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Today we’re diving into the third law of music marketing on social media, which is continuity.
As I mentioned in the two previous letters about the “laws of music marketing”, these laws aren’t really laws.
They’re more just things that will help you a lot as you build yourself up on social media and online in general.
Google’s definition of continuity is “the unbroken and consistent existence or operation of something over time”.
And that is a great way to explain one of the major determinants of success as a musician on social media.
I’ve learned this the hard way, but when you’re building a presence, continuity (in various ways) is highly important.
Today we’re going to be talking about 4 major ways it matters:
- Being in front of people consistently and putting stuff out consistently
- Continuity of traffic—making sure there is always a stream of new people coming into your world.
- Continuity of identity and story.
- Consistent improvement and evolution over time.
The problem with short—term strategy.
All of this contributes to long-term success.
And long—term success is (I hope) obviously important.
In my opinion, there is way too big a focus nowadays on short—term strategy for musicians, and not nearly enough on long—term thinking.
And short—term strategy for sure matters.
Your long—term success includes a bunch of effective short—term strategies.
Many of the artists we see rising up on social media nowadays do a great job of being able to capture attention in the short term.
But long—term strategy is how you’ll make sure those short—term efforts are worth it.
These artists who are not only great at capturing attention in the moment but also keep people around are more than their last piece of content.
They aren’t just ‘the artist who did x video recently’, although that might be what gets them attention in the short—term.
They’re much more than that.
You could take away that recent viral video and there’d still be something solid there, something that leaves a proper mark.
Many of the musicians I talk to are focusing all their attention on short—term attention.
They’ve barely thought about the long—term in any real way.
Everything is:
- ‘this video didn’t perform well’
- ‘how can I get more streams for this release?’
- ‘how can I make something that gets attention right now?’
It’s this constant focus on only what’s right in front of them.
And it’s definitely not bad to be engaged with what’s right in front of you.
It’s not bad to focus on the present…
But it becomes a problem when they’re so narrowly focused on it that they completely lose sight of the long—term.
Artists will too quickly jump to some dodgy playlist service to bump their streams.
They won’t stop to think properly about whether or not that will do anything for them—or if it could potentially hurt them, which it could.
Or they’ll too quickly throw away almost everything that makes them unique, interesting, or credible for the chance to have a video blow up.
They’re not thinking about the potential consequences of doing that, such as:
- People seeing them a certain way (in a negative way)
- Setting the wrong expectations for the future
- Putting themselves in a box they don’t want to be in.
Or maybe they’ll pour all their energy into the perfect attention—grabbing short—term plan, but they have no idea what they’re going to do after it.
Maybe they run out of energy and they just… stop.
It’s nice to get attention right now, and that should be part of every musician’s strategy.
And I also don’t think it’s bad to have a bit of a “fuck it, I’ll figure it out” attitude, because that can be super helpful.
But you don’t want to have such bad tunnel vision that your efforts are negatively affecting your long—term success.
Because it’s the ability to sustain yourself, your presence that really makes you a winner.
It’s your ability to consistently put out great stuff, to keep people coming in, and to build a strong long—term connection.
If your entire plan is built around cheap material, quick attention or immediate results and you have no plan for how you’re going to do this for even the next year (forget 10—20 years)…
…you are much less likely to build something that stands the test of time.
Not saying it can’t be done—some people do do it.
But it’s not a super solid plan for most musicians.
It’s not easy to do.
It’s easy to think that being able to grab attention by any means possible is enough—that if you could do that you’d be able to figure the rest out.
But in reality it’s much more difficult.
I’ll give you a couple of examples of how important it is to think about the long—term:
Continuity Error #1: Traffic & Attention
First is this band that blew up on TikTok (and kind of Instagram) in 2022.
They had a string of super viral videos, 5 videos in a row.
One of them got over 60 million views, and the rest all surpassed like 3 million. Crazy.
People went ballistic.
They loved these videos.
Everyone was asking for their Spotify, hounding them for music.
But they didn’t have any music.
They had “new music coming soon”.
Ok, not ideal, but these videos did really well and maybe if they were able to get it out reasonably quickly it would be fine.
And maybe if they kept showing up on socials in the meantime, they’d be able to hold attention and keep people coming in so that when they did start releasing it was a massive success…
What happened?
They disappeared.
They stopped posting entirely.
They didn’t release music. They still haven’t, and it’s 2024 now.
People have been asking for music but the attention is really dwindling now.
I even had to work pretty hard to find the band on TikTok and Instagram because I forgot their name.
This band has made a potentially fatal mistake:
There’s no continuity.
- There’s no continuity with their output
- There’s no consistent traffic
- They’re not building long—term connections
- There’s nothing solid to grab onto.
All there is is a few viral videos from a couple of years ago and a bunch of people saying ‘such a shame they disappeared’.
Of course I have no idea what’s going on with them.
There could be all kinds of legitimate reasons why they’ve disappeared.
But from a marketing perspective, this is not ideal.
These guys had a short—term strategy, which was highly successful.
But from an outside perspective, they don’t seem to have had a long—term strategy.
They had no plan for continuity, and it has most likely cost them a lot of long—term attention and connection.
Not saying they can’t make a comeback.
But you see the problem here, right?
That short—term plan was great, and it worked.
But what happened after that?
Nothing.
Continuity Error #2: Identity & Story
Here’s another example which is coming from a different angle.
This artist is actually doing quite well now, but I want to point out the struggle I observed watching from the sidelines.
As many artists did or do, this artist built up a presence on social media by posting covers.
She has a great voice and her cover videos performed really well.
On TikTok, she fully blew up.
And on Instagram, her videos would reach at minimum around ten thousand people every time she posted.
Eventually, she decided to pivot into releasing original music.
She did a whole rebrand for this—a whole new different artist identity.
This, in my opinion, is always a slippery slope when you’ve built a big audience who’s come to expect a certain thing from you.
To change basically everything about your brand strategy at this point doesn’t always work out how you want.
People can quickly lose interest if all of a sudden they’re getting something they didn’t sign up for.
That’s what happened with this artist.
I watched from the sidelines as her following decreased and her views plummeted.
