The DO's and DON'Ts of Music Business

Breaking into the music industry has always been a challenge for artists from all genres. The whole process can be overwhelming, especially considering the constant flux the music industry presents.

1) OVERUSING SOCIAL MEDIA AND THIRD PARTY SITES/UNDER-USING OTHER MEANS OF ONLINE PROMOTION : It’s really frustrating to me when I try to get more information about a major artist who I’m a fan of , but can’t find anything about him/her besides what appears on his Facebook page and/or Twitter account. This is the silent struggles of music executives. And what’s even more frustrating than that is when people can’t find your music anywhere else but on the blogs where they were posted and the links you put up on twitter. Social Media sites are just one piece of the online marketing puzzle, they are just a tool. Your success is defined by how many fans you have, not how many twitter followers and Facebook friends you have. Build your own website, build your promotion as an artist without focusing solely on third party sites which you do not control. It’ll make people take you more seriously and intensify your fan base. When the big shows and events start rolling in, big industry players and promoters are more interested in the traffic you generate than the amount of twitter “followers” you have.

2) ARTIST DEVELOPMENT : Just as a house built on a weak foundation will collapse in no time, no matter how much potential you have as an artist, no matter how talented you are, jumping head first into your music career without sacrificing and spending time to develop yourself will cut the career you think you have in no time. No one is really doing any developing these days. People aren’t really going around looking for and picking up the young man with the great singing voice in church or on the street corner who might have the most amazing voice but knows nothing about song structure and song arrangement and just needs to know how to put a song together. Everyone is just looking for a ready made product to market, an artist who already knows how to do those things own his/her own. That’s why the need for development is even more essential now.

If you really want to have that edge, you have to show that you are ready for the industry, you can handle things on your own, not just come up with one “accidental song” with a catchy hook and beat, and then you can’t back it up with another song because you never took out the time to develop yourself as an artist, never spent time honing your craft and knowing yourself as an artist. Season yourself, practice practice practice, teach yourself how to write songs, find out what styles work for you. Don’t just loop a beat by mistake playing around with the music production software you only started using two weeks ago, record on your laptop with your friends on a drunk Friday night and think you’ve arrived! If you take a look at majority of the artists in the industry with longevity and consistency, you can trace back their history and see that they didn’t just show up out of nowhere with a catchy song one day, they worked their way to the top by getting better and better. How well you develop yourself is the difference between “HAVING IT!” and “MAKING IT!” and this development does not only involve music, it’s the whole package, it has everything to do with the artist you want to become, your personality, your performance, your IMAGE.

3) PERFORMANCE : It’s mind boggling to think of the fact that in an industry where majority of the musician’s income comes from shows, artists still neglect the importance of a great show and the importance of sharpening their performing skills. Your music may be good, but a live show requires more than just that. If people only want to hear your music, they’ll just stay at home, play your music and never come out and pay their hard earned money to watch you perform. If you want to be remembered, give people something to remember when you perform. Don’t just come out there and mime like it’s a school social night because you’re going to get paid anyway. Let people know they are guaranteed satisfaction every time they have to pay to see certain artists or trek miles like Moses and Aaron in the bible to watch artists perform.

4) OFFLINE MARKETING/PROMOTION : Despite the obvious importance of online communication, it’s just one part of the whole package. As hard as it is to believe these days, there are people who are into music but not just into computers and the internet as much as you and I. Think of them, they’re fans too, and they need to know what’s going on with you as an artist. Intensify your promotion offline, put yourself out there, create logos and other promotional materials to giveaway. Make shirts, hats, pens with your logo on them, stamp your brand on anything you can. Just assume you don’t have any form of online promotion, let your offline promotion be that serious and intense.

5) BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE : Just like in every other industry, the customer should always come first. Music companies and labels are the manufacturers, the artists are the products and the fans are the customers. Music consumers need to be given more options. There is a lot of good music out there that’s not being heard because fans don’t have a say in determining what kind of music they want to hear and what kind of music they want to be circulated. We just let DJs and Blogs determine what a “hit” is. More contests, giveaways and marketing surveys would be really helpful. Artists live off fans and need to always treat the fans with care and respect, find out what they want and do the best you can to satisfy their needs. Don’t get carried away by success and fame and put yourself on a pedestal.

