I get a lot of DJs, musicians, bands, and producers constantly sending me links to their music asking me to help them with their branding and development. “Please sign me!” Here is the problem, I get TOO MANY. To make matters worse, with one sentence and a soundcloud link you're not rising above the noise and allowing yourself to stand out. You're sending me a link to your music with no opening engagement, no connection, no reason for me to care.
Sending me a link to your Soundcloud or PDF epk is something everyone else is doing. So stop. Do not let the death of the traditional EPK or one liner approach kill your music career.
What makes you stand out? What connects with me? What gives me the urge to click and learn more?
- I need to know that you have a personal brand, that you take your business seriously. You're not just posting music links that get no traction or documenting everyday things on social media. I need to know you have an actual personal brand. I want to know you have some followers and fans. I'm not talking about, "I have ten thousand fans or a hundred thousand fans," because we all know people can buy that. I'm talking about you have actual fans and followers. With that, the next point is engagement.
- Do you have people who actually follow you and want to engage with you? Are you engaging with them? So many media personalities are only thinking of themselves. Pushing out links for others to click on, asking people to buy, blasting their gig in every local Facebook forum they can get their hands on. That's not cool. You need to be building a strong fan base and let them know you care. It's not hard to find out if this is the case. When I go to your Facebook and Instagram and you make a post, do people comment? Do you comment back?
- I want to know that you have built collaborations as well. In this case I'm not talking musical collaborations. I'm talking social media influencers. You might connect with local YouTube stars (maybe they have large mixshows) or media personalities on Instagram. You should be leveraging each other's views and fans. Guest mix on their shows, push out a collaborative Facebook live or Snapchat. I want to know that you're in the world of digital marketing and social media and taking it very seriously.
- The big one is your EPK, your electronic press kit. Let's not talk about the traditional PDF epk. Let's not talk about the 10 paragraphs that you cut and paste into my Facebook messenger. Let's talk about your true EPK - your social media world. Does every piece of your digital brand connect and tell one unified story? Your website, Soundcloud, Youtube branding, social media profile pictures, cover images, recent posts.
- Time to connect with a music executive? Forget the huge long winded email telling me your life story. Send me a concise message and actually connect with me, "Hey, Louie. I read your stuff on Facebook. I love your articles, especially the one about XYZ. I've built a strong local fan base in my city and really have my social media growth on point, I think we'd be a great fit. I need some help with my personal brand. Here's my social media and a few links to my music. Take a quick look. Dig around because that tells a story." That's exactly what catches my attention.
Look, gone are the days where we just fire off a few SoundCloud links to the A&R department and he/she says, "Oh, the track's awesome. Let's sign it." Make sure you're connecting with us and then be absolutely positive your digital brand is on point. Of all of the messages we get, which ones do we pay attention to? If you're just a message in my Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, you're one of, I don't know, a hundred that's going to happen in the next day or two.
@louielavella