What have you been doing to build your online audience so far?
Are you focused 100% on licensing or trying other things?
Where can people find your music online?
How are you making sure they find it?
Chances are, you can relate to Jason’s answers…
We’ve all been there.
Here’s my two cents on the subject.
1- Choose ONE platform and one platform only.
Could be Spotify or AudioJungle or your Twitter account or your website.
But it needs to be just one.
2- Brainstorm ideas.
Block out 50-minutes to brainstorm all the possible ways you could drive traffic to that platform.
And yes, it needs to be 50 minutes.
Why?
Because you need those 50 minutes to really get creative.
Try to be as creative as you are in the studio 😉
Optional but highly recommended: do the exercise with pen and paper.
Pro tip: there’s no stupid idea. At this stage, you should write down everything that comes to mind.
3- Take a step back.
Set a reminder to review in 2-3 days.
4- Decide what’s important.
Block out 30 minutes or so to review your list from 2-3 days ago.
For each item on the list, rate how much you think you’ll enjoy doing it and how much you think that strategy is worth your time, energy and possibly money.
Here’s a template you can use.
Pro tip: try rating from 1 to 10 without using a 7.
5- Start doing.
Based on your ratings, what seems like the best “I’ll enjoy doing it / It’ll have the most impact” option?
Start getting those things done.
Commit to your strategy the next 12 weeks and you’ll make progress.
6- (Optional) Share your list….
Share your list with me or an accountability partner.
Check-in every week:
- what have you done?
- what have you learned?
- what are you going to do next week?
This is optional but I can’t recommend the process highly enough.
It’s the first step in the right direction 😉
Thumbs up, Joyce, as per usual. The idea to choose ONE platform… People really need to hear and accept that.
“He who chases two rabbits catches none.”
I think people are afraid to miss out on something if they don’t try it but, in my experience, if you focus on one thing, you have more time and energy to make it awesome and the rest follows.
For example, if your Insta is amazing, people will check out your website. If you stand out on Twitter, people will check out your Insta. If the blog on your website is engaging, people will check out your music on Spotify.
hi joyce,my one platform where i have success is royalty free site called Melodyloops.com.They offer you the option to upload other non loopable tracks too.If you want ,i dont mind chatting more about this,if it sounds interesting to you.
Looks cool! Glad you’re having success with it 🙂
Don’t hesitate to drop me an email if you want want to write up a guest post or do an interview.
Hi Mark, I would mind having more info about Melodyloops and if it’s a viable option. But apparently they only accept non-PRO music. What’s your experience, is that true? I don’t think it’s a good idea, giving away PRO royalties. Joyce what’s your opinion?
Hey Danilo,
Mmm… that’s generally a red flag for me but each musician should decide for themselves.
If the music is going to end up in podcasts and on YouTube videos, performance royalties are not a huge issue anyway.
In this case specifically, it looks like customers can use the music in TV ads. I’d definitely want to get those performance royalties!
But that’s just a personal opinion. Ultimately, we all have to decide what types of contracts we’re happy to sign.
For example, someone who can produce lots of tracks quickly and inexpensively might be happy to forgo performance royalties and focus on getting lots of sync fees or work-for-hire contracts.
Thank you Joyce, that makes sense. My personal opinion – and possibly food for thought:
1. “…someone who can produce lots of tracks quickly and inexpensively might be happy to forgo performance royalties and focus on getting lots of sync fees or work-for-hire contracts”.
– It would be ok if we where almost sure the result would be in the end lots of sync fees and work-for-hire, but are we?
2. “In this case specifically, it looks like customers can use the music in TV ads. I’d definitely want to get those performance royalties”
– I think this is detrimental to all of us, as clients get the feeling they can get our music for cheap, leading to less and less value given to our music and our efforts. Maybe it’s just me, I still find it difficult to write music without an artistic value of some sort; there’s not yet “lots of tracks quickly and inexpensively” in my book 🙂 OR 🙁 ???
Hey Danilo,
1. Indeed. We can never be sure of anything 🙂
2. Yep. I’d definitely be weary of charging too little but, at the same time, I know how uncomfortable asking for money can be…. Re the quick and inexpensive tracks, I’ve found that some of my best work was produced in just a few hours. In my experience (and many people disagree with me!), it’s good training to focus on quantity over quality for a while.