6) PROFESSIONALISM : Contrary to what some think, the life of a music superstar can’t always be as glamorous and “rock star-ish” as it appears on TV. To get gigs that pay at home in Nigeria and abroad, an artist must exude a high level of professionalism often less glamorous than the lifestyle he/she portrays on TV and in music videos. Because most artists get paid to play or perform music for people, they have to get better at doing what those people want, be good at taking directions. Artists, Be on time for your shows, Keep your word, Perform the amount of songs you were paid to perform, don’t show up for a show or to meet with clients visibly intoxicated, be respectful to your fans. Promoters, Keep your word. Pay the artists the amount of money you agreed to pay them at the exact time you agreed to pay them. Get the venue prepared for the artist before the show. Don’t book 25 artists for the same show in one night without adequate preparation and have the fans attacking you because only 6 of those artists showed up. Sometimes it’s frustrating taking directions from people who don’t know much about music because they’re not communicating with you the right way, but as a professional you should be able to keep your cool and know how to adapt. Keep a calendar and learn how to keep to time. Not many things are more frustrating and embarrassing than tardiness, and in this highly competitive music industry where everyone is scrapping and scrambling for whatever shows are available, You’ll lose work if you can’t keep to time and keep track of things.

Ultimately, Preparation is the difference between a professional and an amateur. An amateur practices until he gets it right, a professional practices until he never gets it wrong.

7) CONSISTENCY : You go to the gym for 4 months, consistently, you start gaining strength and muscle, you start looking and feeling better, and then you just stop all of a sudden, and never go back for a year for whatever reason. You’re going to lose all the strength and muscle you gained, and when you eventually go back, if you do, you have to work even harder than you did before to regain what you lost.

As an Artist, think of your career that way. If you release good music people like and get yourself buzzing for 6 months, and then all of a sudden you get too comfortable and disappear from the scene for one year, People are going to start forgetting about you. It’s like that in every field. The more you fade away from your career and fans, the more your fans and your career fade away from you. Whatever you do, be you a DJ, Producer or Artist, consistency is the big difference maker that separates you from everyone else. Be consistent, always aim to be better, don’t get comfortable because you put in 110% effort in the beginning and got a lot of fans and now you think you can just do whatever and give your fans whatever and they’ll just accept it. Stay hungry, Keep working. Even when you’re not doing what people know you for, put yourself out there, stay in the news for positive reasons, do positive things the fans will enjoy.

8) ARTIST-FAN INTERACTION AND RELATIONSHIP : Few years ago, what an artist needed to have in terms of publicity and relationships was a publicist and/or manager, promoters, salesmen, and booking people. If all these people were in order, then getting and keeping the artist out there was a success, without the artist needing to maintain relationships with too many other people. Today it’s different. Artists need to get used to new, different kinds of relationships and how to maintain it.

Thanks to technology, artists have become way more accessible now.

Whether you like it or not, artists have become more human to fans now, and you have to get used to the resulting fact that you’ll have to engage in way more relationships with different people than the average artist did five years ago. Yes, you can hire a publicist or whoever to blog and tweet for you to avoid your feelings getting hurt, but nobody who is not you can be you on the internet 24/7. Eventually it’ll become very artificial.

You just have to deal with the fact that as an artist you’re gonna have to communicate with people more these days, some good, some bad, but you just need to get better at it. Try to be as professional as possible while also trying to be as “human” as you can when you interact with fans on the internet. Be open, listen to your fans, some will criticize you. Listen to constructive criticism and pay attention to what fans ask you for. Don’t just go around and start blocking people online because they tell you “You’re not putting out music as good as you used to”, Yes, many people are disrespectful and just want to annoy you for their own pleasure…..Just ignore them, don’t get pulled into any silly mess by silly people on the internet.

CONCLUSION

With these few points, I hope you are convinced and not confused that music business is beyond just singing and rapping.

Before you go away, watch Wonderland (Cover) by Meemah Jackson Original song is by Efe Oraka.