Long story short, despite the visuals and engineers that worked behind your track, you seem unable to get fans to follow your career and support each release you put out. Here’s 10 reasons why that may be happening.
10. You Don’t Have Any Videos Out
Might sound ridiculous but you’d be shocked at the number of artists who only release audio material. We are not in the 90s anymore! Wake up and create visuals to enhance your songs! NO ONE will ever listen to your craft as a new artist if you don’t show us WHO YOU ARE. So get that budget, get that camera guy and start putting together music videos for your tracks. Instrumentists included! Rezwan Ashraf is a good example of how a musician should approach creating visuals for instrumentals.
9. And If You Do… They’re Bad
Either hire a professional to do it for you or buy a stabilizer, a tripod, and a lens kit and shoot your music video on your smartphone. Most smartphones are able to shoot 4K, which is considerably higher quality than many video cameras. Look up some tutorials on YouTube if you’ve never done this before and learn how to put together a decent-looking music video. Actually, aim for a very good video. Artists tend to overestimate the value of their craft so aim higher. When you think you have a good music video, it’s actually average. And when you think you got a great music video, it’s usually good. So strive for amazing visuals!
Note: Selena Gomez shot 2 whole music videos on the new iPhone. So don’t underestimate the power of what you already got!
8. You Are Not Organically Connecting With Existing Fans
It happened more than once for me to meet an artist who has good visuals, good songs but very low to zero engagement. Why is that the case? Let me break it down for you: people have to feel close to you in order to support you. Meaning if you are brand new, go on your fans’ social profiles and like their pictures, comment on their statuses, and actually give a damn about their lives and invest time and money in maintaining those relationships. Heck, send thank you gifts to your biggest fans. You need to treasure your first fans like there will never be no others. Why? They will make or break your career.
7. You Are Not Focusing On Your Music Only
What’s worse than being unknown? Having a couple hundred fans and confusing the heck outta them with birthday photos from your cousin’s party. Or posting throwback-Thursday pics that are unrelated to your music career whatsoever. Also, leave the boyfriend/girlfriend out of the brand image. Especially in the beginning. As long as you’re not making a living off your music career alone, you need to send a very clear message to any and every potential person visiting your social media profiles: you do music and you do it seriously. If you mix your music with your personal life, it’s a recipe for disaster. Talk about your feelings in your music but don’t take more selfies than you actually have singles artworks.
6. You Have Attitude Issues
How easily do you make friends? How about enemies? If you make enemies easier than you make friends, you got a problem. And a fat one at that. You MUST be likeable for you to succeed, for people to actually get their name behind you. No one wants to support an asshole or an artist who tries to convince his fans of his political, religious, or cultural views. STICK. TO. THE. MUSIC. and be nice to every soul that took the time to say something nice about your stuff!
5. You Have No Press
Here’s the ugly truth: for people to care about you, you have to show them you are ALREADY APPRECIATED by others with high credibility. You need to have other people talking positively about you and your music. How do you do that? Submit your music for review on websites, blogs, TV shows, podcasts, radio stations, newspapers, etc. If you’re good enough, someone will agree to talk about you. If not, get your wallet out and go pay for someone to review you. You need that buzz DESPERATELY!
4. Your Brand Image Does Not Represent Your Music
If you sing about clear skies and puppy love but look like a goth kid, you’re in trouble. Whether you like it or not, you have adopted a genre and your image NEEDS to represent that genre. Get inspiration from other artists in the same category and adapt yourself accordingly. If you rap, don’t dress like a punk kid. Invest in chains and a good looking car. If you sing pop songs, don’t dress like a rock chick. Get your nails done, hair extensions and push up bra. You got the idea. And no, no place for getting offended. IT IS CALLED BUSINESS FOR A REASON. If you sell candies, you’re not gonna advertise toilet paper, are you? That’s how you gotta look at your artist image as well.
3. Your Music Is Not Easy To Find
Let’s imagine this next scenario: you perform at a club, you get people moving and the DJ high 5-ing you. You end the song and say nothing but ‘thank you’. Uhm… Hello? Do you know how hard it is to get performing opportunities in the beginning? If you are lucky enough to even get such a scenario, MAKE THE BEST OF IT! Invest in a portable banner on which you write your website, or better yet, attach your QR code. Worst case scenario, pay for a T Shirt where you type in HUGE letters your artist name and ADD ME on the back along with social media logos. People need to be told what to do in order to support you. And you better make sure your music is in every possible place where there are listeners (Tidal, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, Shazam, Deezer, iHeart Radio, etc.).
2. Your Name Is Not Unique Or Memorable
If I google you and find 10 other identities with the exact same name as yours, you’re losing fans without even knowing it. Your name needs to be UNIQUE. Meaning, when I google you, I better see everything related ONLY to YOU. And please don’t use stylized names. There’s only one Jay Z and even he pondered a lot on keeping the hyphen or not.
1. You Don’t Have Enough Material Out
Since I founded Blue Rhymez Entertainment, there’s one BIG lesson I got from scouting talent 24/7. If the artist has only one music video out and only a couple of songs, that tells me he/she is not fully committed yet and just starting out. That means I don’t want to risk investing my time on writing about a rookie who might change his mind a year from now on his whole music career. I am only interested in artists who are consistent and have an obvious drive to succeed. So if you’re just starting out, get your drive pumping and put out a lot of content. Lots of music videos, lots of songs, show me this is what you want to do for real. Only 1 music video and only 1 song is never gonna get you anywhere. And definitely not gonna build you a fan base.