Branding for Music Artists: The Fan Attractor

1. Intro to Branding for Music Artists: Welcome to the branding for music artists class we are gonna utilize to Book Resource Is the 1st 1 is Primal Branding by Patrick Hanlon. The second book is Robert Green's Art of Seduction. With these two books, we're going to apply the knowledge and wisdom that is given and convert it into useful ideas and activities for you to brand yourself as a music artist. In this class, you will walk away with branding concepts that you can apply toe all areas of your music marketing. This goes into creating social media content online all the way to creating an artist. Look that bonds and inspires your audience. So if you're ready to learn how to build a brand as a music artist, let's get started. 2. Your First Class Project : Primal Branding Worksheet: Let's walk through your first project of this class. After understanding the seven levels to primal branding, I have available for you a worksheet in which you are going to answer the questions to each level with each level. After you've answered your question, there is advice. I inform you on how you can use your answers to start applying them to your promotion of marketing as an artist, and also keep in mind that everything is in development. So you may have an inter now and come up with different answers later on down the line. So it's recommended to go through these exercises once a month or at least once every quarter of the year, right every three months, and just re identify and redefine your answers until they're really working for you. I'd love it if you can share below. What is it that you got out of this exercise? What step really speaks to you and you're really excited to get working on and sharing and interacting with your fan base 3. 7 Branding Steps to a Raving Fanbase: author and public speaker Patrick Hanlin wrote a book called Primal Branding and within this book with summary is that you need seven key steps to get yourself to a place where you have an established brand. And once you commit and create theseventies steps, you will build a huge following and you'll create raving fans. The 70 steps are creation story, creed, icons, rituals, opposition, sacred words and leader. The creation story is a short story about how you got started. This might be entering the questions about one was the first time you picked up an instrument or when was the first time you started writing music? The 2nd 1 is Creed. Creed is about something that you stand for, so you want to take some time to think about what are the things that you really stand for and you strongly believe in Icahn's. This could be a visual logo that you work on, but it could also be like a sound. Now, rituals is something that you always do when people experience you, so this could be something like always going live on months days or always dropping a YouTube video every Monday and Friday. Those are just two examples, but rituals is something that you are in an activity and you are doing something consistently, and people understand that this is where they can congregate to experience you and see you again, opposition or the haters. It's really important to identify your competition, understand that the competition will help to refine you as an artist. It establishes where you belong and where you don't belong. The other thing about identifying the competition, and especially dealing with opposition, right? People who do not like what you do thes people are so important. The more that you produce and put yourself out there, the more that they could continue to oppose you and hate you. And there is this idea that any press is good press, which means any kind of people talking about you is good exposure and awareness. So sometimes it takes the people that don't like you to get more awareness to you, and this also brings up more loyalty from your actual tribe so that they have something to fight for. So the opposition is very powerful sacred words there certain kinds of words or phrases that you may use consistently that always identifies that it's your language. So one of the things that have been very trendy over the past decade is that artists will call their fans something. So, for instance, Mariah Carey she calls her fans the lamb belly. This is an example of a sacred word. It's something that is created just for your community, and people understand what it means and what it's for. So you can create sacred words to call your fans. But you can also create other kinds of sacred words, and this may feel a little forced if you're just coming up with it. But go ahead and brainstorm. Maybe some ideas that you can use. You could always change things up until you've really find something that sticks and the last one is leader, and this is the person with vision and the instinct to create the vision. And when we're talking about our industry being a music artist, that person is you 4. THE ORIGIN STORY DECODED (0041A69E C149 4AD3 9E69 E55B46818C42): Hello, everyone. So I'm coming to you with a quick distinction about an origin story versus a biography because the two have different reasons for existing and they're both really important. Well, when it comes to branding yourself, we actually want to focus on our origin story. The keys here is understanding that the origin story can be placed inside of biography, but the biography should not be a part of the origin story. Okay, so the origin story is going to have a very clear and short concept. It's gonna have a concept of where you're from, what your background is and what is the thing for the moment that got you into music. So I wanted to give two examples here. Um, and these two examples are from Wikipedia, which is why I want to share it with you because it's not about the fault of the artist at all. It's just about what Wikipedia has, and this is a good way to distinguish your origin story from your biography. So I would look at the artist Sabrina Claudio, who is very successful and doing very well and has an exquisite brand. Or branding is on point. Um on Wikipedia. We have here her life and career, and you'll see her that it says that she grew up in Fort Lauderdale. She's half Cuban, half Puerto Rican descent. She later moved to Los Angeles, where she began her music career in earnest. She first began recording and releasing video covers on Twitter and YouTube before transitioning to original tracks, which she released on Soundcloud. Over the course of 2016 Claudio released several singles, including Running through Lovers, Orion's Belt and confidently Lost. So I Want to just Ask You Right Now, take a moment and look at this paragraph and tell me, Is this an origin story? Or is this a biography? So if you said that