It’s not that her original music was bad or anything, but people were there for the covers.
It was all she posted for ages.
And now they’re suddenly getting totally different music and a totally different version of this artist.
That lack of continuity threw a spanner in the works.
There’s a good chance this artist could have either started from scratch again or just gone straight into releasing original music from the start…
…and ended up in the same place (if not a better place).
It’s very possible she was putting stuff out…
It was going to people who weren’t interested anymore…
And her videos were stopping dead because the algorithm was getting feedback that the posts weren’t good (when they actually were).
This cover path was good for capturing attention initially, but a lot of it disappeared with the pivot.
And although, again, I’m making assumptions based on what I can see on the outside (so I could be totally wrong)…
…the however many months—or years—this artist spent doing these cover videos could have been used to build up a presence for her original music.
It’s not super obvious to me that the cover path was worth the investment.
Because it ultimately didn’t seem to translate to anything except maybe a bit of social proof (which to be fair is not nothing).
Again, I could be wrong about this particular case.
I don’t know what’s been going on behind the scenes.
But based on what I can see, this lack of continuity made life harder for this artist.
There’s a good chance she had to face a lot of unnecessary resistance to get things working how she wanted.
I’ll reiterate though—she’s not doing a bad job at all.
It could be a lot worse, and I’ve seen a lot worse.
Her views are much lower than what they used to be when she was posting covers, and her following doesn’t seem to have increased on social media…
But really, her views are fine.
Her following is still impressive.
She does have legit fans of her original stuff, and she’s been working super hard to stay consistent with this new path and build it up.
Massive respect to her for being able to pull it off.
Not everyone can do it.
More than anything with this example, I want to demonstrate how much continuity (or lack of it) can impact your success.
This case is a great example of the resistance you’ll likely face if you don’t stay consistent with your artist identity and/or your fundamental approach to building up a presence.
Sometimes a pivot is totally necessary.
Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus—both obviously child stars—needed to do it.
I think in both of those cases it was a smart move, to completely seperate from their original brand strategy and reinvent themselves.
They’re both still massive and I think if they hadn’t drawn a clear line and caused a bit of drama with these ‘shocking’ rebrands, they wouldn’t be as big as they are today.
They could very possibly have ended up fading away if they kind of stayed as they were when they were kids… but just got older, you know?
It’s much more interesting in these scenarios to be striking, to be bold, and clearly show the world “I’m not a kid anymore”.
So sometimes it’s the right (or even only) move in my opinion.
But it seems very difficult to pull off, and if you can avoid it, I would try to.
I know more artists who—in the last few years—have blown up on social media and then pivoted who aren’t doing well now, than artists who are after a pivot.
So we’ll leave this bit here, but we will come back to this continuity of identity because there’s more to talk about.
I hope these two examples give you a bit of an idea of how important continuity can be in multiple ways when it comes to marketing and building a presence.
Now let’s go through each of the 4 ways continuity matters in more detail. As a reminder, they are:
- Being in front of people consistently and putting stuff out consistently
- Continuity of traffic—making sure there is always a stream of new people coming into your world.
- Continuity of identity and story.
- Consistent improvement and evolution over time.
We’ll start with being in front of people and putting stuff out.
1. Consistent output.
Many musicians understandably struggle with this.
It’s not easy to keep churning out high quality music and content at the rate social media demands.
In an ideal world where you have endless time and energy, a great plan would be to release a new musical masterpiece something like every month in perpetuity…
…and have at least 20 amazing videos to promote each song. Something like that.
I know not everyone can do that, and I’m not saying it doesn’t suck for a lot of people.
But if we were robots with no other priorities, responsibilities, or human things that make life less simple, this would be something to aim for.
And if you do feel like that’s doable for you as a human, I highly recommend you go for something like that (if it makes sense for you).
This kind of consistent output and being in front of people constantly over a long period is a huge part of how you will see success on social media.
It is a major, albeit simple part of a good solid plan.
And it’s something that often gets overlooked in this world obsessed with fast results and short—term strategy.
It’s difficult to make some people understand this when they’re impatient, or they’ve already been playing this game for a while.
And I get it.
But as unexciting as it sounds, it is just so important to know that sticking with it over a long period and actually being consistent with it is a crucial part of winning this game.
Here are a few reasons why it’s so important:
The Rule of 7…. 30?
First, there’s the marketing rule of 7.
If you haven’t heard of this before, it’s this “rule” that says people generally need to encounter a brand’s message multiple times (at least 7 according to this) before they take proper action on it.
In your case, this could mean people need to encounter you multiple times before they..
- Follow you
- Go across to Spotify to listen to your song
- Buy something, or something else.
This is not always the case, of course.
Some people will act instantly.
But this is generally how it will work for a lot of people.
And I have personally seen this in action, both in my own behaviour and in people who interact with me.
I’ll come across some creator on Instagram and watch one of their videos.
I might think it’s great, and maybe even follow them, but it’ll stop there—for now.
I’m not sold on this person yet and if giving them my attention will make my life better.
Then I’ll start seeing more of their stuff, and my relationship with them will start to change.
If they keep delivering the goods, I’ll start to like them a lot more.
And eventually if—they’re offering something that can help me, like a product or service—I might check it out and buy it.
It’s often the same with artists I discover on social media.
First I’ll see and hear a song that’s totally new to me, and I might think “that’s kind of cool”… or I might not even barely register it.
But after I see and hear the song a bunch more times…
I wind up on their Spotify, following them, adding the song to my library, falling in love with it, and playing it on repeat.
A few days later, I’m asking how it’s possible that I didn’t realise how awesome this was the first time I heard it.
On the other side of it, I’ll get messages on social media from people who say something like “I’ve seen your stuff come up on my Explore page for a while but this last post I saw made me want to follow you”.
Not everyone immediately follows.
Sometimes they need to see quite a bit before they act.
Same with my coaching. Sometimes I’ll end up working with musicians who have been following me for 2 years.
They’ve decided now is the right time for whatever reason, after 2 years of taking in the free stuff.
This “marketing rule of 7” is a real thing.
And chances are, nowadays with all the noise on social media, it’s probably a lot more than 7 encounters.
