Today we’ll talk about:
- Releasing music for you vs releasing for the machine
- Being bold
- Branding vs self discovery
- First principles thinking for creative success
- The beginner’s push for musicians
- Courage and skills
- The secret ingredient in great music content
- Social media and creative control
- Being better
#1: Releasing for you vs releasing for the machine.
For musicians in 2023, it’s considered best practise to tease a few of your songs on social media and see which one gets the best response.
The song that gets the best response is the one that gets released—or at least gets priority.
While this is practical on paper because you’re essentially putting out work there is clearly demand for, there are two major problems with this approach:
1) The algorithm is not a reliable way to measure the quality or potential success of a song, or any piece of art.
While it’s true that the better your ‘content’, the more chance it’ll reach lots of people, there are other contributing factors to how something performs.
And as an artist currently in my course/coaching program asked [on songs that didn’t do well online]: “Do you think it’s the song or the content that wasn’t good enough?”
2) It wastes the artist’s time and takes the control away from them.
I’m guessing you didn’t become an artist because you wanted someone (or something) else to have control over your energy and how you express yourself.
If you don’t get to decide what you put out and when just because it’s ‘not practical’… is this what you signed up for?
Instead I propose you make a system for yourself—something that allows you to make and release what you want in a way that works for you, but that also has practical merit.
Releasing your way won’t work if no one is ever seeing or hearing your art.
Here are the 3 levers of social media success for musicians.
Use something like this to build a system that works for you and your preferences.
As with most things, there will be some degree of sacrifice involved here, but as I say frequently: You can choose how much to play the game.
#2: Being bold.
If you want to stand out as a creative online, you have to be bold in some way.
That doesn’t mean becoming hyper—extroverted, controversial, or fake for the sake of views.
It means don’t hide yourself away and expect people to come rushing into your world and showering you with attention.
People are attracted to other people who are fully embracing something (and that appeals to them).
This could mean anything:
- Being more passionate in your performances.
- Saying things you need to say.
- Embracing the cringe if that’s who you are.
I know how cheesy some of my posts can be—but it’s authentic.
I like lifting people up and sometimes that means saying things that make people roll their eyes.
Be bold; embrace who you are.
#3: Branding vs self discovery.
I saw a post recently related to branding for creatives that stated you shouldn’t confine yourself to a colour scheme and a few words—you’re a human, you’re messy, and that’s ok.
I prefer to think about modern branding for creatives not as something restrictive, but as a process of self discovery.
It’s about finding out who you really are and giving you direction.
A good modern brand strategy which include the whole you while also giving you practical direction to help you achieve your goals and connect with people.
Most people don’t know themselves nearly as much as they think they do.
They think they’re their emotions—that whatever they’re currently feeling is who they are.
That’s not who you really are. You’re more than your emotions.
The branding process forces you to go deep—way beyond how you feel at any given time—and find the real you, what makes you truly unique and valuable.
If you’ve ever tried to ‘just be yourself’ on social media and it hasn’t worked, there’s a reason for that.
What does ‘be yourself’ even mean, really?
You need direction.
The more you truly know who you are and what makes you so great, the clearer your path becomes, in life, in career, on social media, in everything.
If you’re ‘anti—branding’ because you think it’s restrictive, you might just need to have the right experience with it.
The branding process for the modern creative should feel exciting and expansive, and help you discover who you really are.
#4: First principles thinking for success as a creative.
As a creative person who wants creativity to be at the centre of your world, you will benefit massively by “questioning every assumption you think you know about a given problem, then creating new solutions from scratch.” (Ready North)
What does this mean?
Don’t blindly follow other people’s advice on how to succeed in your creative career without ever learning how or why anything works fundamentally.
If you don’t like the way things are typically done in your area of the creative industry, question that way of doing things.
When you start questioning assumptions you initially saw as absolute truth and learn about the foundational components that make something up, you start to discover new potential pathways you couldn’t see before.