it is a biography than I would agree with you now there are some elements that are hinting to how she first began, right, But it's more hinting toe how when she first began, as far as when she was first successful, right, as when people started to get to know her and notice her. So they say, she first began recording and releasing video covers on Twitter and You two before transitioning to original tracks, which issue which she released on Soundcloud. This line gives an idea of origin, but it gives an idea of origin of her growth to success. And that is what you need in a biography. It gives an idea of what about the artist and made them rise to success. And you want to put that in there so that you can, um, in a fancy way flaunt your feathers. You can show off, okay, but we do have origins of where she's from, which is Fort Lauderdale. And we do have origins in this paragraph about her background so that she's Cuban and Puerto Rican, so that gives us an idea of her. But it doesn't give an origin story, So I want to give you an example of an origin story. This would be Jesse raise. Jesse Reyes is, um, another very successful artist out there, and, um, we have a Wikipedia on her. Okay, now Jesse raise this paragraph says that Jesse Reyes was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Colombian parents. So there we have where she's from and her ethnic background, which is hopeful. And then it tells about her family moving to Brampton, Ontario. She was introduced to the guitar by her father, leading to a career in art and music. She played guitar as a child and began writing her own music in high school. Her roots brought her back to Toronto during her sophomore year, and after graduating she opted out of college and instead chose to pursue her music while doing odd jobs on the side. In 2012 raising, her family moved to Florida, where she was primarily bartending and busting on the beach. But return to Toronto in 2014 after being accepted to the remix Projects Academy of Recording Arts and at the remix Project Race was mentored by Daniel Daily from DVS and and her music was hurt by King Louis. So it gradually grows into a biography. It starts to flaunt its feathers at the end. But the key here and the thing that we want to distinguish is the branding. What is the thing that your fans and followers are going to remember about you? OK, and on this would be a great thing here, where it says she was introduced to the guitar by her father, leading to a career in art and music. Okay, she played guitar as a child and began writing her own music in high school. Her roots brought her back to Toronto during her sophomore year. So it's a story of where she was introduced to music, how she grew from that, and what brought her into the cycle of being successful. And that's what we're looking for. Origin means the beginning. The initial thing. It's the story before you were successful or before your known. This is why it's so powerful, especially in branding and especially when you're first getting started. Because no matter where you are, whether you're first getting started or you're already successful, the origin story helps to enhance your connection to your fans of followers. 5. Creating your Rituals: Hi everyone, We are back. And as we're going through the seven steps of primal branding, I want to be able to dissect each section, each step, and show with you in real time how is the I apply these ideas in order to grow myself as an artist? And so in this one, we're going to look at creating or rituals. Now, this is to remind you that in the seven steps of primal branding, that your rituals is what you do when you do it and who you are congregating to do it with. And as we go more into the course, you see that you're creating a culture and a community around yourself and your rituals is a very important key step and what you need to commit to. Because as you commit to meeting with people and having people see you on a regular basis, on a scheduled basis. This actually helps with the branding ideas that you are having. Now, it's important to know that you can change up your rituals and until you really find that time. And that way that you're doing it that really like zones in on who you are as an artist. Until then it's all an experiment. Okay? So I'm showing you here that I'm actually creating a little announcement for my first experimental rituals. So this is something that I want to try. My culture right now is spirituality, God is Hood, astrology. So I am actually mixing in my music time with my culture. And I'm just going to offer a time where I go live once a week. And with that, you get to here, up and coming music projects, old music that I've done. It could be anything that I want to do music wise. And at the same time, I'm also going to pull in some oracle card readings because that's a part of my culture. You know, I'm pulling in maybe some Astrology breakdown because that's a part of my culture and that's a part of my community, my music community in my music cultures. So I'm just showing you guys that I'm creating a ritual, which is a time that I'm congregating, which will be on Fridays, a day in a time around seven o'clock. And this is what I'm going to first start out with to see if this works for me. If Fridays at seven don't work, then I might change it up. But it's important to try to implement that ritual because you want to have a moment, kind of like if you're a Christian and you go to church in all or, you know, whatever, whatever is that moment in the week where people can always know where you're going to be and where to find you. And since this is a digital marketing, Internet marketing course, we have the Internet at our disposal and you have all of these social media apps at your disposal. So I'm just showing you guys that I am working out a promotional photo that I'm actually using for my Facebook platform. And you don't have to do this just for Facebook. This could be on your Instagram, this could be on her YouTube, wherever it is that you find as your platform. And just go ahead and make that announcement. Go ahead and create a virtual and experiment with it. 6. How Colors Create your Brand Personality: in this section, we're going to discuss the powerful psychology of color in your branding. So it's important to know that you will be choosing colors in order to create your logos in order to choose costuming and anything on social media marketing. So what I want to share with you here is the ideas behind colors and what the emotions of colors evoke, depending on which colors utilize. Now, on this chart, you will see that we have the different colors that are different categories of color, and we have here to the ways in which colors