6 Ways To Build Your Brand as a Musician in 2023
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When it comes to being a musician, it is an ever-changing industry. In 2023 the amount of music released daily grew into the thousands. So what can an artist do in the overcrowded industry to stand out? Here are a few pieces of advice that I’ve found to work well.
Tell Your Story
As an entertainer, music and video content is great. But that does not necessarily connect always to an audience. A lot of times, musicians fail to actually engage with their fans. Don’t be afraid to say hello, let them see you. Share who you are and why you’re making this music and why it is important to you. If people don’t have a basis on what to relate to, you may lose connection with the audience. Music can connect them, but it usually won’t take it all the way unless they know who you are.
Pay Attention To Your Audience
With an ever-growing number of social media platforms, it is still smart to create an account on each. However, that does not always mean you need to sit there all day every day and post on all of them. I always tell our artists to find which one has the best fan interaction of all for you, and then feed that. From there, you can trickle content to your other sources as well through scheduled posts or useful sharing options that are available. If you find one network that works, feed it and don’t stop!
Re-Use Content
If you have a music video already out, you likely have cool live footage and some behind-the-scenes. You may also find you don’t have anything fresh to post. Don’t be afraid to grab a short 15-second clip from the video. Use that to post as stories, clips, shorts or reels. You can add music or easily edit clips directly on most platforms. Using these clips are useful drivers for current and new audiences to discover you through visuals and audio without needing any sort of fancy editing skills. There are also numerous apps as well that can make your clip look more “professional” that are available for free.
Don’t Overthink
Many times, I run into artists or brands that constantly spend hours overthinking about what they are going to post, or how. Instead of ever actually just doing the most important part — posting. It doesn’t mean going out and just tossing posts with no meaning out there. But at the same time, get to the point, share a visual or some sort of image and move on. Most of the time, people don’t remember if your little short had spot-on perfect editing, or a ring light in your eyes. They care more about the message or what it is at hand.
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Deliver Your Product
In the digital world, a musician or brand often forgets to share one of the most important parts — their physical merchandise. These items are your money maker, in addition to acting as walking billboards that can be worn or showcased all over the world. Your fan showing off your brand is a huge support factor in many ways. As streams pay fractions of pennies, the merchandising of physical items often is an artist’s only means of profit. More often than not, however, artists don’t share the availability or focus on offering the product to their fans beyond a digital item in music or video. Use those items as your showcase to sell things like t-shirts, hoodies, physical CDs, vinyls, and more exclusive, even high-end, items that fans enjoy being a part of.
If they don’t know the items exist, they can’t buy them to support your art!
Repeat
Once you start the process and it starts to build, this is the most crucial part. You must continue on and don’t let things fade away or fall off. Once you start to gain the fan and audience’s attention, letting it fade is often a big mistake. Someone else is ready to take that attention span immediately. Pay attention to what works and adjust along the way in the repeat process of delivery. It does not mean always doing the same old “boring” thing, but not making an impact only to wait a year to try anything else.
Placing focus on the above has worked for me as well as many of the musicians and brands that I work with all over the world to better their overall growth and connection with their audience. Oftentimes, they are able to do so with limited marketing budgets—a reality facing many.
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