Many musicians are on the verge of giving up on social media.
They’ve lost faith in its ability to help them get their music heard and build a fan base.
And it’s not helping that they keep getting shallow advice that doesn’t move them forward.
It’s not like they’re not trying. They are; it’s just not working.
But does this mean there’s no hope?
Are musicians doomed to never get their music heard?
No. You can beat this.
It’s still achievable—as always—with the right approach.
Today I’ll share some of the most useful information you’ll ever hear about marketing.
Upon first hearing it, you might think you know it all already.
But stick with me, because if things aren’t working there’s a good chance that you don’t know it as well as you think.
And even if you do know it and you’re doing, at least you’ll know you’re doing this part right.
We’re talking about getting people into the right emotional state to take in your music.
If you can nail this, your whole outlook on social media will change.
You ready?
Let’s start with one of the biggest misunderstandings surrounding musicians and social media.
They’re in the wrong state for your music.
Many musicians make the crucial mistake of not thinking like an audience.
They don’t realise this:
How they understand and feel about their music is not how others understand and feel about it.
If you go into social media expecting strangers to immediately ‘get’ your music the same way you do…
…you’re in for a rude awakening.
You might feel a strong emotional connection to your music, and even your content.
And so you might expect it to immediately have a similar impact on others.
But for that to work, you need to get them in a state where they’re ready to receive your music.
Think about it like this:
If you’re shopping on a Saturday and you hear a song playing over the speakers in the background of the shopping centre…
…are you going to pay any real attention to it?
No. And that song could be a #1 hit, loved by millions all over the world.
The song could have defined that artist’s career.
But you hear it in a shopping centre and give it no thought at all.
At most you might hum it while you shop.
Why aren’t you having a stronger emotional reaction to it?
Why aren’t you dropping everything to pay attention to that song?
Because of the context.
You’re going shopping. You’re not in the right state of mind to feel the song in that way.
This is the majority of people on social media.
Almost no one is already in the right state to receive your song in the way you want them to.
Artists who get a good response when they post their music on social media know to prep their audience.
They immediately pull people into that emotional state with their videos.
They get people ready for the song.
When someone scrolls on to their video, they’re no longer mindlessly scrolling.
They’re suddenly awake, paying attention, and primed to receive good music.
Most musicians don’t know how to do this.
They copy what other artists do on the platforms, then when it doesn’t work they think the game is rigged.
It’s not rigged—you’re just not playing it right (yet).
You’re stealing their answer to the test, but you don’t understand the question.
And the question is everything. We’ll come back to that shortly.
But before I show you how to pull people into the right emotional state, let’s get one thing straight:
If you’ve been ignoring or not applying my advice on setting up a growth system to build your fan base, do this first.
I’ve talked about this frequently over the last few months. If you’re new here and don’t know what it is, read this.
Without this in place, your efforts may go to waste.
If you skip this important step, you will feel like you’re going around in circles.
This is 99% of musicians—don’t be one of them.
But if you have done this, and you have excellent music…
…applying what I’m about to take you through will massively impact your success.
Ok, let’s get you some results.
How to pull people into the right emotional state to receive your music.
You have one goal when it comes to your music content:
To get people to feel something—and especially in the beginning of your videos.
If someone scrolls onto your video and there’s nothing there to snap them out of their mindless zombie state and into an ‘awake’ emotional state…
…these people subconsciously decide that ‘there’s nothing here for me’ and keep scrolling.
If you want them to stop and pay attention, you have to get them to feel—deeply and immediately.
That is your only goal right now—to prime them to take in your music.
And you either want them to feel the emotion that’s directly associated with your song (whether it’s excitement, sadness, anger, whatever)…
…or you want them to feel curious enough that they’ll keep watching, to actually give your music a chance.
If you’re currently putting no thought into the beginning of your videos… this will change your life.
But if you are already trying to do this (which is a lot of musicians) and it’s not working, read on.
Why musicians who try this fail (+ how to fix it):
Here’s where most musicians fall short on these (assuming their music and content is good):
They’re either too emotionally vague or generic, or they’re not inducing enough curiosity.
Let’s take the classic “I wrote this song about a difficult breakup I had” as an example.
Many musicians will use hooks like these and see little to no success with their music content.
This is because—in most cases—’hooks’ like these don’t do much for people nowadays.
If someone comes across you playing your song and you’ve got a generic hook like “I wrote this song about a breakup”…
…even if they’ve recently gone through a breakup, it’s not likely to impact them.
It touches on a vague emotion that may or may not be relatable to them. Everyone has gone through a breakup.
But it’s not enough for this person to feel seen or to tap into their deep attraction to story.
There’s no real power behind that.
And unless the video itself is incredible—mind blowing music, beautiful visuals, etc…
…they probably won’t stop for it, because every musician tries to do the same thing.
They’re bored of it. It doesn’t cut to their core.
But if we were to dive a little deeper into the emotion behind your breakup song, we can get them to perk up.
Our goal is to identify something stronger, something authentic and specific.