Some people have been seeing my stuff on their Explore for months before they decide to follow me.
There was one band I discovered on TikTok that got in front of me more than 20 times over a month before I realised I loved their song.
You might think this is bullshit and you might think this doesn’t reflect your own behaviour.
But I bet it does.
If you actually observe yourself, I bet you could notice times where you’ve had multiple encounters with someone or something before you acted on it.
This belief that a lot of musicians seem to have that if your music doesn’t connect with people right away, it’s not good… is just wrong.
Sometimes you will hear something for the first time and freak out over how good it is.
But super often things have to grow on you over time.
Some of my favourite albums of all time took multiple listens to really stick.
A lot of bands and artists I love now I didn’t even like when I first heard them.
You need to understand how people work.
You need to continue to give people the chance to properly pay attention to, register, and fall in love with your stuff.
If your promotion strategy is relying on people needing to immediately connect and fall in love with you the first time they encounter you, it’s a very weak strategy.
Because those “instant fans” are only a small part of who you could have become die hard fans.
A lot of people will need to see and hear you at least multiple times before they even properly notice you.
And if you don’t believe me, go and look for yourself on social media.
The evidence is everywhere.
Go to comment sections and see what people are saying about how the artist won them over after showing up on their feed multiple times.
Do not underestimate the power of multiple encounters.
You need to continue to get in front of people.
And the longer you do this, the more people you’ll attract.
And assume this rule of 7 is more likely a rule of 20 or 30—because nowadays things are crazy.
Familiarity bias.
Another reason this repeated exposure is powerful is because of familiarity bias.
This is a cognitive bias in which people seem to like people and things that are more familiar to them.
I also see this is a bit of a cheat code.
To understand this concept and embrace it gives you an advantage over other artists on social media.
Because many artists will focus all of their energy on being the best.
They’ll aim to create, say, just a few videos and hope that they will do the work of many videos because they’re just so good.
And in a lot of cases, this kind of thinking is great.
Typically, that’s the side I’d be on. Do less stuff, but be better at it so you stand out.
But the truth is, when it comes to social media, almost all the evidence suggests that higher frequency leads to better results (as long as the stuff is still great).
For most artists, it seems that pouring all your energy into just a few videos is less likely to produce the result they want…
Even if the videos end up better.
The extra investment of time and energy into those few videos often isn’t worth the return you get—at least not until you get really good at knowing how to make stuff that people respond to.
What I’m seeing in almost all cases is that simply being in front of people more often (still with great stuff, but not perfect) gets you further.
Although there are a handful of musicians who don’t put new things out frequently and still get somewhere decent, the vast majority will benefit from doing it.
That familiarity bias is not a small piece of the puzzle.
It’s a big one.
It’s an almost annoying, simple advantage.
Being in front of people more often will likely mean they end up getting more into you.
But slippery slope here. Be careful.
Do not be one of those musicians who prioritises attention over actually being good.
We don’t want to train people to see artists as cheap or dispensable.
There’s currently a huge problem with some musicians holding people’s attention on social media because they’re objectively bad and they’re leaning into it, stoking the fire for engagement.
They’re almost mocking the need to be ‘good’ at your craft, and they’re hiding behind “you must just not like my style”.
I have a problem with this. I think it’s damaging.
I haven’t formed a proper, solid opinion on this yet, but when I have I’ll do an episode on it, because it really bugs me and I want to be able to make a strong argument for why it’s bad.
But just be careful about what you’re focused on.
If you’ve made some beautiful music and you want more people to see and hear it, lean into this cheat code of familiarity bias and don’t try to make all your content perfect, because it likely won’t pay off the way you want it to.
But don’t get sucked into prioritising attention over making great stuff.
Keep it real.
Because once you realise how easy it can be to get attention by cutting corners, you might be tempted, especially if you struggle to get attention by doing it the ‘right’ way.
Building a catalog.
Ok, another reason why we want to lean into this consistent output over a long period is because you want to build up a catalog of stuff.
Put simply, the more music you have for people to inhale, the better.
I can personally attest to this, and I’m sure you can too.
If I discover an artist and fall in love, and they have a mountain of music for me to go through, I’m very happy.
What will often happen is people discover an artist’s new music, they fall in love, and then they start going back to their older stuff.
My own experience has been that I’ll reach a certain point with an artist where—if they’ve got enough stuff out—I’ll make the decision to listen to every single thing they’ve put out, even if the songs are years old.
Continuing to put stuff out over a long time can have massive payoffs, in terms of listener dedication, emotional connection, and income.
It compounds. It snowballs.
If you have 1 release and you get 1 new listener this week, that’s only going to go so far, right?
If you have 20 releases, that 1 listener could potentially do a whole lot more for you, and you for them.
Now imagine you had 10,000 dedicated fans.
Or 100,000.
Or a million.
Having 20 releases is going to do heaps for you.
All the people who discover your new stuff have the option to go back and engage with your older stuff.
And on top of this…
If you continue to release new stuff essentially forever, this compounding effect will only go further.
- New people constantly come in from your new releases
- They stick around and listen to all the new stuff you put out after that
- But they also go back and listen to all the old stuff
By continuing to put stuff out over a long period, you are getting tons more out of one listener.
Tons more.
Also, if I know an artist is reliably releasing new stuff every month or whatever, I continue to pay attention.
A lot of my most streamed artists are artists who just keep putting stuff out.
Almost every time I look at my Release Radar, they’re there in some way.
These artists get my attention because they are always in my line of sight.
I know some of you won’t like to hear this, and I want to be clear that I totally understand where you’re coming from.
It’s frustrating for artists who like (or need) to take their time to produce really great stuff.
It’s not realistic for everyone to churn out songs month after month.
And you don’t have to do that.
I’m just telling you what seems to work best, and you can do whatever you want with that information.
But there’s just no denying that this consistent output of stuff pays off.
This also applies to content, and the benefits are the same.
The more stuff you put out, the more story you have for people to take in.
People become more emotionally invested over time as they see you evolve and they get to know more about you through content.
They’re more often thinking about you because you’re in their line of sight.
You’re more likely to become a regular part of their day if you just keep showing up.
