Me, Me, Me is BORING!

Write the lyrics, produce the track, record the song…I hope 2010 is the year that music will once again become the centerpiece of your marketing strategy. All of these tasks are self centered, reflective and place a large amount of emphasis on you, the artist. Once the record is complete however, turning your focus toward your audience can pose a signifagnt problem. This fact is evident in the massive amounts of spam messages that we see in our inbox, twitter stream, myspace comments, and facebook walls. Literally everyone and their grandmother are promoting themselves online. The noise within our online soical networks will continue as long as they exsist, but if you want to stand out, you must learn to speak softer.

A light bulb went off this week after reading an in-depth interview with the Cameron Mizell, author of Musician Wages. Long time label head, Rick Goetz has had a ton of vauable infomation on his blog recently, but this post in particular sparked an idea that I would like to explore in more detail. Cameron stated that one of the ways he made enough money to survive when he was first starting out was through the sale of iMixes on iTunes. Here is an exceprt of what he had to say:

“Essentially what you do is create mixes, or playlists….As an independent artist you don’t get any page placement, so what you do is find similar artists and albums that are very similar to yours and make playlists of your music with those artists, so that over time people start to connect your music”

I find this strategy to be a simple yet powerful way to take a step back from constantly pushing your music on people. Instead, start to include your music in an ongoing conversation within a specific music scene by creating playlists. I very rarely listen to entire albums all the way through. iTunes and iPods have programed me not to. The same holds true for your fans. If and when they buy your single, EP or album, they are more likely to add a song or two of yours onto a playlist of similar music and burning it to a CD.

Why not make it easy for them? Although Cameron goes on to explain that the heyday for iMixes are probably behind us, there may still be ways to achieve a similar result and cut down on some of the shameless self promotion this year.

Here is what I suggest.

• Try your hand at iMixes. Be careful not to use this method incorrectly or you may still be considered a spammer trying to trick people into buying your mix becuase Beyonce is on it. Choose artists that make sense.
• Record a cover song. Everyone is doing it, but not all are doing it well. Don’t remix….that’s too P Diddy. Pay homage to your favorite artist by creating a new and clever arrangement of the song and make it your own. Covers can be an excellent barrier to entry.
• Create a playlist using a site like Fairtilizer and add similar artists from their extensive library of independent/major artists. Then share it across the web. Their widgets are sexy and foucs on cover art and imagery as much as it does the audio files.
• Start a music blog highlighting not only your music, but music of like minded artists. Target independents in your local area and develop a relationship with them strong enough to facilitate gig swapping. They may in turn promote you to their fans and in this scenario everybody wins.

For example, check out ThePeterHadarShow. He’s an artist, but also a fashion stylist and a superb marketer. He talks about it all on his blog and has mastered the soft sell. Fresh Nerd does a good job at this as well.

Imagine being on a date where the other person can’t shut up about themselves. Immediate turn off. The conversation you have with fans about your music is no different. Carla Lynne Hall said it best…

@eleetmusic I blog about other musicians as well as myself at www.RockStarLifeLessons.com. Because “Me, me, me” is BORING!