For example, most people might say it’s impossible to grow an online presence without posting regularly.
While it’s generally a good idea to post regularly, is that an irrefutable truth?
No. There are examples of creators who make one post, it reaches millions, and they suddenly have 300,000 followers.
There are even examples of highly successful people who don’t use social media at all.
They’re still talked about regularly online without even being there.
I’m not saying stop using social media.
But I’m saying question what you think you know about how things can, should, and do work.
#5: The beginner’s push for musicians.
When you’re starting something new—learning an instrument, building on social media, getting serious about your health—there’s a hump you need to get over before you can start seeing things work.
You know those juice boxes you used to have as a kid?
Think of trying to pierce the seal on that box with your straw: You have to put enough force into it that you break through and get to the juice.
This is no different for any of the stuff above.
If you want to truly get somewhere, you have to push a little harder for a bit until you get to the juice.
A common issue I see come up for musicians: Slow social media progress.
While it’s not uncommon for this to move slowly, these musicians can almost always benefit from a bigger initial push to get them moving.
For a little while, be a bit more intense about creating, interacting with new people every day, learning about content.
You don’t have to be intense forever—but that extra initial push may be what you need to wake things up.
#6: On courage and skills.
If you want to be great, you need courage… but not just courage.
You also need skills—great ones.
It’s romantic to think “if I’m just brave enough to pursue my dreams I’ll be able to make it work”.
But I can tell you from my many previous failed attempts at a creative career, courage is not gonna cut it.
You need the skills to back up the courage, and while it’s a lot less romantic, it’s what will ultimately lead you to success.
Yes, be courageous.
But make sure that when you take that leap, you’ve got the skills to get you to the other side.
(This was inspired by Cal Newport’s book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”)
#7: Body language for musicians.
I recently filmed a bunch of music performance videos to use as examples in my course + coaching program, and it brought something very important to my attention.
Your energy and body language in your content matters a lot.
We communicate with body language way more than with words.
If your energy is low, or your body language closed off—yes, even in your content—people will feel it.
The artists we love to watch are cool and confident in their performances, not tense and awkward, and that includes artists who are shy people.
When I was first learning how to talk to a camera for social media, I was so tense and awkward.
My now fiance would constantly tell me to ‘loosen up’, ‘try not to be so robotic’.
If energy and body language is most of how we communicate, it makes sense that this is more important than anything else.
This is something I’ll be working on diligently moving forward, and I highly recommend you do it too—for the sake of your creative career 🙂
#8: Taking back creative control.
As a musician marketing yourself on social media in 2023, it can be easy to feel like you’re totally losing control of the creativity in your life.
Content creation, interacting with others, and everything else that isn’t directly working on music demands your attention.
But does this have to be such a terrible thing?
I’ve made the choice to see social media as an additional creative outlet on top of music.
It helps me articulate ideas, learn more about how to help others, and practically incorporate various other creative interests into my daily life:
- Writing
- Animations
- Creative strategy
- Design
- Editing
- And more.
I feel more creative now than when I was working as a music producer / composer.
Instead of viewing social media as something that sucks the creativity out of you, make the choice to make it creative.
It’s crazy how many musicians I speak to who only accept directly making music as a way to be creative in their lives.
But you have the choice. You can choose to see social media as a creative project if you want.
I’m not just saying this—this is not only a more rewarding way to approach social media, it’s also a more practical way.
The more creative you are, the better your work will be.
Don’t be one of those people who thinks business and marketing and branding can’t be creative.
Instead, choose creativity, and watch how life expands.
#9: On the assumption you can be better.
What would happen if you started telling yourself how capable you are?
What if instead of hitting a wall and saying “well, guess I’m just not good enough”, you said “f—ck yeah, challenge accepted!”
You are better than you think—way better.
Or at least you could be.
But you have to tell yourself a good story.
You’ve got this.
I hope you enjoyed these!
All the love and talk soon,
Alex