And contrary to popular belief, even your short form content can have a longer shelf life than you think.
Everyone likes to talk about how when make a post on Instagram or TikTok it’s basically dead to the world after a few days.
But that isn’t necessarily true.
If you make good stuff, you bring people into your world, and they start to more frequently interact with you, these platforms can show you their older stuff.
I’ve been seeing posts from artists and personalities I like that are up to a year old…
Just because I’ve been taking in a lot of their new stuff.
As I’m showing interest in the person, the platform is feeding me more of their story.
It works in a similar way to having a catalog of music.
The more stuff you have for people to consume, the more you can get from each person who comes into your world, and the more they can get from you.
- Again, new people constantly come in from your new posts
- They stick around and check out all the new stuff you put out after that
- But they also get shown or go back and look at the old stuff
Continuity, right? It’s huge.
The impact is huge.
A simple but major part of a marketing strategy for a musician nowadays is to just keep putting stuff out.
Managing this.
So this consistent output and always being in front of people is the ideal, when we look at what generates results.
But I understand it’s not easy for everyone to do this.
And musicians (understandably) seem to struggle with consistently putting stuff out on social media more than making lots of music.
And when they struggle to make lots of music, it’s often because they’re distracted by social media.
Not an ideal setup, I know.
So before we move on to the next bit, here are a few short tips for making the social media side more possible and more manageable.
These aren’t perfect and they’re not all going to work for you, but it’ll give you some stuff to think about.
Close the gap.
One thing is to try and close the gap between what you do in real life and what you put out on social media.
If you spend most of your time in the studio, find a way to record yourself doing whatever you do on a regular basis.
If it’s practising your instrument or running through your songs, you can record that.
Once you’ve got a nice recording setup sorted, this doesn’t have to be time or energy—consuming.
You could even just pick one day a week to record yourself.
You record enough footage to last you a week and then cut that footage up into 5—7 videos.
There will be some other challenges involved here, like making sure the footage would make sense and be interesting to strangers and your existing fans…
But that can be workshopped.
If you’ve done a nice job of recording the video, the audio is great, and you’re playing or performing exciting stuff, you’ve done most of the work.
From there, it might just be a matter of using some text to hook people in and/or provide context.
Or it might be a matter of selecting the right snippets.
I’m not saying it’s always this simple, but it could be.
It could at least most likely be less complicated than what you think.
Even if you have to take a few extra steps to get something good.
That’s not what this episode is about, but if you need help with making a good, solid, sustainable social media plan, that’s something I can help you with personally.
If you’re interested in having a call or even working together longer term, you can check out your options here.
One thing I do to make this easier for myself is to make content about things I’m currently experiencing in real life, or that musicians I’m working with are going through.
It’s easy for me to come up with ideas, because those ideas are basically just ‘what am I or what are the musicians I’m working with currently experiencing?’
Food for thought if you’re sharing thoughts, ideas, or stories.
Lean into your strengths.
Another thing you can do is lean into your strengths, which overlaps with what we just talked about.
There are all kinds of ways you can make your content more impactful.
And chances are you have at least one strength in this department, whether you know it or not.
- If you’re good at editing, lean into that.
- If you’re good at writing, lean into that.
- If you’re good at storytelling, lean into that.
- If you suck at all of that but you’re an exceptional musician, show us your skills. You’d be surprised at just how effective a simple plan like showing up every day and playing through your songs can be.
- Or if you’re good at writing short musical ideas daily, show us those. Just find a simple way to present them nicely.
When it comes to being effective on social media, it helps to know your strengths and weaknesses.
There is almost always something you can do that will be less exhausting for you, specifically, and that has the potential to work.
As a general guideline, having nice looking videos and great audio helps a lot, especially if your strategy is as simple as showing up and playing or performing.
But if you’re great at writing or storytelling or sharing off the cuff thoughts and ideas, you might not have to worry so much about that stuff.
Once you really start to understand why people respond to certain things, you can be smart about what you do.
You prioritise what you’re good at (whether it’s editing, writing, speaking, or just playing, or whatever)…
And then you find the easiest path to turning that into something digestible and appealing for social media.
All my content is written first.
It’s so much easier for me than anything else.
Every morning except Saturday I get up and write anywhere from 1000 — 5000 words.
Given this is something I love and look forward to every morning, it’s something I should lean into for content, right?
So it’s the basis for everything I do.
^This is me prioritising what I’m good at first.
But then I need to find the easiest path (for me) to making this digestible and appealing for social media.
That could just be written posts.
I could essentially do no extra work and that might be fine.
But I wanted to stand out and make stuff that was more fun and that would perform even better.
So after a bit of experimenting, I found the easiest path for me was to make little animations to accompany the spoken messages.
I could have also gone down the path of talking head videos, but for my current setup that’s a lot more effort.
The animations are more fun to make.
They generally perform better for me.
And the process of creating them is easier than recording myself and editing those videos.
So they’re an obvious win for me.
Knowing that people on these platforms like short, hard—hitting messages, and they also like visually entertaining stuff, I found a path for me that doesn’t feel too hard.
And you can do that for yourself.
Do what you love to do and what you’re good at…
And then find a way to make it emotionally compelling, entertaining, visually interesting, and digestible for the platforms you’re on.
There is no one best way to go for everyone.
You need to find a path that has the least resistance for you.
As a musician, people may respond to impressive skills—like if you’re an amazing player, rapper, or singer, showcase that in your videos.
If you can make those videos look and sound great too, that’s a win for you.
They may also respond to great stories.
If your music is heavy on the storytelling, share those stories, because people may relate and get connected that way.
Or they might respond to really solid imagery that elevates your music in the context of social media.
If you can create a really compelling world with artistically relevant clips or scenes or images or whatever that go with your music, that could work.
Whatever it is, find what you love, what you’re good at, and what’s digestible for a social media setting.
It might take you a while to figure this out—which is why you should experiment as much as possible—but once you do you’ll feel things flow.
Systemise wherever you can.
Ok, another quick tip for making this sustainable and being able to continuously put stuff out is systemising wherever you can.
