My new book, Create, Connect, Repeat is finally out!
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Music Marketing Roadmap
Kick-off the new year with an interactive Goal Setting Workshop! 2021 Goal Setting for Musicians! Free PDF Workbook will be provided for those that register for this training!
In this event, we'll go over what I think is a great way to brainstorm, think about and organize your goals, and then leave you to take control of your 2021!
This session will be a jumping off point to be able to take your career to the next level in 2021!
The Music Marketing Roadmap Course is here!
5️⃣ One Hour Sessions, plus 5 Q&A videos cover topics like:
✨ Goal Setting
✨ Brand Development
✨ Audience Building
✨ Marketing Plans & Strategy
✨ Releasing Your Music
✨ Touring Strategies ✨ Social Media Strategies
✨ Templates for Social Media Planning
✨ Content Strategy and Planning
💰 Making MONEY 💰
✨ Action Plan!
✅ PDF Workbook to help guide your planning and brainstorming! ✅
So who is this course for?
Anyone who is involved in music and wants to get started on defining their career on their own terms...
Looking to develop strategies around:
Music Marketing
Branding
Audience Development
Monetization
I hope you’ll join me in taking these first steps to building the life in music you desire, by taking it one step at at time, building your audience, and creating the art that you love!
Are you Remarkable?
When we talk about creating a Marketing plan around you, your product, or your service, one of the most important aspects of that plan is to make sure that your idea is remarkable. We often confuse this word with synonyms like awesome, great, fantastic, etc. But that's not the definition of remarkable that we're talking about here.
Really we are saying that we want to create something that is literally remarkable. Worth making a comment about. Worth talking about. Worth making a remark about.
I like to phrase it like: why should someone care about this? What is in it for them?
So then it comes down to us telling the story of our product or service. How do we create something worth talking about? Think about the types of things that YOU like to share with others. Maybe it's unique, maybe it looks cool, maybe it has an interesting title, maybe it is thought provoking, maybe it solves a unique problem... something that brings value to the end user.
A great resource on this line of thinking is Seth Godin's book "Purple Cow"
This book ^^^ is a really great resource to start thinking about how you can repackage your ideas into one's that are remarkable! I hope you'll start thinking about this as you are creating your own products!
Have an amazing week, and as always, feel free to reach out if you want to discuss these topics further!
Nick
I know you’re out here on Social Media, sharing away, creating a content strategy, bringing value, iterating week after week… but maybe your growth has stalled…. Ring a bell?
Well, that’s because it’s just the TRUTH about the current state of platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Organic growth is close to dead, these platforms are mature, and they aren’t looking to give “free” exposure to anyone these days…
So what do we do about it? Well, there’s a few strategies that come to mind to help find and grow your audience with new people who might be interested in the topics that you share on your channels.
Collaborate - find ways to reach new audiences by finding other creators doing something similar to you, and work with them to create something exciting! Could be a duet, an interview, something crazy/weird/fun, or just helping each other out by sharing each other’s content. This puts you in front of a whole new set of audience members (each others!) Tip: try to collaborate with other creators who are around your awareness level/age. The “we’re in this together” mentality between the two parties is pretty important!
Viral Content - Study the internet. Look up trends on YouTube, IG, Facebook, Tik Tok… and try to participate but in your own way! If you can put your own spin on an existing trend, and get it out in a timely fashion (ideally, the same day that you observe the trend), you can garner some new audience members. Note: many of these people might just be following you to see more content that’s like the trend you just copied - ie humor, outrageous, etc. If they end up not following for long, don’t be surprised...
Paid Media - This is my favorite pick of the three. Paid Media is a pretty basic strategy that companies have used for decades, changing mediums as culture evolves. Paid Media means amplifying your content in an ongoing way, to a curated audience via Social Media Advertising. There’s really never been a better time to jump into social media ads - the tools are amazingly strong to connect with the exact audience that you want to create! The strategy here is to think of each piece of content as a billboard that can be shown only to people that care about that thing (ie. You or your genre of music). Once we get enough people to see your content and engage with it, you can then re-target them later on, with an offer that brings them value. And after that? You re-target them with an offer to make a purchase from you, give you their email address, etc. But it all starts with amplifying that your content. This is something we do for artists at Outside in Music, for as little as $25/week in ad spend. Just hit us up, so we can get your content shown to the right people!
In short, yes. I think organic growth has slowed WAY down… not just compared to 5 or 10 years ago, but even for the last 6 months… we manage many artists social media accounts, and we can confidently say that the ones that are growing are engaging in one or more of these activities!
Hope this helps - get in touch if you want assistance with any of these growth strategies - we’re always here to help you grow!
Have an amazing week -
Nick
Happy Monday Friends!
