Who Clicks The Content?

Generally speaking…

‘Behind the song’ content is for people who know the song. For fans of you. People who really know the song also wanna know what it means to you and where it came from and what that lyric in the bridge means.

‘Making of the song’ content is for the people above and the group of people that is curious about how creative stuff is made. This new group might not be in love with the song but they’re in love with the process and learning about yours.

‘Band biography’ content is for the above groups plus a much larger group of people who like an emotional story arc. The band forms, struggles, gets famous, struggles again, survives. It’s a human interest story laced with music. It’s a music doc.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Opportunity Turnaround

An artist has chance to release another song tomorrow.

A cook has a chance to make another meal in about three hours.

A fundraiser can make another call in a few minutes.

There’s another opportunity just around the corner (if you want it), so while the goal is to be great every time, it’s worth acknowledging the advantage of quick opportunity turnaround.

On the other hand…

It takes a long time to coordinate a rocket launch.

The olympics only come every four years.

Designing and building the latest skyscraper is a ten year process.

It’s not that the opportunity will never come again but there’s added pressure to get this one right.

»» Apologies for being a day late on this one.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

When You Can't Keep Track Anymore

As an addendum to yesterday’s post…

We want to find markers of success that are easily measured. The number of streams, ticket sales, t-shirts.

But an interesting marker is having a big enough impact to where you can’t keep track of your impact anymore. Not being able to measure it is the marker of a certain level of success.

For every email or comment of support there are a bunch of other people who think the same thing but didn’t end up taking the time to send a message.

For every listener streaming your music, there might be one or a hundred people with them listening too.

For every person who comes to a show, there is someone who would have come but just couldn’t swing it.

It’s not easily measured and that’s the best thing about it.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

The People Listening

If you open up your Spotify artist app you can see how many people are currently listening to your music.

It might be one or three or thousands. But when it’s low numbers it’s a bit more tangible…let’s say two people are listening. I wonder who those two people are doing? Are they smiling? Staring off in the distance? What kind of headphones? Are they driving? What’s their favorite cereal?

It’s two real, specific people. It’s fun (and probably helpful) to come up with stories about them.

»» And worth noting that if you always have two or three people listening, you probably have ten to fifteen thousand monthly listeners.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

iPads. Guitars. Flowers.

iPads can be sold to everyone.

iPad cases can only be sold to people with iPads.

Guitars are for everyone.

Guitar strings are only sold to people with guitars.

Flowers are for everyone

That little green packet of powder needs more people to buy flowers.

Are you selling the main thing or an accessory?

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Learning The Gig...

Is different than being good at the gig.

It takes a while to learn the notes, chords, transitions, steps, lighting cues, and memorize the setlist. But with a handful of rehearsals and shows it’s no problem

But being good at the gig is something beyond learning the gig. It’s what you do with the learning. When you don’t have to put energy anymore into focusing on the mechanics, what do you do with that energy?

»» And if you’re the one offering the gig…

You’ve put time, energy and resources into bringing in someone new, teaching the mechanics of the gig. And you might find out after all that, that they’re not good at the gig. It’s tough to let go of those sunk costs. Not only are there actual sunk costs, but you want to be right about picking who you picked.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple