J.P. Kallio’s Musician Quick Tips Pt. 5
by J.P. Kallio
I’m back with segment 5 of my musician quick tips. In my nearly two decades as a full time musician I have learned a thing or two about this business. I also have become very fast at assessing what works and what does not when it comes to promoting, recording and performing your music.
These quick tips are simple actions that you can put to use straight away.
Make yourself worth managing
Here’s a one hard fact that most new artists seem to refuse to believe. I personally wish I would have taken this seriously my self earlier. So here it is, take it or leave it.
Most new artists are hoping to find a manager, who could take them to the “next level”. The fact is, managers need to make money. And if you are not already making money by playing live, selling your self-produced album, the manager has nothing to make money from.
This took me long time to accept. But once I did, and started working on advancing my career instead trying to find someone to do it for me, things started happening. Make yourself worth managing.
Story
Tell your story. This again took me a long time to understand, so I want you to be thinking this as early as possible. Your story is the most powerful tool you will ever have. So figure out your story. Write it down. Who you are as a musician and how did you get here? Your story will be the basis of your brand as an artist. Your story will be the thing people will associate with.
Never under-estimate the power of a good story. By telling my story first, people relate better not only to me, but my songs as well. And obviously you should be telling stories in your songs as well.
If you are banking on your music being the only thing that connect you with people, you are set for a very long road, that probably will get you nowhere. So start telling your story.
Facebook boost
Here’s a quick tip I’ve tried few times now and it works a treat. If you use Facebook adds, I am sure you are familiar with boosted posts. When you set them up it takes some time for them to be approved and then actually start delivering. But what if you would like them to deliver quicker and at a specific time? Try this:
Set up your post as usual, but do this ahead of time. The best result I got when I did this 12 hours in advance. Set up boost for the post as usual, but as soon as you have done it, pause the boost. It will ask if you are sure you want to do this, just go ahead with it. Then at your desired time (12 hours later works a treat) continue the boost and Facebook will deliver a lump of the boost in a matter of a minutes.
I have only used this for blog posts, but I could imagine this being a good way to get some extra views on your new video, or other music link. Also if you know the time most of your followers are online or “active”, you could time your show announcement according to this.
Twitter is just after introducing a group messaging. You can message up to 20 people at the same time, and no one else will see this. You can make powerful use of this in promotion. For example you could make a promotional group of avid fans who would help you promote new video, or an event. You could also have your band on a one message. This could save you time and money on text messages, while organising rehearsals, promotion or events. The possibilities are endless.
It is pretty straightforward to operate. You just go to write a direct message, but you can add more people on to the “Enter a name” box. As I mentioned above, at the moment it is up to 20 people. And it works as a direct message, so only people who are included in the message can see it.
Let’s face it, we are all bit dubious of change in our favourite social media sites. But I believe this a good addition to Twitters simple, but powerful set of tools.
J.P. Kallio is a singer-songwriter