1 - Social Media is a TOOL for connection. It can be used as such, or just be a giant waste of time. It’s up to YOU to decide how you can use it to your advantage to cultivate your audience & community.
2 - Decide WHAT you want to make and WHERE you will post it. That is, which platforms will you post on? You can’t focus your attention EVERYWHERE at the same time
3 - Who is your ideal audience? Where are they? What do they want to see?
4 - Develop a Content Strategy: ie what “shows” or “buckets” of content can you create?
5 - Develop a posting schedule, and stick to it.
6 - Have a Social Media Ad Strategy to drive your business plan, and to drive awareness. Organic strategies on platforms like Facebook and Instagram are INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT at this point in the game.
7 - View Social Media as a part of your job. It’s you telling your story in the various ways that you can across the platforms you choose.
8 - Don’t focus on content that appeases your friends/family they are NOT your target audience.
9 - Develop 1000 True Fans (read Kevin Kelly’s great article about this). One fan, one day at a time.
10 - My key phrase for developing resiliency online: “It’s not for you”
Have an amazing week!
Nick
Follow the “right” footsteps
I find that many look to their peers or even their musical heroes as aspirational in many facets (ie musically) but also in the way they communicate, share on social media, market themselves, etc.
But, are those people really effective communicators? Effective Marketers? Effective at telling the story of their work?
In some cases yes! But in many cases? No.
Yet, there are many who just start copycatting because it seems like “that must be the way to do it, if (insert name here) does it that way."
But no, there’s no right way for everyone. Your story is different and unique. The way you communicate is different from the next artist. Embrace that your style will vary! A sea of sameness to “fit in” online will not help your career.
Instead, look to effective communicators online. Those that have built up an awareness slowly, over time, by identifying their unique angle on a specific subject matter, and going all in. Doesn’t matter the genre or topic - get outside of our music-industry bubble!
Being authentic will be one of the keys to becoming more consistent and more committed to your online presence. There’s no “right way.” There’s only authenticity or copycats!
As many people around the internet will be happy to tell you, one of the most important aspects to developing any artist, brand, or business's social accounts is to keep them ACTIVE. Like everyday active! You might be saying: uh, what the heck do I have to post every single day?!?! Well, that's where a content strategy comes in to play. If you don't have a strategy and and idea of what types of content to post, you might end up having a hard time keeping up. There are a lot of different ways this strategy can work, but I'll lay out a simple one that I think can help get you started.
1 - Decide WHERE you are going to post. What platforms are important to you? Or that you like being on? What can you create consistently for? And even more important... which platforms is your AUDIENCE on? You can't be everywhere at once giving every platform your full attention. One, for sure. Two? definitely. Three? you're starting to push it...
2 - Create content "themes", "buckets", or "pillars." This means that there's an overall big picture concept to a "type" of content. A show, for example, or perhaps a location, or even just something has simple as practicing content, or promo photos, or live gig videos...
3 - After you've outlined all of the pillars of the content strategy (not that you're locked in, and can't post other stuff - it's YOUR social media and YOUR brand after all) - create a plan for what days you'll post which type of content. It's a LOT easier to know that each Tuesday you're going to post your latest gig video, than trying to rack your brain every week trying to come up with random content to post!
4 - Make your content plan. After knowing the WHERE you are going to post, WHAT types of things you'll be posting, then decide WHEN you want to post them. Again, this is your personal strategy and you can always add/subtract/multiply as needed. You aren't locked in. There are lots of analytics tools across the different platforms that can give you more specific days and times to post based on your following and when they are most active (check insta and youtube analytics for this info)
5 - Create in BATCHES - I like to get myself into a content creation mode once every so often. I can't be in that mode ALL of the time. I have to cycle in and out of it to really maintain any sort of sanity! So batching. All that means is to create content all at once, in a single sitting, rather than one at a time. So instead of creating one practice video, make four. That way, during the month, you've got the content you need to keep up with posting without having to sit down and create each and every time! So take your themes/pillars, brainstorm ideas for content, and make a bunch at once, so it's all ready to go.
6 - Post natively to each platform. You know you can tell when people just cross post from Insta to FB or from FB to twitter. It never looks quite right... the messaging is a bit off. You can take advantage of your content even MORE if you take the extra time to create the right context on the right platform. Make sure you've got the hashtags you want on IG, the people/brands tagged on Facebook, and the right handles on Twitter. And you KNOW they all have different sizing requirements... so if you've got the time and resources, make content that's even specifically tailored towards EACH platform!
7 - Rinse and Repeat. Like we said at the beginning, it is about showing up consistently over time. One semi-viral post does not build a career. Consistent, valuable content, delivered to an audience that's ready and willing to hear from you, is what builds the career.
