obviously there are more ways to use your free promotion in a proper way, but I will move on to the next topic for now!
How to deal with social media?
I noticed that this is something that a lot of people find pretty hard. I don't actually think there is a clear outline for what exactly could be addressed as "right" or "wrong". However, as I stated before, I do think that one thing is very important. Be yourself.
Try to figure out for yourself what style you want to use and what feels best to you. Some people simply really don't like certain platforms. If that's your case, maybe just don't use those platforms! However, do consider the consequences and think about what you will do. On the other hand, if you do want to use them but don't know how, you could make a plan!
To give some random examples:
- Write a post every week and post a picture every two weeks.
- Post a picture after every performance.
- Don't do any of the above and only post teasers and new tracks.
- Well... and so on ;)
The point I'm trying to make is that you have to be aware of what you are doing. Try to think it through! Once again, maybe it could be helpful to look at other artists and how they do it. Try to compare and see what feels the best to you!
In the end I think there are no concrete answers to what exactly would work best. It's something that differs for every artist and being an artist simply means that you have to be creative sometimes! ;D
I did only point out a couple of things, but hope they could be useful to some of you! Since all of the above is based on opinions and mostly my point of view, feel free to open a discussion about it or to give feedback!
Thanks for reading :)
P.S. say hi to my cat who is very happy to see you x'D
This was my first actual post after my introduction post! If you are interested and/or curious for my introduction post you could still check it out here: [https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@anneke-devries/anneke-de-vries-singer-songwriter-my-introduction-to-the-steemit-community]
Once again, thanks for reading and see ya guys around!
;D