As you get further into creating on a regular basis, you’ll start to find that a lot of what you do can be turned into a system that makes everything smoother.
For example, you might develop a system for generating great ideas.
Maybe every time you need to come up with new stuff, you go for a walk because they come out so much easier.
Or maybe you dedicate 30 minutes every Sunday to watching a bunch of stuff you love and then use that to inspire your ideas for the week.
Or maybe you realise that if you use certain templates or mental frameworks that you can put together great and effective ideas easily.
You learn this stuff as you go.
Just pay attention and you’ll see things more clearly over time.
Same with the recording or editing process.
The more you get into this, the more you’ll see where you can create shortcuts that don’t compromise the quality of your work.
I’m sure by now you’ve heard of batching.
In most cases, I highly recommend this.
Get into the habit of recording and editing everything in one block of time, instead of having to do that every day and wearing yourself out.
Over time you may also be able to create editing templates or presets, where you can just throw a recorded video into your editor, apply the template, and most of your work is done for you.
Or maybe you develop a system every week for creating a varied and interesting batch of content for each week.
For example:
- 3x performance videos
- 2x talking head videos
- 2x written posts
You can follow something like that without having to think so much each week about what you’re doing.
Saving brain power is super underrated when it comes to making this sustainable.
Hopefully you get the idea.
You want to learn how to shorten and systemise your efforts so you can continue to put lots of great stuff out.
As you start to take continuity in marketing more seriously, systemising and making things sustainable becomes more important to you.
So again, just pay attention, and look for things you do repeatedly, or look for processes that are really effective, and find ways to streamline.
Repurposing.
One more thing you can do to better manage the social media side is embrace repurposing.
This is going to be one of your best friends as you get further and further into this game.
It’s not always going to be possible to create beautiful new stuff when you need it.
Life gets crazy sometimes, and you need to be able to continue to show up in those moments.
Do not be afraid to repost or repurpose stuff you’ve created.
Every few months, if you nail the next part of continuity that we’ll talk about in a minute, you should be able to reuse some of your content without it feeling dull and too repetitive.
So let’s say you’ve constantly got new people coming into your world.
Not all of those people are going to see all your old stuff that you put out.
But some of that old stuff is probably great, and it probably helped bring in a bunch of new people, right?
Use it again.
Use it to bring in a new batch of people every once in a while.
Take the pressure off having to always create some amazing new thing.
And if you’re worried about the people who have already seen it, a few things:
- First, if they loved the video, I’m sure they’re fine seeing it again, especially if most of what you put out is new.
- Second, half of them have probably forgotten about it.
- And third, if you want to play it safe, change something about the video.
- Change the hook to reframe the post as a throwback.
- If it’s a performance video, use a slightly different part of the song or something.
- Do something with the edits that makes it feel new but without creating a whole new thing.
There are plenty of ways to reuse your stuff without boring people to death.
If your strategy involves video and writing, turn videos into written things if you can.
Turn written things into video.
If your strategy involves telling your story, tell the same thing in a bunch of different ways:
- Speak it in a video directly—like a talking head video
- Write it in text in a video—put it over a video of you showcasing your music
- Use it in the caption—put it under a video of you showcasing your music
- Do a voiceover in a video—put it over some b—roll footage of you being an artist.
When you start getting into this mindset of milking your content, and also of getting as much as you can out of each song you release, you’ll start to see what you can get away with.
Reuse hooks.
Reuse formats.
Reuse ideas and songs and whatever.
Releasing social media content is not the same as releasing songs.
You can’t release the same song onto Spotify every 3 months.
But you can release the same post on social media every 3 months, and it’s much easier to slightly alter it to make it interesting.
Also, one social media post is not equivalent to one song.
I know this sounds super obvious, but many musicians don’t know how to create more than one or two posts about a song.
One song demands more than one or two posts.
It’s worth way too much to only give it that kind of love on social media.
Reuse and repurpose. Don’t be shy.
Ok, so continuing to get yourself in front of people a lot and continuing to release stuff is a major, major part of marketing.
It doesn’t really sound like a marketing tip, but I really cannot stress the importance of this.
It’s easy to think about marketing only in terms of tactics that apply to individual posts or campaigns or songs or whatever.
But the reality is nowadays showing up repeatedly is such a massive part of it.
A single successful campaign or post or song or whatever rarely means too much if you can’t back it up with this continuity.
You may think that a viral moment will change your life, that once that happens to you, you’re set.
But it’s not at all true, not by default anyway.
It’s super common to see an artist gain a ton of attention overnight, and lose it just as fast because they couldn’t continue to show up, or show up in the right way.
Do not underestimate the power of showing up and continuing to put stuff out over a long time.
#2: Continuity of traffic.
Ok, so we got that big one out of the way.
Let’s now talk about continuity of traffic.
I talk about this all the time, and musicians need to hear it just as much today as they did this time last year and the year before that.
If you want to continue to grow, you need to continue to drive traffic to you and your music.
Without consistent traffic, you don’t have consistent growth.
You need to make sure that—alongside showing up regularly to put stuff out—you are actually reaching new people.
It is a big mistake to automatically assume that showing up consistently means generating traffic consistently.
I cannot tell you how many musicians I know or have calls with who don’t have a solid traffic plan.
They may be doing all this work to put out great music and great content, but the traffic just isn’t there.
This is often because these musicians make the (incorrect) assumption that by simply releasing things and posting on social media, traffic is guaranteed.
That when they post, they will automatically reach enough people.
That when they upload to Spotify, people will automatically hear it.
If this is you right now, please hear me: You need a better traffic plan.
If you’re showing up consistently, you’re making great stuff, and nothing is changing…
It’s very likely you have a traffic problem.
A strong traffic plan is a plan that, when executed properly, results in a more stable, reliable flow of traffic.
You want new people to be discovering you and your music all the time.
You want to be able to wake up every morning and have evidence that new people have found you.
If your strategy doesn’t include a plan for this, it’s not a good strategy.
If posting the amount you’re posting isn’t driving much or any traffic, that shouldn’t be your traffic plan.
Not your whole plan at least.
And you can easily see if it’s driving traffic by looking at your analytics.
You can literally see if it’s reaching new people when you post.