evoke emotions to your audience. Depending what colors you used is going to reflect who you are as personality, what you stand for and what you want your audience to feel right, So the red orange, yellow colors These are the most hyper colors there, the more youthful colors, and they represent a really bright, fierce, passionate personality. You see here that red is about power, passion, energy, fearlessness, strength, excitement, right and red also can be a lot about lust and sexual appetite. Orange is courageous, confident, warm, friendly, energetic and yellow is optimistic, warm, happy, creative. So these colors are representative of a highly spirited personality and personal brand. Now, when you look at green, turquoise, blue, purple and magenta, these are more calmer colors, and they have a ah, personality that is not all the way exaggerated serious, but they tend to show off a depth to the personality. So green represents hope, freshness, growth and prosperity. Turquoise is a color of communication, clarity, calmness, inspiration, healing even. And blue is a color of trust and loyalty. Somebody who's dependable, logical intellectual and serenity and purples, a color of wisdom, luxury, spirituality, wealth, imagination and sophistication. Magenta is a color of imagination, passion, transformation and balance. Now the last colors brown, black and gray and white thes colors are more neutral, and they have a sense of seriousness. Tooth Um, right so brown is serious. Warm, earthy, stable, supportive. Black is sophistication. Mystery power authority. Gray is a color of timelessness. Neutrality, balance, intelligence and white is a color of purity, clarity, cleanliness, simplicity, freshness and sophistication. So you can use thes colors in a way in which to showcase what combination of these colors you want to use in your branding. And again, this goes for Logo's fashion and social media presence. Now it's recommended to start with a base color like what would be the foundation color of your brand, right? And then you can choose a secondary color. What would that secondary color be? And then you could choose a tertiary color. What would the third color be right now? It doesn't matter if you choose different colors from the different levels of energy, right either the very top level, like reds, orange and yellow. If you were using those colors like, for instance, those colors are very popular in the McDonald's brand, right? So you could do combination of one level, depending on your personality. Or maybe you want to take from each level and do a color combination in that sense of it. OK, now let's look at some examples of how certain artists use their color to brand themselves on social media. 7. Colors Branding on Instagram: this artist's Angie is a pop R and B edgy artist, and her color is actually pink and peaches. So this would work in the psychology of Magenta, Um, and also maybe a little bit of purple. But she also uses more of yellow and orange right in there. So the pink color has a sense of flirtation. Femininity to it, negativity to it, right so you can see that in her social media, she mainly has this theme of pink and peach in her social media work. Now off pours, you can use different colors, even colors that are not complimentary to your base color. But having the base color really sets a foundation of which you can grow from. Then, when you add anything else like when she adds a blue right, which is not her main color, it actually just stands out and looks very striking and actually hopes to support what is her base color of what isn't. So I just wanted to show you this as an example of how you know people intentionally can use their base color to showcase the to showcase their personality. You'll see here that she has a picture of all of green, and she has greens here. These pictures, um, are complementary colors to her peachy pink base. So that really actually doesn't make everything look more beauty flirtatious. And you can tell that that is kind of her brand. It's about beauty, youthfulness, being flirty, being almost a little careless and having a lot of fun being slightly seductive but not too serious because of the pinkish. It's not like red or or, you know, really strong silver black that you see now. You know her hair is black, so the way that she makes up herself is a whole other sides of the brand. But as far as the base color, you can see here that she's you utilizing the light, pinks and peaches to really help set the mood for her. Instagram Page. Another band that I would like to show you, is Odessa Odessa, and they actually are on tour so you'll see here that they show a lot of tour pictures. No, whether they're intentional or not, their pictures are basically a base blue color. You'll see here that the album aren't is this beautiful blue, and you'll see that a lot of the tour lighting is blue. Now they have contrast ing red, which Onley must be their secondary. Red and orange could be one of their secondary colors. So could purple, Red, orange, green, purple might be there secondary and tertiary colors. But you'll see that the base here is blue even on, uh, this poster here, it's mainly blue. And then they've got little peach green in the middle here, so this really shows and really looks really good on their marketing. So it has this psychology with the blue of having trust, loyalty, dependability, so very intellectual, very serene, a lot of serenity. Shared hair. Now when they posed red colors, it really stands out, and it looks really great on their feet. Okay, so this is what you're seeing with them is that their base is a blue color. Even in this photo with the Blue House, it works really well in the overall look of the page. You'll see here that this color this photo stands out and while it got great reviews and there's a lot of good engagement, so you could definitely have photos that are not about your base color 8. Your Supporting Cast: Musical Influences: in order to understand your audience, create a culture around your music and begin the building blocks of your brand. We first must start with understanding your musical influences. There's something that is important to understand. There's nothing new under the sun, and while you have a distinctive skill as a musician and artist and a distinctive sound, there's something about your sound that is made up of your influences. And it is through your influences that we can gain more insight into your audience and who they used to listen to or currently listen to. So as we do this video, we are doing a lecture and an assignment at the same time. The first thing that I encourage you to do is take a moment, even pause this video and write down the artists and the music that you