This episode of the IAMN: I Am Northbound podcast is brought to you by The 4D Songwriter: How to Dominate the New Music Industry. Get your copy of this game-changing book at the4dsongwriter.com.
Episode Summary
In episode #25 of IAMN: I am Northbound, Jayson (who is on holidays) takes you back through memory lane by revisiting three popular segments from earlier this year;
Why you shouldn’t aim your music at the biggest crowd, how to get people talking about your music and how your audience can’t grow if your hashtags suck.
Don’t Aim Your Music at the Biggest Crowd
In this segment of IAMN: I Am Northbound, I revisit the important topic of aiming your music at a focused niche, not the biggest audience. Too many music artists are aiming their music at the biggest crowd and hoping that some of them are interested. There’s businesses that try that — and they, too, end up bankrupt.
Overview
Imagine that, as a music artist, you had to throw a very large net to capture a bunch of people at once. This net represents your music and your branding.
Of the people that are caught within the net, those that enjoy your music are trapped by their interest and become potential fans, while those that aren’t interested simply walk out (and all future nets on those people become even less effective).
Let’s just assume that you’re putting the exact same, high quality content out into the world.
Content that you know is the best representation of you and your art, and will therefore resonate well with those that need to hear it.
So, you’d probably think that if this were the case, you’d throw out as many nets as you possibly could, at the most amount of people, right?
If you catch a whole bunch of people, you’re more likely to get more fans, right?
Wrong! Aiming your music at everyone will never bring the results you desire.
The truth is, you only have the time, energy and money to throw just a few nets per day.
That’s why they need to be thrown at the right crowd.
And, that’s just like real life – we only have so much time, energy and money to put into the promotion of our music.
So many music artists are choosing to throw their nets at the crowd, assuming that at least one of them will be interested.
The truth is, your niche is likely so small that your nets might not be catching anyone, if you’re aiming them at the wrong crowd.
If you’re trying to promote everything you’re doing at the biggest possible crowd, you’re likely forcing your music upon those that aren’t likely to convert into followers.
Are you tempted by the crowd? Or, will you find the perspective to understand where your time is better spent – aimed at those that are interested?
How To Get People Talking About Your Music
In this segment of IAMN: I Am Northbound, I want to revisit the important discussion of becoming interesting enough to get people talking. So many music artists are complaining, saying that being a creative these days is too hard. Please, understand the power you have in front of you: Businesses are spending MILLIONS of dollars to try to get to ‘word of mouth’. Yet, music is one of the most talked about things! You have the cards stacked in your favour… so how can you use them to your advantage?
Overview
I really don’t think music artists understand the advantage they have.
I do know, however, that some music artists feel that the world is against them and that it is harder now than it has ever been to get their music heard.
But, I want to tell you something (something you might not either yet know or have considered):
Businesses pay millions of dollars each year to advertise their companies and create brand awareness and trust in their products so that a regular consumer will talk about them through word of mouth.
Why is word of mouth so important? Well, because it is highly targeted.
Would you go up to a friend who has never played a game of golf in their life and tell them about these great new golf clubs you bought? No, that wouldn’t be relevant to them.
But would you tell your golf-loving friend? Almost definitely.
And would that golf-loving friend then consider purchasing that product? Studies say yes — word of mouth affects up to 50% of purchase decisions.
So, why is this relevant to you as a music artist?
Well, because getting people to talk about products and businesses is hard — but music is not seen in the same light; people LOVE to tell others about great music they’ve been listening to.
This means that for music artists, getting to word of mouth is much easier than it is for a company —
These businesses would ENVY how much of an advantage you have!
So, the goal is to get people talking about your music.
You want to be remarkable, as it allows people to find the social leverage to use your music as a topic in conversation.
This doesn’t just have to be in your music, either — in fact, it is much easier to be remarkable when it comes to how you do your live performances, sell your merchandise, do interviews, brand yourself etc.
I haven’t got enough room left in this caption to give you all the ideas, but I did mention a whole bunch in this segment of the IAMN: I am Northbound podcast, which you can find on my profile.
Go and check that out — I’m sure you’ll love it.
Because ultimately, if you can get people talking, you’ll reach a point of real, authentic virality.
You Can’t Find Fans if your Hashtags Suck
In this segment, I want to tell you how you can use a free tool to build hashtag lists that actually work. Too many music artists are tagging their posts with any keyword that describes whatever is inside their post. Or even more useless, whatever hashtag they think will bring traffic (instagood, anyone?). Here’s the reality: If you can think of a hashtag, others can too, which means that it is overly-competitive and not worth posting on. No one is browsing these hashtags, looking to find the latest post. And even if they were, your post will be drowned in the sea of other posts on those hashtags as soon as it’s uploaded. Finding niche hashtags, however, will do the opposite: You’ll be discovered by highly-compatible listeners who could potentially move on to become true fans of your music.
Overview
I do feel bad for the music artists who put in a genuine effort to hashtag correctly, but end up failing to see the results they desire, due to a lack of understanding of how hashtags really work.
They’ll use up all thirty hashtags on their latest Instagram photo by tagging every single keyword they can think of that is even vaguely associated with the subject matter of their post.
The truth is, no one is browsing these hashtag directories.
These tags are also extremely common.
There’s simply too much content in these crowded directories.
Your goal, when choosing your hashtags, is not to use the most common ones – it’s to find the tags that are both the most relevant to your post and also the lowest in competition.
Here’s a tip: If you can think of a hashtag, it’s not worth posting on.
If you can think of it, others can too, which means that it’s likely highly competitive.
Your mission is to find relevant, niche hashtags of low competition that engaged users who are ‘in the know’ are actively searching on.
You can do this by utilising a free hashtag research tool, such as Display Purposes.
You simply enter a hashtag that is relevant to your post and it will show you all of the low competition, yet high engagement hashtags that will be perfect for your post.
But, I’ll give you an extra tip – don’t just copy/paste the Display Purposes suggestions.
Cross reference them and see how many posts are currently on each one.
If a hashtag has less than 30,000 posts or more than 700,000, delete it from your list.
It’s either unknown or too competitive.
That space between 30,000 and 700,000 is your sweet spot.
This is a tag that is popular enough for someone to be searching on, without your post becoming instantly drowned by the competition.
You can watch this episode above or on IGTV.
Or you can listen to it on your favourite podcast platform!
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