If you’re barely posting and you’re not getting traffic, try posting more and see what changes.
You might find that your flow of traffic drastically increases.
And if you can keep that up, great.
That’s kind of the ideal situation, right?
It’s simple and repeatable and potentially doesn’t have to cost much, if anything.
But that’s not always super reliable.
Sometimes you can’t reach the people you need with organic content, even when you’re posting a lot.
Sometimes they change things and it stops your posts from getting out there to enough people.
Or sometimes the stuff you’re putting out doesn’t appeal to the people in this context.
Not every musician will get the same result by posting the same amount and posting the same kind of stuff.
For a bunch of reasons, sometimes things just won’t work.
We cannot automatically rely on organic content for traffic.
If you’re not getting the reach from organic content, don’t just ignore the situation.
You need to change something.
You could go down the path of learning how to make stuff that does appeal to people in this way.
This is something I highly recommend if you’re up for it, but you have to understand what you’re getting into.
If you’re willing to learn how to play the social media game properly, it can really pay off.
It’s very possible to become so good at making content that it gets a solid response and drives traffic consistently…
But you’ve gotta understand it’s not an easy thing.
You can’t expect to show up, not learn or experiment much at all, and have your posts do really well and drive lots of traffic.
The default is things not working how you want.
And you have to build up to making them work how you want.
So if you’re up for going down that road, great.
Because it means that in future you’ll be able to have a lot of control over how many people you can reach and you might be able to do it largely for free, or just with a bit of paid assistance.
But not every musician wants to become a full on ‘content creator’ and pour so much energy into that side of things.
Completely understandable, and for some musicians it’s not the best approach anyway.
The good news is that’s it not the only path.
You can drive consistent traffic in other ways.
I still highly recommend you have some kind of content strategy, but you don’t have to rely only on that to drive all your traffic.
You just have to understand that if you’re not going to pour energy or resources into that area, you’re going to have to pour them into another one.
Paid traffic.
So another option is paid traffic.
There is nothing wrong with or weird about having to pay for traffic.
It’s not cheating.
It doesn’t mean you’re terrible and no one loves your music.
There aren’t many industries where businesses expect to not have to put money into their marketing.
This is no different.
Just because you’re an artist doesn’t mean paid traffic is suddenly wrong.
No other business would ever think like that.
You may hold the belief that if you can’t get people to respond to your music organically that means it’s not good.
Maybe you think that running ads is for musicians whose music isn’t good enough to get attention simply by posting.
But many musicians don’t fully understand how ads work.
You’re not paying for people to respond to your stuff.
It’s not forcing people to like it.
You’re paying for your music to be put in front of people who are likely to like it, and then they have the choice to act on it or not.
You’re not paying for a response. You’re paying for visibility.
And if the people who see you once you become visible like it, they’ll respond.
If they don’t, they won’t.
The belief that running ads means your music isn’t good is simply wrong.
It could mean you’re not good at getting visibility—that’s plausible.
But that could have nothing to do with the quality of your music and everything to do with the quality of your content.
And it doesn’t even always mean that.
Having to pay for traffic doesn’t even automatically mean your content isn’t good.
There are countless examples of artists with great music and great content whose stuff doesn’t get pushed out properly, for any number of reasons.
You need to break this belief that paying for traffic is a bad thing.
And I hope that understanding what it really does will help you with that.
So let’s say we’re on the same page about paid traffic being a totally acceptable and viable option.
(Obviously you need to be able to put money into this, so we’ll continue with this assuming you have that)
And a reminder: If you don’t have money to put into your marketing, then you’ve got to turn back to free options.
And you might not like the free options.
So you’ve got to be willing to make some sacrifice somewhere.
How do I approach paid traffic?
Ok, so you’re considering paid traffic as an option.
What now? What do you do?
Well, what you shouldn’t automatically do is reach for the option that’s right in front of you and expect it to work.
Another thing you need to understand about paid traffic is that—just like getting good at creating high performing content—it comes with challenges, skills to learn, and lots of experimentation.
There are great ways to run ads and terrible ways to run ads.
Generally speaking, the thing that’s right in front of you will be the option to just boost your post.
There’ll be a big blue or red button that encourages you to just let the platform handle it for you, and that platform will imply you can get everything you want by doing this.
Sometimes this can actually be a good option.
I’ve been helping an artist recently who’s tried this and it’s actually worked well.
They’ve put some stuff out, generated a decent response naturally from a post or two, and a simple boost has helped those posts reach a ton of new people.
And very importantly, this has actually translated to new fans.
I’m talking new, genuine listeners, who are now following this artist on Spotify and on social media, and who are actually listening and interacting.
And I’m talking a pretty solid conversion rate.
We’re seeing easily enough of a conversion to justify this.
But…I would say this is not the typical outcome from simply boosting posts.
This specific example was on Instagram.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this work on TikTok and I don’t recommend it.
But for both platforms, most of the time I wouldn’t recommend this.
If you:
- Hit the right audience
- Are promoting great content
- And have been able to generate some interest organically first with the post…
It’s worth a try.
But if you try it and after a bit you notice it hasn’t actually done anything for you, stop.
Because like 8 times out 10 it doesn’t work, and you don’t want to fuck yourself over here.
So what’s a better approach?
By far, the most success I’ve seen for artists when it comes to running ads, is heading to the backend of Meta.
If you are considering paid traffic, this is what I’d recommend first and foremost.
What I’ve seen work—and I know this is the case for many other artists I haven’t talked to or worked with as well—is running conversions campaigns through Meta’s ads manager.
I don’t want to go too deep into these specific types of ads because I want to keep this episode about the “law of continuity”.
And you can do some research on these specific types of campaigns.
But basically these are campaigns you run from the ads manager that target the right kinds of people.
People who not only pay attention to and click on ads, but who are more likely to follow through with the entire process they’re prompted to go through.
In the music marketing world, this means they’ll:
- Click on the ad, which comes up on Instagram and/or Facebook, and which will take them to a landing page with links to your song on one or more DSPs.
- They’ll then click the link to go over to a DSP, like Spotify, and that will take them to the song or release or your profile.