listen to. When you first started loving music as a kid, what were those artists and even right down the genres of music? So you can go ahead and do that now, now that you have uncovered your older music influences the artists that inspired you to become the artists that that you are today? Now let's look at the music that you currently listen to. While you may still listen to some of your favorite older artists, there are some new genres that you may have in your music library. So take a moment now and pause the video and write down some of your favorite artists that you listen to today. Now that you have uncovered the artists that you listen to today you have this full collection off influences. What are some of the similarities that you might find? What about this list? Are there major differences when it comes to your influences? Take a moment to write these similarities and differences down. 9. Music Genre Assignment : go back in time and re account all of the musical artists that influenced you. The second list that I want you to make is a list of the current artists that you are listening to. Now, after you have written your two lists, I want you to contemplate the differences in genres between these artists. You can actually look up there genres by going to Google and typing in their names. You'll type in the artist's name and write the word genre. Compare and contrast the genre's between your past influences and your present incidences within the genres is a direction in which to categorise your musical sound, in which we can start implementing. Where does your musical sound fit in? 10. The Importance of Culture: What do you think is the main reason that an independent artist blows up? A lot of people think it's about the hustle or the money to market themselves in advertising. But there is an important factor that is overlooked when it comes to their music marketing , and this factor is tapping into music culture. So what is culture? Well, culture is a way of life, a shared lifestyle that is experienced by a group of people. Some of the things that are shared in this culture is how they eat, how they drink, how they speak, how they create traditions and customs. What are their shared believes and shared values, even holly dress and most especially, what type of aren't they loved? All of this is a shared experience. So what you have to see is that your music is the center of a certain culture, and it is up to you to discover, create and build that culture 11. Music Culture Assignment: we're going to begin diving into creating a building your music culture. Here is your assignment research. Three possible fashion brands that your music would be reflective of these fashion brands would be something that you really love and these clothes you would wear either as an artist on stage or in photos or in everyday life. And also these fashion brands are something that your hands would probably really love to there. Now I want you to go on to instagram and look up. These fashion brands. Look up their profiles. What other artists are on these profiles? So what other artists are sponsoring These brands are brand ambassadors of these brands, and I want you to write down the artists associated with those brands. What are the colors that you're frequently seeing within thes fashion brands? And with the artists like, what are the typical colors that are being marketed? And what is the overall mood or vibe of these fashion brands? What kind of person do you see commenting and liking the posts on these fashion brands on instagram? And how does your music tap into the culture and the lifestyle of these fashion brands? So I want you to do that assignment. Write it down on the worksheet that is provided for you and keep it with you as we continue working through the course. 12. Seduce your Audience: What I'm going to share with you is the psychological beats of a musician. This is about choosing your own art of seduction. Now these ideas are influenced and inspired by Robert Greene's book, but they are kind of created specifically for this course. So it's not a direct correlation from the book, so we are going to dive into what are the psychological beats of a musician? Let's go through the list in the First is intellectual. The next is straight up sexy and in the artist seduction in the sections called the Siren or the Rake. This is influenced by those characteristics from the book. The next one is mysterious. The next one is charismatic, and the final one is beauty and brains. Okay, so we have five levels, five options that you can choose from to create your artist seduction. The first, on the list of the psychological beats of a musician, is the intellectual. These are the people that use their intelligence to market themselves. They lure people in by what it is that they know. This could be based off of education. So where they have gone to school and what they have been studying for a certain amount of time over. Or this could be about educating their audience based off of life experience and sharing their wisdom after going through a certain experience. So the intellectual is all about the brain. It's all about fax books knowledge, and there's not much focus on the physicality of the artist. The next one is straight up sexy. The Strait of Sexy is the person that is very seductive, and they use their physicality to pull people it. Now. This is probably the more popular one that we see online, and it works because sex really does sell. So this is about being very easy to look at, and whatever regards that it's for you. It's about exposing parts of your body. But in order to make sure that it remains tactful, choosing just one part to show off at a time, be bold when it comes to this and allow yourself to be loved and allow your body to be loved. The next option is being mysterious. Mysterious is the person that hides a portion of themselves and their probably the one who leaves the most up to fantasy, and they allow people to be curious about what they are and what they have. Underneath all the clothes, there is something about leaving people wanting more than the mysterious mystique must master. And the whole idea of this is about showcasing a sexual central side of you but not giving it all up and not really revealing much at all. So the mysterious mystique also maintains distance. 