Chris Rockett at PromoteYourMusic.net interviewed Disc Makers’ veteran and Echoes’ editor Andre Calilhanna last week, and the two explore topics ranging from Andre’s lost wallet to content marketing, communicating to your list, and overcoming networking jitters.
Promote Your Music and Music Marketing Classroom are Rockett’s online endeavors aimed at helping indie musicians turn their music into a serious career option and helping musicians better understand how to use the internet and online tools to promote and sustain a career.
Here’s a tidbit from the audio interview:
It seems like Disc Makers’ strategy is sort of like “content marketing.” Can you suggest how musicians can use that kind of strategy to suck people into their own spider’s web of joy?
An independent artist has to constantly put out material that is going to interest and evoke a response from your audience. So it’s not just constantly releasing music, though certainly you can do that pretty easily – the tools are there for you to put out a song a week if you wanted to. Be it video content or blog content or tour diaries, there are plenty of avenues for you to consistently produce content that will draw your audience in and keep them engaged.
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What about the guy who is shy? How can you start that important process of networking and nurture your contacts so that you have ongoing relationships?
I do think that the character traits that make for an artist or draw someone to be an artist or a performer are some that … they’re using their music and their art to be their voice. So yeah, that can be a challenge. I think familiarity, putting yourself in the situation where you are in a networking situation, conferences that you can go to, open mics… go to places where like-minded people, indie musicians, and your peers are, and just get yourself comfortable and familiar and be yourself and be honest. Maybe you just really have to work at what it is you need to do to get over that hump. Even if it’s just practicing what you need to say, having your pitch at the ready. Look at it as a performance.
Click here to listen to the entire interview.
