Personal Branding & Telling Your Story
For a lot of musicians and artists looking to establish themselves or be heard in today’s music climate, personal branding and online brand management is a taboo topic, or at best, one veiled in myth. Branding and marketing, especially, are subjects that often run antithetical to the musician’s creed. There’s a prevailing mainstay that any artist worth their salt separates their work from the business side of things – and almost rightfully so, in an industry Hunter S. Thompson once described as “a cruel and shallow money trench…a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.”
Yet, with the way that we listen to and consume music rapidly changing, creators are looking less to other traditional music industry insiders to do their work for them. It’s a hard truth that whether you have a 360 deal at a more mainstream record label or you’re an independent artist with barely enough money in your wallet to make it to the next venue on your DIY tour, your music is by default part of a more expansive story you’re telling with every live performance, face-to-face interaction, music video, band photo, and social media update.
In the music industry, we commonly refer to this as your brand. In the post-truth world of fake news, misleading online radio personalities, clickbait headlines, social media influencers, and outrage culture, your brand helps build both visual and narrative continuity. It helps you and your music stand out in a sea of releases bombarding listeners daily.
Your Brand Is a Story: Find Your “Why”
As artists, we create a “dream” for people, and as such, we’re responsible for guiding them through that dream. So, any artist trying to present their work to the public should also have a good grasp of the larger community of art they’re contributing to. From an outsider’s perspective, you are a character or personality. The better you are at presenting that story to others in a way they can see themselves reflected in or through, the easier it will be for them to connect to your art.
If you’re just starting to develop some of this content, a helpful pointer is to think like an outsider.
Attempt to identify your “why” and find your story. Dig deep and ask yourself what you’re trying to say and what sets you apart. Ask yourself who you are relative to your fans, where you’re going, and what you want to do with your art.
Here are some questions to get you started that can help prevent some costly headaches down the road that take other musicians and artists years to discover:
- Who are you relative to your music and those who listen to it?
- Why did you start making music, to begin with?
- Where are you going, and what do you want to do with your art?
- What are you trying to communicate, and why should we care?
- How is your art different than what’s already out there?
- What are the biggest influences on your music?
Don’t just passively answer these questions. Write out your answers. Answering these questions one by one should render a narrative structure – beginning, middle, and end – like you’re telling a story. It should also generate important content needed for a thorough band biography, one-sheet, band website, or useful press blurb for interviews. These are essential materials to book shows, get press, and draw new people to your work.
Knowing your brand is knowing your music identity, and it’s crucial in defining your future objectives. Later, once things start moving more, your brand will be how you target an audience and analyze consumer behavior to render outcomes. Unfortunately, a lot of artists don’t take the time to think about what their art is or means to other people because they think it’s obvious. Often, it’s not obvious at all.
People don’t purchase music anymore; they purchase the “dream” you create for them. It is almost impossible to create engaging content without knowing who you are and what direction you want to take your art in. People should be able to feel like they’re a part of what your brand represents. The goal is for it to resonate with them and create the sense of community they seek.
By finding your “why,” you’ll not only be more in touch with your purpose as an artist and musician, but you should also be able to see your art as a story. Thus, you’ll be one step closer to giving people something they can relate to and see themselves in – a piece of shared humanity, an artifact of culture, a dream.
Source: Thompson, H. S. (2010). Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the 80s. London: Picador. (p. 43).