13. Seduce your Audience pt II - examples: Now let's go through three different artists profiles and match them to one of the 1st 3 artist seduction. So we're looking at intellectual, mysterious or sexy. The first artist is her now, if you know anything about her. She is a brand new artists and has a very distinct way that she brought herself into the industry and marketed her strategy. I'll give you a few seconds to guess which one you think she is. So if you guessed mysterious, then I would agree with you. There is something about how her brought herself into the industry that was very mysterious and maintained a sort of distance with the audience. She utilizes the glasses in a way to shade herself, and you can't quite see all of her if her eyes are covered. And also how she dropped her music was very mysterious. She had a picture of her silhouette, so you couldn't even see her face when you first saw her music. So this is a good example. I feel of utilizing the artists abduction of mystery. Now let's look at another example. We're going to use the artist cardi B. This should be a little easy to figure out mysterious, sexy or intellectual. Now, if you guessed sexy, then I would agree with you. No, awesome might be offended and they'll say, Oh, but she's very smart. It's not that she is not smart. It's that she utilized her sexiness to push herself through her art of seduction. This is how she created a psychological beat with her fan base. This is what they know her for and what they look forward to when they see Cardi B and you can see in all of her materials that she chooses to expose her body, and she maintained a level of integrity with it. Now some my agree or disagree, but she chooses to expose herself in a way that is still creative but still gets the point across that she is ultimately sexy. Now the last artists that we're going to look at is Lauryn Hill. So which do you think she would be intellectual, sexy or mysterious? If you guessed intellectual, I would agree with you. Now. There's many aspects to Lauryn Hill that is very sexy, and there's definitely a mystery about her, but it's her intellect that actually pushed her out into the world That is how she created ah psychological bond with her fan base and that became her art of seduction she even uses in her most famed album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. So she's playing off of education here, and it's about her life experience. So this is definitely, to me an example of using the intellectual to gain mo mentum and exposure as a marketing technique. And so those are the 1st 3 options that you can choose from intellectual, sexy or mysterious. 14. Seduce your Audience pt III - examples: now the next one is being charismatic, the charismatic one. They have a little bit of everything. They have a little bit of showing their smarts, showing their sexy side. But those parts of them are not focused as much as being an open book for people to dig into an experience. And the last one is beauty and brains, and this one is truly the merging of the intellect and the very sexy person. The beauty and brains is someone that's beautiful with something to say. So they're not just sharing other intellect, and that's it. And they're not just sharing all of their body and sexiness, and that's it. But there emerge of the two. Now the beauty and brains can sometimes be a little bit more political in nature. There's something about them that really takes a stand on justice and fairness and equality . But they're also really gorgeous to look at. So the beauty of brains one is the last option. So now that we have discussed the last two types of the psychological beats of a musician, I'd like for us to utilize to music artists that are very well known and put them in one of these two types. So the first artist that we're going to discuss is Rihanna. I'll give you a few seconds to decide for yourself. Which would you tie Rihanna to Charismatic or beauty and brains? If you chose Charismatic for Rihanna, then I would agree with you. Now. This whole concept of psychological beats of a musician, it's not definitive. And in fact, Rihanna could fit into a few of the types. She's definitely sexy, and she's definitely got beauty and brains. She definitely stands for things. She's got a lot of intellectual starting her own business. But there's a very specific reason why I chose charismatic. And that's because the charismatic psychological tie is all about being more down to earth , being very relatable. They're warm and they're inviting. They let you end. They let their fan base in on one of the major networks. A few years back, they had an episode where they went into Rihanna's house, and they also followed her around her home country. So that's that charisma with her psychological tie, like seeing where she came from and experiencing her life through her eyes and her showing you that the next artist that we're going to talk about is Beyonce. And since there is only one last type, we're just going to say that Beyonce's beauty and brains now again, the psychological beats of a musician. It's not definitive, and Beyonce's definitely sexy right? But there's something about Beyonce's approach that includes being beautiful and tying in intellect. You see the beauty and brains person is somebody that stands for something, and they look good doing it. And that is what Beyonce's showcases in her self titled album Beyonce. She was very much about feminism and had that political stance. Now, one of the ways that the beauty and brains can really show themselves is through documenting themselves and sharing documentaries. And this is something that Beyonce has done about three or four times now. So what you're able to do in a documentary is you can share the vision in the concepts and your ideas behind the creative work that you're doing. So the key with understanding the psychological beats because a lot of artists conform to different types, right? The key to really finding the core of a psychological beat is that they're bonding with you through these avenues, Beyonce uses her beauty and brains to create a psychological bond with her fan base. So you have these at your disposal. You can choose and play around with these ideas as much as you want. And the idea of the artist seduction is that it is a creative choice. So you may say, Okay, well, this one's more like me, and this one is not like me, and you might make a choice off of what you're the most comfortable with, but you don't have to. You can also make a creative choice off of something that you don't feel that you really are. But maybe you want to create a persona for yourself, so take some time to look at these different levels and think about which one you feel the most drawn to. 15. Microgenre: part 1: Now that we have established your supporting cast, the next best thing is to look at your micro genre. Now you might be wondering what is a micro genre? While a micro genre is a real term and it is the most narrow category that you could put yourself into, you see in music there is so much music in so many different styles that we can categorise