16: Advice for Those Shy About Self-Promotion
with Beth Stewart
The term self-promotion is a bit off putting... What advice do you have for musicians who are shy about engaging in self-promotion?
Some tips I would recommend: The first is think about it less as promoting you and more about promoting the project or the work that you're doing. I think that sometimes allows people enough distance to feel good about saying exciting, complimentary things.
The other is just to keep it genuine. And we're going to come back to the idea of research here. You want to be authentic, and part of the way that you can do that is by figuring out what resonates with you.
So, for example, when you're scrolling Instagram for hours, what is it that makes you pause? What makes you stop and actually click read more and read a full caption? What- What engages you on all the various social media platforms? Or what promotional ideas have you seen work? Are you drawn in by someone who does an exclusive track at I CARE IF YOU LISTEN? What is it that speaks to you? And I think that by doing that research and noting those trends, you're going to get some ideas of what might work for you.
We have this incredible resource in social media, right? In that artists get to speak directly to us and you get to speak directly to your audience and your followers. And it means that there is a lot happening out in the open that you can observe and take notes on. I would encourage you to do that research.
If you're new to social media, do some lurking before you jump in there. I often liken it to a cocktail party like nobody likes the jerk who comes to the cocktail party and just sits in the corner and yells out, "I have a concert next Friday! You should come!" Like, what they enjoy is someone who converses, and asks how you're doing, and listens to what you're up to, and has interesting conversation related to what's going on in the world. So if you're not up to that conversation level yet, maybe you're the shy person at the party who just kind of walks around two different groups and listens a little bit and thinks like, "Oh, that joke was funny" or, "Oh, I should read that New Yorker article" and then figure out how you're going to contribute to the conversation instead of just sort of that monodirectional blasting.
I think that when people think of self-promotion, they often think of that trumpeting and really like everything else in the world, it's about give-and-take and relationships.