Last year you wanted the world to hear your music. You knew that all that you had to do was release it and the masses would come out to celebrate your revolutionary music. You believed in what you created so much that you made the one mistake that stopped the world from hearing your music; you thought that releasing the music was all that you needed to do.
Don’t beat yourself up over it though, your honest mistake is one being made by thousands of other talented musicians all over the world as we speak.
As artists, we are not taught the rules of the game that we are in.
We are taught to create from the soul and to create without thinking about the money, which is absolutely true, but depending on your end goal, it can also be absolutely false.
There are three sides to the story here, and to create a successful career in music you will need to pay close attention to the middle road. The road that respects the artist’s soul agenda and the artist’s desire for financial freedom through art.
You see, an artist has every right to believe in only the art while paying no attention to the money, while another artist can create clever and well-copied art designed to make money; and somehow they both end up sharing their time in obscurity all the same.
The reason for this is quite simple, artists, generally-speaking, suck at business; and those in business, generally-speaking again, suck at art; but it is those that respect both sides that are the ones that rise above and beyond the rest because they are the ones that understand the pairing of art and commerce that needs to take place before any successful career in art can be made.
If you are sitting on an album and already working on your next album, without having promoted the first album out of a lack of wanting to learn how to promote your own music, then I am talking directly to you.
There is a method to this internet thing.
The social media realm is not a realm without rules or tricks to help any and every artist find their audience, and that is the name of the game; FIND YOUR AUDIENCE.
Your friends and your family are not your audience either, they are there to pad the stats and nothing more (sorry grandma, you know I love you to pieces).
Your friends and family will support you and will almost always provide you with a critique of your work that is far more snowflake-generation than the harsh but truthful real-world opinion.
But before I stray too far away from my intended reason for this article, let’s move on to what I was really trying to say.
You need to work harder in 2020! And you know that you do.
You need to care more about learning how to promote your own music or get ready to open that wallet and pay someone else to do it for you and let’s make no mistake if you intend on getting your music noticed this year by more than your inflated Facebook friend list then you will need to work every single day to bring your music to the people.
But how?
I would say that it’s easy, but that really all depends on how willing you are to learn about video editing, the best times to post your content, the proper hashtags, the best platforms for your audience, the most current apps to use, Facebook and Instagram Live, Twitch, Mixer, TikTok YouTube, Patreon, licensing your music, effective branding, merchandising, cover letters, pleasing graphics, online payment gateways, booking shows, reaching out to radio-stations, gaining press, Spotify curator outreach, monetization and on and on.
If you intend on learning some of this stuff to an effective level, then you just unlocked hard-mode; which also unlocks success-mode.
Last year, you promised yourself to get your music heard, and this year you can honor that wish without fail.
It will take some time and effort and it will require you to study why and how these platforms and apps work, and how your specific audience likes their content from you.
For you to make sure that your album doesn’t disappear into obscurity it will take an incredible focused effort from you to make sure that it doesn’t.
Most apps and social media platforms are free and can be controlled through a computer, tablet or phone, and as such, there are no excuses for you not to create content on a regular basis.
You don’t think you have enough to say? Then find enough to say.
You don’t think that you have the time to post? The make the time to post.
If you have subscribed to making excuses for your laziness and unfocused attention on growing your audience through using the plethora of incredible outlets available to you then congratulations on sinking your own ship.
But, if you are dead serious about a career in the music industry, then today is the day that you start to plan and act on the areas that you are lacking in, and if that means that have to give up some daily distractions to study some new skills for online outreach, then bring it on!
I want to hear your music, and unless you put in the effort to bring it to me, chances are, I may never hear it, and that sucks.
Have I personally made the mistake of getting lazy with my own social media outreach?
Have I gone on long hiatus of not pushing my two books to the masses, yes…and it absolutely ruins my mood when I catch myself wasting good time, but make no mistake that my hiatus is getting fewer and shorter, day by day.
I have been practicing on outreach for so long now and embracing the incredible tools that we have access to, that I have been spending my time learning more and more about how to rise above the ones that have been trying to rise above me.
The internet itself is the collective knowledge of all humanity but it will not act for you. It is a doorway to information that you must step through to find, and for many musicians, even stepping through that door is a challenge, so expecting them to act out a plan is next to impossible.
When you want to succeed in the music industry as much as you would want to take one more breath while drowning; it is then that you will understand why this next step for you will feel like life or death, and why you will stop wasting time thinking about success while avoiding the necessary work.
Ask the right questions and act on the best answers given, over and over and over, and build your audience daily.
The best year of your music career is 2020, and you just need to work harder and more focused to make sure that this is true for you.
I look forward to hearing your music.
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