most artists to be under one big genre. Maybe that genre is rock, country pop, hip hop, right? So we couldn't categorize most artists to be under one of the big genres. That's the big picture. But the middle picture is where things start to change up a little bit, maybe depending on the decade of which the music sounds more like right. So there is music that sounds more like it was made in the eighties and nineties. And then there's music that sounds more like it's been made in the new millennium. So basically, the second genre is like a middle picture. It narrows you down from rock, for instance, to psychedelic rock soft rock, right? So this is the middle picture Now. The genre three is the most narrow picture. This is the smaller circle of people in your big genre that you probably sound the most like, and these micro genre names are a combination of even different jumpers. So the goal here is to eventually find your micro genre, because this could be how we can promote you and hope your grand to stand out. Now this is not always an easy process. It might take some experimentation. So let's look at some things that you can do to start looking for your micro genre. So the first thing is you might wanna ask friends, acquaintances and fans for their input on what genre you belong. Teoh. Now they may not have the language of a micro genre, but ask them, you know, what genre do they think you are or what artists do? They think that you sound the most like these artists that they tell you that they think you sound like thes artists could also be now added to your supporting cast. Now the next one is too. Look up your supporting cast and there are different ways that you can do this. The first way is to simply go to Google and type in the name of the artist in your supporting cast and write genre next to their name, then you will see that Google will give you of give you options in which what their genre is categorized by now. Typically, Google is going to give there they're big picture option and their middle picture option. It's very less likely that they will give a micro genre to these artists, so that is one way that you can start to look it up. 16. Microgenre: part 2: unwrap and then type in micro genre. From there, you should be able to find lists from Wikipedia and different sites that will have lists of different micro genres. Now this is kind of like a journey down the rabbit hole, and you might be surprised at how many different micro genres there really are. But this is now the time in which you can start to research and really figure out which one you belong. Teoh. So you might need to go through those micro genres and look up the artists in those micro Jonah's and see if you are able to find anything that really seems to be where you belong. Now, the next thing that you can do is look up. Your supporting cast were still on that number two, and you can look up articles, right? Look up articles from different magazines and see what the articles are saying about those artists. One of the best things you could do is look up maybe a music release in a magazine and see how it is that they describe that artists very often. In these articles, you will get a hint of the micro genre. Now the last one is to go to the Spotify Library of Genres. It is called every noise dot com, and all of the genres are available here. These are the genres that are on Spotify, and they categorize them very intricately and detailed on Spotify, And this could be very useful for you. Now, once you get to your section because you'll see there's a whole section on pop. Then there's a whole folk section metal jazz, so you'll need to scroll down and look for your section right. Once you find something that looks like yours, like for instance, psychedelic rock, you can click it and it will give you a sample of the music that falls under this'll genre on Spotify. Even better, you can click the arrows next to it, and that will bring you into the artists that fall under the genre, and you'll actually find that some artists are going toe overlap into different genres because there is no like extreme black or white when deciding these things. So your job is to figure out how to describe your music by discovery, your micro genre 17. What problem does your music solve? : in this lecture, we are going to answer the question. What problem does your music solve now? This is a typical question for anyone who is an entrepreneur who is making products to sell or who has a service or business to offer people. And as a musician, as a music artist, you to have to think like an entrepreneur. You have to think like a business as an entrepreneur. Business person who isn't who's mindset is focused on solving something for their clients and customers. Weaken. Transfer this over into your music and we can answer the question. What does your music solve now? I want to offer you to take a look at the map as most of motivational hierarchy of needs. Now this is created as a sense of what people need, and it's based off of the foundation, which you'll see at the very bottom is the physiological needs. And then as you grow, the needs get bigger and stronger. Now the foundation is all about what you essentially need first, and then as you grow up into the pyramid, you'll see that the needs are now elevating right. So for the 1st 4 steps of the Maslow needs pyramid needs. You'll see Here we have physiological safety belonging and love like relationships and the steam right. And these air needs that. We just basically, this is what we need to feel like a human right now, when you go above that, you'll get into cognitive leads, aesthetic needs, self actualization and transcendence. And these are the needs that we need above being a human above just meeting our human needs , things that will make us feel more spiritually alive. That will make us feel like we're living our best lives. These are the growth needs of a human being. So when we look at this in more detail, the first foundation is physiological, which is things like breathing food, water, sex, sleep home. Eustace is an excretion. These are just our basic needs, right? And then the next one, a safety feeling secure in your body, feeling secure in your employment in your morality and your family in your property. Feeling safe. The next one is love and belonging, having friendships, family, sexual intimacy and relationships all across the board having stabilizing and fruitful relationships. The next one is esteem having self esteem, confidence, achievement, This would also be where we feel beautiful where we enjoy our bodies. Right? Um, we show off our bodies and respective others and was being respected by others. So this is also about social status, okay. And then the highest point is self actualization. Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts. So this is our highest point of transcendence, of experiencing our own morals, our values and what who we are beside beyond just being the species. A human who we are beyond that the magnificent choice toe have freedom. OK, so it's important to understand these needs because as a person yourself, you have this hierarchy in your own lives and you're reaching for this as well. But also, this is where we really need to understand that this is also what your fans have. All of your fans are in a certain state. Some of them are in need of just feeling like they can eat food. Some of them may be homeless. Some of your fans might just need the basics of sleep taking care of themselves. Some of your fans need a sense of safety. Some of your fans need a sense of intimacy and relationships. Some of your fans need motivation, a feeling of achievement, right? And then some of them want to transcend, maybe spiritually understand who they are, what they are, what they're capable off manifesting in life. So when you understand that your fans have these names just like you, we can now start to look again at the question. What problem does your music salt? And this is what I would like for you to reflect on. Listen back to your music. Think about how people respond when they listen to your music. And what is it that you are actually motivated to write music and create music about which of these needs are you most focused on? This is going to help you be able to really categorise what problem your music sauce for your fans, and you'll be able to translate this in everything that you dio. When it comes to your branding and marketing, you'll be able to say, if you know for sure that my music is here to help you achieve, and I want to make people feel better and make people my fans are going to feel more respected by everyone in their life. Then you know where your music stands. And the truth is is that it does not have to be. There is no right or wrong. It's just about finding where your music belongs. And what problem does your music solve? So I want you to do this exercise because we're gonna look at your music from different points of views, and you may have an umbrella idea of what your overall music solution is right. So there may be a need that, overall, your music is pretty much always solving, and that is truly your brand. But then weaken go more specific. Certain songs were going toe actually solve other problems than then other songs. So you can also look at some of your best songs. Look at the next single that you're doing and look and see what is the solution that this song is solving. The next thing I want to do is look at your next music project, are doing a E p, an album, music, video or planning for a performance at dance. Whatever you're doing in your next project, what is that solving for the people who are coming to see that project or who will be viewing that project and then lastly, of course, your stage performance. If you're doing a stage performance or live performance online, whatever you're doing, what is your music solving? Right so you can go all the way from the overall all the way, narrowed down to your projects in your singles and allow this that give you a strong idea, A strong core belief set that you can walk Florida and when you're speaking about your music and your intentions will also be clear. So the benefits off, knowing what problems you're solving is so important. 18. Credibility 1: I'm going to share you a story, a personal story. And at the end of this story, I promise you that you will be able to understand why credibility and building credibility is so important when it comes to establishing trust within anyone that you're introducing yourself with. That includes for you new fans. OK, so if you're not familiar with Netflix, it is a very internationally popular platform where you can watch all of your favorite movies, shows and Siri's. And of course, people are constantly recommending new shows to watch on Netflix. Well, I went ahead and wanted to introduce my younger cousin, who is a generation much younger than mine, and have her watched the show. I thought that even though it's something that I would enjoy that she would enjoy as well Well, there was nobody in the show that she knew at all. She didn't know there were no celebrities that she was familiar with. There was no faces that she could relate Teoh, And so she did not go and look up the show herself. Well, what ended up happening is that my cousin came over and I was just like, you know, let me just put it on because I really think you would like this and I put it on and it's a Netflix series. So she was watching it like barely for maybe the 1st 10 minutes was barely interested in it , you know, and was kind of distracted doing other things. But as the show began to progress, she got more interested in it and loan behold, she would not leave. She stayed the whole night and came back to finish watching it at my house. Okay? And so I was so tickled by it because it's so amazing how the power of influence that I had over her was absolutely not effective. She was unable to see anything about the show that she could relate to, and there was no celebrity or authoritative person that she was familiar with. So her interest and motivation to partake in the show was not there, but because she was in my presence and I was able to give her a sample, give her preview, then the show, and she got to see more details about the show. Right then, she was interested. Now I want to talk to you about credibility in this lecture because it's credibility that brings people to your music. Okay, so the first credibility is authority, authority or celebrity is when somebody is well established. And there is without a doubt that you will enjoy whatever it is that you're partaking in because you are familiar with this authority figure. Okay, So, for instance, if you had if you had Dr Phil, who is a well known psychologic psychology doctor on TV, want to come and talk to your family, then you would be probably okay with it because you know who Dr Phil is, and you know that he is the real deal. Okay, so this happened in music all of the time and in fact, spent before the time that we're living in now where you can have social media put yourself out there by yourself. People relied on record companies to match them with very well celebrities and authorities in the music industry to introduce them into into the world and so that they would be well known. So this is the first level of building credibility. If you know somebody, if you get a chance to collaborate with somebody who's already well known who has