Not sure where to start? This has been my general content strategy most recently, and I fill in the gaps with other items that either come up, or perhaps are off the cuff on a given day!
Monday - #MusicMarketingMonday - videos and/or IG Carousels. More recently I've been writing a lot more, so this has become an outlet for some of those writing projects.
Tuesday - Educational Videos - My focus has been on making sure there is at least ONE video per week that shares an educational concept with my audience. The educational side of my career is an important one in my overall growth.
Wednesday - #WednesdayWatch - this has been my primary YouTube posting day for the last 3/4 years. Why? Consistency! I've rotated this between all different types of content, whether it's performance or educationally based, etc.
Thursday - Throwback Thursday - once we have a library of content, it's OK to revisit! Maybe you want to share a different clip than you first posted, or a different filter, or angle. EVERYONE DID NOT SEE IT the first time, promise! That's how the algorithms work 😉 .
Friday - Friday used to be reserved for my Music Marketing Show #CreateConnectRepeat - I've taken a break from it recently to find a new way to present that information, but I would post clips from that show on Fridays. More recently I've used Fridays to start a LIVESTREAMING strategy! So every week on Friday we revisit questions from videos from my "AskNick" show - or even post the whole episode.
Saturday/Sunday - the weekend has been a little bit more of a grab bag for me. Sometimes that's even when I'll take a break from posting. But here is where I might include clips from my podcast, more clips from the AskNick show, throwback clips, doubling up on Educational posts, or even posting the sheet music from a song or exercise.
My goal is always to post at least once per day. In recent weeks I've been really on top of my batching strategy, and have been able to keep up content at a much faster pace. So, after you get into the rhythm of it - I'm SURE that you will be able to do the same!
If you need help, the team at Outside in Music and myself are always happy to help artists and creators with developing their own pillar content ideas and strategy! Can't wait to work with you. info@outsideinmusic.com
More "Dirty Words" - Content
This is one that ranks right up there with ANY of them. It's such a buzz word. Very cliche (although, very true). "Content is King".
Well, I hate to break it to you, but in the 21st century Digital Media Landscape - your music is interchangeable with the word content. Your music IS content. In no way do I mean this to be a degrading use of this word as it applies to your music. It is meant to encourage you to engage in sharing your music (content!) more freely. The most important thing that any artist can do, is to build their audience by providing VALUE to a group of people. That often happens through content.
Content by can be short or long, high production value or shaky iPhone footage. Audio, video, written words, infographics, animations, comic strips, photos, any of this, is all content.
I encourage you open your mind to viewing your music as content and ask - How many different ways can I share this piece of music? Through Audio, Video, Written, Photographic, and any other means you can think of!
Content isn't a negative word, it's just a generalization for all the things we share into the world whether it be on social media, our websites, Spotify (et al), or just via text/email.
So stop worrying so much and start sharing. There's so many of us out here that want to hear your music, your thoughts, and support you on this crazy journey.
Care to get these posts in your inbox?
It's NOT for you (the most useful phrase I've found to develop online resiliency)
One of the biggest challenges I find amongst artists (beginning, established, really at any stage of their career) is the resistance to posting/sharing things. For some people posting about gigs is OK, but posting personal things is off limits. For some, they don't want to post videos of what they are working on, because the facade of perfection is getting in the way...
But the compelling case to be present on various social media platforms? Attention. Where do people find time to spend when they are looking for entertainment? Their various devices. If you want to be seen/heard, you have got to be found on these platforms - whether we like it or not!
Whatever the case might be for why YOU aren't posting... I have a feeling it might be because you are afraid of what someone will think about what you are posting. It could be fear of what your peers think, or your mentors, or some other person in the anonymous cloud of social media... you're afraid of someone leaving a negative comment, or thinking you are "selling out"
It's not for them.
With every piece of content or song or video or written post, it has to have an intended audience. You made it FOR the audience. FOR a particular PART of the audience. Nothing is for everyone. If you try and please everyone, you're going to end up pleasing no one - including YOURSELF!
It's not for them.
So, you have to determine exactly WHO it is for...
Which means you have to have a strategy around WHO your audience is, WHERE they are, and WHAT types of content can bring them value. All of these micro-audiences build up to create a sustainable career, where your audience is eager to hear from you, and support you in your journey!
Social Media for any artist is just ONE tactic for marketing. It is part of your profession. We might not like it, but if you don't exist on the platforms that people's attention... it's almost as if you do not exist. Does that mean you have to be obsessed with creating content or obsessed with social media? Of course not. It just means you should develop a strategy that helps create a situation where you can sustainably provide value to your audience, on the platforms that matter to them.
Make everything FOR someone in the audience. And if someone says something to you about it? Just tell them: "It's not for you!"