I just did an interview with Peel Post, a new band promotion tool that posts your flyer across the web. Here’s a snippet where of the interview where I talk about where I am with my band and what I feel are some essentials to getting your band going. Hint: it’s not using social media.
Can you tell us a little about your band? How has your audience grown since you started your blog?
My band’s name is Shiplosion, party metal for your face! I came up with the idea about a year ago, but only recently got a drummer and guitarist. We’ve been practicing and writing music constantly for the past few months and plan on having our first show soon.
So, we don’t have an audience, yet, which is perfect for my blog. I learned a lot from my previous band, and this time I’m going to do things right with fan engagement, promotion, and just being way smarter with how we record and get things done. Just the few experiments we’ve done with YouTube and UStream.tv have received great feedback, so I’m hoping for good things.
My blog will chronicle the steps I take with Shiplosion to promote and get more fans. I hope it turns out successful, but, even if it fails, I’m going to share that on my blog. Sometimes, what not to do is just as important as what to do.
You can find Shiplosion at http://Shiplosion.com. All the ways you can follow us are on the right hand side of the site.
You said you started your blog because you read a lot of blogs and books about music marketing, but you weren’t seeing real world results. What are some of the pieces of advice that you read about that are huge waste of time? What is the biggest mistake you think bands make in trying to get fans and new people to their shows?
This is a loaded question! I’ll give a small example. Recently, the service OneSheet was all over the place, and every music marketer was all over it. I checked out the service and was completely underwhelmed. All it did was aggregate various social networks and allow you to post one song or video on its front page. Hey, I have this thing called a website! It does all of this and more!
That’s just one example, but it’s endemic to the music marketing community: we jump all over the bright new shiny thing without knowing if it will bring real world results for a band. I’ve been guilty, too, of posting elaborate schemes for social media without having real world results. Hopefully, though, I’ve labled them as experiments that need to be tried, and a band must measure the results to see if the investment in time is really worth it.
All social media is simply a way to talk to your fans and engage with them. Before sites like Facebook, bands relied more on talking to fans one on one and even sending them something in the mail. Social media makes the process way easier, but bands are making the mistake of not drawing fans into a deeper experience.
Instead of concentrating on the bright new shiny media thing, concentrate on making your fans happy. Make your music GREAT first! No amount of social media savviness will cover up shitty music. Then, concentrate on making your show something unforgettable. After those two things, then concentrate on your social media strategies.
If you look at the marketing being done by Shiplosion at the moment, it’s nearly non-existent. That’s because we’re still trying to make GREAT music. We could easily waste our time with a million other media gimmicks, but that won’t help us with great material.
I’m sure I’m straying off point, but the biggest mistake I’ve personally made as a musician is not doing one thing GREAT first. Instead, I’ve tried to do a million things half assed and got nowhere. Booking shows, making fliers, updating Twitter, playing with HTML design on my website, on and on and on. The whole time, my old band didn’t get our album out. We were so consumed by the million and one things going on, we couldn’t focus on the most important.
And back to your question, the biggest mistake when it comes to getting people to shows is not making fans happy and not meeting new fans at each and every show. Instead of grabbing a drink from the bar and talking to your buddies after the show, go meet new people! Give them something for free. Joke with them, learn their name and something about their life. Make genuine connections and DON’T BE A ROCK STAR. Winning a new fan for life is way more valuable than selling a CD or t-shirt.
People go to shows to be entertained, and not only for the brief time a band is on stage. How can you make their experience magical?
Read the rest over at Peel Post by clicking here.