a fan base that is prestigious, and they would be in alignment with you if you did something with that person than the credibility skyrockets. And we know this you would gain tons, more followers, tons more fans to your music and more people wouldn't know you and they would establish you as a true professional artist. Your credibility is intact, and that is the first level of credibility of one of the top ways that people gain credibility, right? So referring back to the story. If my cousin had known somebody in the show that I was referring to her, then she would have probably looked it up on her own, maybe, or given it more for attention when I first played it to her. But she didn't because what was missing out of that was a familiar authority of familiar celebrity that she would be interested in. But that's OK, because if you don't have a familiar, credible, authoritative celebrity like person to collaborate with, then we'll move on to the next way to establish credibility 19. Credibility 2: now, the next way to establish credibility for your music, especially if you're just starting out, is to preview preview, preview, preview offer, previews, samples for people to get a bite sized taste off. What it is to come now. This actually happens even with very well known artists, but is so essential when you are first starting out. Because when somebody sees a whole song, so listen to from somebody that they do not know, they may not want to commit to sitting for two minutes or three minutes, even toe. Listen to your song, and they definitely won't want to sit and listen to a full E PR album if they don't know who you are. If there is nothing that gives him any sort of proper introduction to you and you have no credibility with um so one of the best way is to create credibility with a completely with a complete stranger to your music is to preview so on your platforms when you're releasing music or visuals or anything that is related to your music in your business, you want to offer previews. This is why things like showing your work behind the scenes and doing this consistently works really well as a strategy for people who are not as well known. This whole idea of documenting yourself is very effective strategy, and you can do a full blown documentary like how I kind of describe in the content creation of a beauty and brains. Ah, psychological bond, right? You could do a full documentation, but you don't have to. You could also just show pieces, pictures 15 seconds, 30 seconds off or minute of you working on something and showing that consistently would constitute as being a preview to what it is that you are doing, which generates interest and curiosity and starts to create familiarity with you. As an artist, you have to build your authority. And previewing is a great weight of build authority in a world where everybody's distracted and people only have about 5 to 15 seconds to grab somebody's attention. And so offering preview right for a consistent basis creates authority. People can say, Oh, I don't know them as a singer if they've only seen you drop a song. But if they see you working on a song for a certain amount of time over and over again, 15 seconds, three times a week. Then they are going to know and say, Well, I definitely know that they're singer. I definitely know their goods, cars, that duck, we know they're musician, their music artist. Okay, so previewing on about level really helps to establish credibility. The other way is, of course, to preview your new release. So if you're going to do music video, you want to offer always a 32nd preview, a one minute preview off your work. Things like that is also important because it just gives and generates curiosity. And then you will release the full project that you're doing, which gives people more of ah compelling reason to want to go and check you out because you're no longer a stranger to them. So previewing is the second way that you establish credibility and referring back to the story of me talking about my cousin. This is how I got her to get interested in the show that I was trying to get her to watch because she wouldn't watch it right, cause the first level of credibility wasn't establish, which was authority or celebrity. But the 2nd 1 I established by saying, Hey, let me give you a preview and I just let it run and it generated interest 20. Word of mouth: now, the third way that guarantees credibility and that expedites people to be familiar with you is to have people share your work. This is the old school term of word of mouth. Word of mouth is one of the still number one ways that marketing is established, and because of this, we may feel like we don't have as much control over word of mouth. Well, the best thing is to know your targeted audience and to really focus on the people that you know are very much so in alignment as the perfect fan. When do you when you expose yourself to the perfect fan of yours? This is when you create more of a chance that your music can be shared through word of mouth through that fan. But you can also compel and reward your fans who are loving your music to share your work. Give them of reason to by re posting them when they share your work and give them incentives to want to share your work. The more that you have your truest fans be your voice, the less work that you have to do in your branding and marketing, because now the powerful marketing strategy of word of mouth creates ultimate credibility. And this is when people are going to be more compelled, toe want to take interest. And this is how in the story I was able to actually get this show to be watched by my cousin. As I've explained in my story of credibility, that it's in the first lecture of this credibility section. Is that you? I helped out Netflix. I help Netflix gain another, uh, viewing point to their show and to their a platform because I was the word of mouth to my cousin. And that's pretty much how it works. When somebody really loves something of yours, they're gonna wanna share it. And this is how your music becomes viral. 21. SKILLSHARE END: Congratulations. You have completed the branding for Music Arts course. Now you have all of the tools in the foundation in order to start promoting yourself. That really laser targets you to the people who would love your music the most. So now that you've completed the course, you might be wondering what's next. Well, the first thing that you can do is always remember. You can come back and re watch some of the lectures. The next thing that you can do is begin advertising. So our next course is now available Facebook ads for music artists and creatives. You can find that available as a next step for you to take on your music marketing journey .