We want to make it impossible for people not to want to keep watching.
Instead of saying “this song is about a breakup” let’s dive into what makes this breakup so tough.
Imagine you’re having a conversation with a close friend about this breakup. What do you talk about?
Would you be like: “Yeah she broke up with me, it sucks…”?
No, right? If this breakup has affected you in a big way, you’ll have more to say.
How about this instead?
“Man, you know what hurts the most? Deep down, I knew it was coming. I could see her disconnecting. She gave me sign after sign and I didn’t do a fucking thing about it. I kept ignoring it, putting it off, and now it’s too late—she’s gone.”
Now that’s painful. That’s something people will feel if they’ve ever been through that.
And that’s where you’ll find the gold to put at the beginning of your video.
If you’d been in this situation, what would make you more likely to stop scrolling?
“POV: You just went through a breakup”
or
“POV: You just lost the love of your life because you ignored the signs and refused to change until it was too late.”
There’s a clear distinction between these.
One of them barely registers in the emotional brain.
The other cuts to your core. It makes you question your whole life and how you behave in meaningful relationships.
And it doesn’t have to be in this POV style. That’s only one way of delivering the feeling.
You could do it in any of the ways you’ve seen on TikTok or Instagram.
It’s about the feeling first—not the format.
- It could be the visuals that evoke a strong emotion
- Or something you say
- Or even the music itself—if it works in the context of social media.
Whatever it is, it’s all about the feeling. Focus on that.
Diving deeper like this will help you communicate the true emotion behind your music.
People will be in a better state, a more ready state, to receive your music.
If you’ve got your growth system sorted, you have great music, and you’ve been trying content with hooks but it hasn’t been working…
…this is your next step.
I even used this technique at the beginning of this email:
“Many musicians are on the verge of giving up on social media. They’ve lost faith in its ability to help them get their music heard and build a fan base.”
Imagine if instead I’d said: “Here’s how to create great hooks for your music content.”
Half of you reading this right now would have already gotten out of this letter.
It’s all about the feeling.
But what about…?
Now don’t get me wrong: Sometimes vague or generic hooks will work.
Or hooks that don’t seem curiosity inducing.
Sometimes.
You may see bigger artists doing stuff like that and getting great results.
That’s usually because:
- Their music quickly & easily connects to people in a social media setting
- There are other things about their videos that ‘hook’ people in
- Or both.
There’s no specific criteria. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
But don’t leave it to chance.
You also might say, “Alex, I’m doing this, and I’m doing it in the way you explained here… but it’s not working.”
My best guess:
- Most likely, you don’t have a good growth system set up
- The story, message, or emotion you’re tapping into isn’t resonating
- Or… your music isn’t resonating.
If you’re an experienced artist, it’s probably the first or second.
There is also volume to consider; not everything is going to work well.
I’ll be opening up consultations again soon if you need someone to assess your progress.
If you’d like to get on the list to book a call when I become available, let me know.
Another issue you might have is: “But my music doesn’t have some deep message, story, emotion, etc”….
There is always an emotion attached. Always.
But how you communicate it will depend on what it is.
You won’t promote ‘the perfect workout song’ the same way as ‘a song for when you’re in your darkest moment’.
Ask: What is this song about or what would it be perfect for?
Once you’ve got that answer, get in touch with the deeper emotions behind it. Keep going until you hit a spot that makes you feel something real.
That’s what you communicate at the beginning of your video.
If you can nail this, people will wake up when they stumble onto your content.
You’ve tapped into their feeling brain and they’re ready to listen.
Now you can hit them with your beautiful song and they’ll be primed to take it in.
So what should you do from here?
From now on, when music content catches your attention, figure out how.
It might hit you hard emotionally. Or it might induce curiosity.
Whatever it is, it’ll be a feeling.
You might not be able to see it immediately. You might come across something that seems generic or not ‘feely’ at all.
But sit with it for a bit. The more you pay attention the more you’ll start to see things you couldn’t before.
At the end of the day, music is in some way an emotional experience.
Over all else, your goal is to get people to feel.
If you can master this and you have your growth system sorted, you will be unstoppable.
I hope you got something from this one today!
Here’s a quick TL;DR in case you didn’t want to or couldn’t read the whole thing:
- The key to getting people’s attention is getting them to feel something strong.
- Most people aren’t in the right state to take your music in on social media—you need to prime them to receive it.
- You do this by tapping into a strong feeling associated with your music in the beginning of your video.
- Most musicians are too emotionally vague or generic with their content.
- Experiment with different ways of communicating the emotion(s) associated with your music.
- Master this + your growth system and you’ll be unstoppable.
Your music deserves to be heard. This will help you get there.
If you learned something today and you think it will help someone else, I’d really love it if you sent this to them.
They can also sign up to the newsletter here.
Finally, if you want to learn how to:
- Define your artist identity
- Create killer content
- Grow your fan base on social media
- Be more productive and efficient with social media
- Release your music…
I hope to see you in this next year.
All the love and talk soon,
Alex
