WHY DO YOU NEED A BIO? WHAT IS YOUR BIO USED FOR? WHO EVEN READS IT?

Many artists don’t understand the importance of a great bio and impact that a great bio can make.

Your bio is often your first chance to make a great impression with those that can bring more exposure to your brand.

It’s up to you to tell your story.

Your bio allows you to do that.

It gives insights into who you are, where you came from, what you have accomplished so far, and ultimately how you ended up here.

Think of your bio as a news story. If someone were to write a news story on you, what would it say?

The more interesting your bio is, the better your chances are at getting booked for that big gig, or getting that press write up.

A great bio can get you booked for a gig or a press opportunity; a bad bio can bore people and get you completely overlooked (no matter how good your music might be) and not having a bio at all makes it seem like you don’t take yourself serious which also gets you overlooked.

Your bio is for:

1. Booking agents and talent buyers that can book you for a show.
2. Writers/Bloggers/Journalists that want to write your story or interview you.
3. People who’ve heard about you and want to learn a little more.

This is how the story usually goes:

A journalist/blogger is getting ready to post up your new album. So they’ll visit your website and check out what you say in your bio. Most of the time they use your bio as inspiration to write the opening paragraph about you and other times they may just steal a few lines from your bio to add to their piece. The next thing they do is check out your photo gallery and grab their favorite photo of you to use for their write-up.

HOW SHOULD YOUR BIO BE WRITTEN?

You have 1-2 minutes to impress someone with words, make it count. You want to get in, make a great impression and get out. If they want to stay connected and learn more, GREAT, you’ve succeeded. They can contact you for an interview, or subscribe to your newsletter, or follow you on social media. Your bio is the gateway to all of that.

Things to include:

1. Your biggest accolades (ex: you received 100k plays/views/streams, sold certain # albums, opened up/toured with mainstream artist or at a widely known venue, your music was featured on a certain mainstream outlet etc.).
2. What you’re doing now (ex: did you just release your project? Are you gearing up to release another one? When did the project drop? Or when will it drop?).
3. Quotes from reputable sources and even from yourself.
4. Your Unique Story of how you got started in the music industry (what’s the story behind you picking up a mic and/or an instrument in the first place?).

What not to include:

1. Don't go into every little detail of your life. As a matter of fact, don't say anything that doesn’t directly reflect your music career (ex: we don't need to know that you played football in school unless that's what inspired you to get into creating music or helped launch your music career in some way…you get the point). Simply tell your story and make it interesting or heartwarming and relatable.
2. Don’t use opinionated adjectives unless they’re coming from a reputable source. For instance, you don’t want to say your music is the “best” or you have a “hit” song. Let the person reading the bio formulate their own opinion. Also saying your song is a “hit” when it hasn’t hit the charts is a definite turn off to press.

You should actually have two versions of your bio:

1. The long version (your full bio) goes on your website (either in the BIO or ABOUT section).
2. The short version of your bio goes on your Press Kit/EPK, and your social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube which allow more than 140 characters for your bio.

Before you go, check out Jack and Jill by Edge Golbador

Many artists make the mistake of putting out full projects too soon (before their audience is ready for it). This is especially true for indie artists who may not have much of a buzz yet.

There’s a few possible reasons for this: one being that they didn’t market it the right way and two, maybe their audience just wasn’t ready to indulge in a full body of work just yet.

You spent all that time creating all this wonderful music, the last thing you want is for your music to fall on deaf ears.

You see, marketing is psychology. You always have to think of things from a potential fan’s point of view. I say “potential fan” because someone who follows you is not a fan. It takes time to turn them into a fan of your music. So initially, you don’t want to give people an entire project to digest as that can be too overwhelming for people to sit and listen to 10+ songs from an artist they aren’t necessarily familiar with yet.

There are 40,000 songs being uploaded to Spotify every single day.

Yes you heard that correctly. 40 THOUSAND SONGS uploaded daily.

That’s A LOT of music to consume.

So you’ll want to make sure your followers are paying attention and ready to receive what you have to give them.

Keep in mind, this is not necessarily about how many followers you have, as everyone must start somewhere. This is about how many of those people are actually interested in checking out your music and content. It’s less about numbers and more about engagement.

Have you heard about that recent story about the Instagram influencer with over 2 million followers who couldn’t sell 36 hoodies? This is what we want you to avoid.

If you haven’t dropped any music in a while (more than a few months) and you want to see who’s ready for new music, there’s a few things you can do to basically survey your audience to see how many people are actually engaged and ready for new music.

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO SEE WHO’S ALREADY PAYING ATTENTION, YOU CAN DO THE FOLLOWING:

• Put up a post on Instagram and Facebook telling your fans to “like this status if you’re ready for some new music.”
• Put up a tweet that says “RT this is you want some new music.”
• Put up a post on Facebook and Instagram that says, “If i get 100 comments I’ll drop my next song/video.”
• Put a poll in your Instagram story and see how many people say “yes” for new music.

Posting things like this will allow you to efficiently gauge how many people are paying attention. If you don’t get many interactions you know you have some work ahead of you and it might not be the best time to drop a full project.

Instead, you should start by posting consistent content that your followers can engage with that will get them interacting, and then drop a few singles and see what the response is.

Consistency is always the key.

Have you listened to Nigerian Girl by Edge Golbador?