- Once they land there, they’ll actually listen to the song.
- And if they like it, they might save it, add it to a playlist, follow you on Spotify, and follow you on social media too.
From what I’ve seen, these are by far the best bang for your buck when it comes to ads for your music.
And it’s very important to understand that not every kind of ad you try to run will get people all the way from seeing your ad to this point.
That’s a common mistake.
These are a specific type of ad targeted at a specific type of person who is shown to behave in a specific way on the internet.
The downside is these ads require some learning and a lot of experimentation to get good at.
But although the results can vary from campaign to campaign, they are one of the most reliable ways to drive consistent traffic.
And this traffic actually leads to a better future.
Provided you continue to show up on a regular basis, the people who convert from these ads are more likely to continue to support you.
They’ll already be there for your next release.
A lot of paid traffic options don’t offer this benefit, not as directly at least.
Musicians that could barely generate attention on social media organically have run these ads and seen:
- Streaming growth
- Spotify follower growth
- Social media growth
- And an increase in engagement overall.
Once you get past the initial learning curve, and if you’re willing to spend a bit of money to get to a good place with them, they are super reliable.
Couple that with a good content strategy, and you have a very simple, but very decent plan that actually benefits you long term.
Of course there are other traffic methods too, and different ways to run ads.
But I don’t want to cover them here because these are the ones I know most about, and these are also the ones I see most commonly working.
Find your best option.
In the last year, I’ve been working with a bunch of musicians through my course to help them get things moving on social media.
The ones who are seeing the most success are the ones who have done the work to sort their traffic problem.
I’ve helped some improve their organic content game to the point where it’s working for them.
And I’ve helped others learn how to run these ads to generate consistent traffic.
Some are combining these methods to create something much more solid, which I am all for, 100%.
You need to figure out the best approach for you specifically.
You might just need to make a few tweaks to your content for it to start performing a lot better, and in that case you could potentially use that as a reliable source of consistent traffic—for a while at least.
Or you might get much better results from ads than you do from organic content.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
There are too many contributing factors to say with absolute certainty that one specific approach will work for all artists.
It just doesn’t work like that.
Some artists will tell you all you need is to release a song a week and make a few videos to promote each one.
Others will tell you there’s no way to rely on organic content and that you must pay for traffic.
My recommendation is you be open to both, try a bunch of stuff, and find out for yourself.
But please do not forget this: If you want consistent growth, you need consistent traffic.
Do not expect that you can just show up and things will work.
This could very well be the reason you’re stuck, and with a bit of focus and practise you could radically change how much progress you’re making.
Let’s leave this here, but internalise how important it is to make sure you’ve solved your traffic problem.
#3: Continuity of identity and story.
Ok, moving on to the third way continuity matters: Continuity of identity and story.
I already talked a bit about this earlier in this letter, but there’s a little more to say on it.
We’ve covered what can potentially happen if you keep turning around and completely rebranding yourself.
It can sever the relationship you’ve built up with your audience and in some cases be no different than starting from scratch.
But I want to dive it into a little more to help drive home the importance of this.
First let’s clarify exactly what I mean by continuity of identity and story:
Continuity of identity:
Continuing to develop the artist identity you’re embodying over a long period of time, and not constantly changing it or doing rebrands.
Continuity of story:
An extension of that—continuing to build the story (and history) of this artist identity over a long period of time.
There is a ton of power in building these up over time.
It can add significant emotional weight to your presence and help people to connect much more deeply.
When people can see how much you’ve transformed over time…
When they can see how far you’ve come…
And especially when they can follow along with that journey…
They are going to be way more committed to you.
They’ll get excited about your progress.
They’ll look back at how much you’ve improved and advanced.
It’ll inspire them to do more and be more.
And getting that feeling from you will only make them want to follow you even more closely.
You see this on social media all the time.
You’ll find comments on artists’ posts talking about how the artist has improved, or about how impressive it is that they’ve come so far.
People who like you are happy to see you win. They’ll cheer you on.
It also makes you more credible to have a history.
Even if people aren’t consciously thinking about you in this way, knowing that there’s a bunch of history behind you that has gotten you to this point adds weight and authority.
And authority doesn’t have to mean you’re acting like a cop.
But it makes people want to pay attention to you because deep down they know you’re worth listening to.
They know you’ve gotten somewhere, and they’re more likely to value your actions and your path.
If you’re constantly…
- Changing your artist identity
- Doing all of these rebrands
- Jumping in and out of personas in your content because you don’t have a solid plan
- Deleting all your posts or songs because they don’t perform or because you don’t like them
- Or starting from scratch because you feel like everything is too messy…
…you’re often losing power.
How are people supposed to get excited about your progress if they can’t see it because you keep deleting it?
How are they supposed to feel the power of your transformation if it’s not there for them to see?
How are they supposed to get deeply connected if you keep building things up and then switching everything out?
Musicians delete posts from their socials and even delete songs they’ve released because they think it’ll help their image to only have perfect, new, polished stuff.
And not gonna lie, sometimes this can be a strategy.
But in most cases I’d say it’s hurting you, and what helps way more is having a history.
You need to understand that people can often make a big impact in large part because of context.
A breakdown in a song hits so hard because of the intro, verses and choruses that come before it.
If a band opened the song with that breakdown, it might still be an awesome riff… but it probably wouldn’t have as much power.
It’s about context.
There’s a reason David Goggins can post some motivational speech about working out and it makes you want to acually do it…
But a random person with no credibility can say the exact same thing and it does nothing.
Context.
I’m not saying you can’t make an impact the first time someone discovers you.
But if we’re thinking about long—term success here, about long—term fans who support you over a long time…
You want that history.
You want everything you do to have power behind it.
And you want to take people as deep as possible into your world.
By constantly erasing your history, by removing the option for people to see where you’ve come from, you’re hurting yourself.
People can’t go deep, because there’s nothing to dive into.
If you can avoid constantly starting over, deleting things, and changing direction, I recommend you do.
Sometimes it’s necessary. Sometimes it’s the right move.
But often musicians are doing it for the wrong reasons.
This continuity of identity and story adds so much power and weight to your presence it’s not funny.
Don’t sacrifice that if you don’t have to.
You don’t have to be stuck in a box.
And if you’re thinking “well I don’t want to always just do the exact same thing—I’ll get tired of it”…
You don’t have to.
The thing that many musicians get wrong about branding and building up that identity is thinking they have to be confined to this tiny box or else they won’t be able to make a name for themselves.
And obviously that sounds incredibly limiting.
So people hesitate and don’t do anything, or they limit what they put out because they’re afraid of what it’ll do.
But a good brand strategy allows for both consistency of identity and the freedom to move around and evolve.
You don’t have to stay exactly the same or do exactly the same thing forever.
You want parts of you that are unchanging, and parts of you that are constantly changing.
There are things about you and your music that will basically forever be a part of you.
Things that will be mostly unchanging, or not changing so much that it will be jarring to people.
Then there will be things about you and your music that will change radically.
Over time, as you grow as a person and an artist, you’ll let go of some stuff and introduce new stuff.
This is totally fine. It’s a good thing.
I’ll give you a personal example:
The Awakened Creative Co Brand Strategy
Something about me that will never change, especially as it relates to my presence, is wanting to inspire, help, and lift people up.
That is always going to be there, no matter what.
It’s one of the core parts of me and my brand and presence.
It’s probably one of the main reasons you’re reading this right now.
But how I go about that could change constantly. And it has changed over time, in various ways.
— I used to do written posts.
— Then I did talking head videos.
— Now I do animations and have a podcast.
I used to talk about certain topics in a certain way that I don’t talk about at all now.
I used to have a much heavier focus on nature based imagery and be more specific with brand colours and design and all of that.
I used to be a lot less experienced so I would approach helping from a different angle.
Nowadays I have a lot more experience and can help in a different, better way.
A lot has changed since I started.
I’ve changed in many ways a person and a service.
The information I put out has changed as my opinions have changed and I’ve gotten more experience.
But I’m still me. My brand is more solid than ever.
No one has a problem with the fact that I’ve changed, because I’ve built a brand that allows for change, while keeping the important stuff unchanged.
You can do this too as a musician and a personality on social media.
You can design a brand strategy that’ll help you always connect to the right audience, while also being able to experiment with…
- What you put out
- What kind of music you make
- What you look like
- And lots of other things.
Having to stick to one genre or style or whatever is a myth.
You don’t have to do that.
There may be people who did that and it worked for them, but it’s definitely not mandatory.
Imagine you tried to tell some of the biggest artists in the world they weren’t allowed to change.
The trick is finding what will always keep you anchored, and then use that as a way to safely do basically whatever you want (within reason).
And this evolution, this change over time is good for you and your audience.
It adds more power.
It keeps them interested, and it keeps you interested.
It creates depth.
It shows transformation.
But there’s also that continuity.
There’s that thing or those things about you that don’t change, or don’t change much.
Maybe it’s your message.
Maybe it’s a signature sound that you can apply to lots of different styles of music.
Maybe it’s something else.
Whatever it is, that keeps you solid.
You don’t have to sacrifice the creative freedom you value so much. Not if you do this right.
So with all that in mind, internalise this: Continuity of identity and story.
Give people a long history.
Let them explore you as much as possible.
Give them every opportunity to fall deeply in love with who you are.
Let them soak in all the different parts of you that you’re willing to put out there.
Again, don’t sacrifice this continuity if you don’t have to.
And often you don’t have to.
I know this kind of thing can be challenging for a lot of musicians, so if you need some personal help getting direction with this in a way that will work long term, you can check out how I can help here.
Ok, let’s move on to the last bit.
#4: Consistent improvement and evolution.
We can keep this bit pretty short, because it ties heavily into what we just talked about.
Just as you want to give people a history of you to explore, we also want to give them progression.
If there’s one way to stay on top of this social media marketing game, it’s to never stop trying to improve and evolve.
One thing you need to remember about social media is that it’s (obviously) full of people.
And people change.
They get desensitised to things. They get bored.
Their standards go up.
They expect more in certain ways and less in others.
What you did 3 years ago will very likely not work now.
To play this game, you must be willing to constantly adapt and improve.
Some people will hear this and think ‘ugh how exhausting’.
I see it as a good thing.
Because if you’re building something authentic and meaningful to you…
…and the way you’re connecting with people is by sharing authentic and meaningful things…
It means that the way you improve will be to become more authentic, to find more meaning in what you do.
It means you’ll develop yourself even more.
You’ll develop your skills.
You’ll better understand your audience.
You’ll better understand yourself.
You’ll be forced to become everything you want to be.
You’ll increase your impact.
To commit to always improving and evolving is a near guarantee that you’ll succeed.
If you see every new challenge as a chance to step up, you will never truly fail.
If you never stop diving deep into yourself and your art, you’ll continue to produce magic.
People will change, and so will you.
You and your audience will grow together.
They will never get tired of you, because you are constantly rising up with them.
Maybe you’re even pulling them up, constantly feeding them stuff they didn’t even know they needed.
This “law” of continuity will do more for you than you can imagine.
The compounding effects of continuing to:
- Put stuff out
- Drive traffic
- Build your identity and story
- And improve and evolve…
…will pay you back 1000x what you put in.
The key is to stick with it. Continue.
Don’t chop and change every two seconds, thinking you’ll somehow circumvent the years of commitment it takes to be great.
If you pay attention, and you combine this law with the other two I’ve covered so far (and the others I’ll cover in future), you will be unstoppable.
Ok, let’s call it.
I really hope this helped and either provided some insight or served as a good reminder to keep at it.
If you liked this one, please consider sharing it with another musician who it might help, or directing them to the podcast.
Knowing that this helps people is what keeps these going, so please spread the word if you think it’s valuable.
A final message before you go:
I’ll soon be opening up a group program where I’ll be taking a group of musicians through branding, content, social media growth, releasing music and more over 2 or 3 months.
This will be opening up on June 24th of this year.
If you’re interested in finding out more about this and possibly being one of the musicians in this group, keep an eye on these emails—this is where you’ll hear about it.
Thanks so much, hope this helped, and talk again next week.
—Alex
