The Artist Rise #028
Welcome to your weekly resource for all things branding, release strategy, and overall artist development.
Every week I'll help you strengthen your artistry through sustainable strategies that will help you build your career rather than force you into burnout.
Let's get into it.
The Two Sides of Branding
"Branding" sounds like a really big thing, but in order to conquer it and make it work for you, just look at it it these two steps: through quality, and quantity.
Part 1: Quality
When it comes to your brand as an artist, there are some big picture traits that you think of first and foremost: their sound, their vibe, their "look" if they have one, and maybe a moment they're known for (like Lady Gaga's meat dress, for example).
And all that is great, it helps artists stand out from the crowd and define their own lane.
But what does that look like when you're not all that known yet? How do you build that level of recognition and get people to remember your name?
The answer? Through content.
Content is where you can show up how you want and start creating your own opportunities for people to recognize you and remember you.
Well how do you do that? By paving your own path.
We've moved past the moments of big viral tracks being everyone's biggest goal, and so that means we have to let go of that approach to content as well.
It's not about chasing trends, it's now about finding ways to fit out and create content that does two things:
- It accurately reflects you and your artistry (aka you're comfortable with it)
- And it serves as a strong foundation for your music to exist within (and your artistry for that matter)
It's one of those things that's open-ended and kind of poses the task of having to create ideas from scratch, but you can also find what you like to consume and adapt it to your own style.
But the key is to make it new and make it different, because that's what'll help really designate your brand from the other noise around it.
Your quality = your artistry-based strategy.
Part 2: Quantity
Ahhh yes, the piece that everyone hates, struggles with, and/or doesn't think is worth doing.
So in the equation of brand awareness, the second piece comes from the quantity.
Basically all that means is "how often you show up".
The more you show up, the more recognition you're building. The less you show up, the less brand you've really built.
Think about it like this: you're talking with a friend of yours and they tell you they're going to play basketball over the weekend. One occurrence of that doesn't really suggest anything crazy, right? But you find out they're never around on Sunday's because that's "basketball day". Then you start associating them with basketball more and more than you would have if it was just one Sunday.
Same goes for music and content: your brand is only as strong as it is out there in terms of frequency. You don't build a brand by showing up on occasion and dropping off the face of the earth now and again.
Now, here's where I want to be clear: this doesn't require you to show up every day as the algorithms might try to demand of you.
This means finding a frequency that's workable for you and sustaining it over time.
This means not saving all your content energy for a new release and keeping more of a regular cadence throughout the year.
After all, that's what keeps a consistent flow of new and familiar people finding themselves on a journey to become your next fan.
Putting it to Action
Start with quality.
Explore different kinds of content and look at artists you look up to to see what they're doing.
Pull ideas you can make your own, and see what other concepts spark from it that are fully your own.
Once you have a few key ideas that you can run with and make a staple in your content, then you can determine the frequency.
Now that you know what has to go into it, you know what time it takes to make it happen.
Then all that's left is to make it happen.
Hopefully this gives you a good place to start, but if you still feel overwhelmed or at a loss for what to do, let's talk. I'll help you figure it out.
Until next time,
-Ava
That's it for this week! Hopefully this helped you take the next step in developing yourself as an artist and a brand. Stay tuned for more next week.
If you have any topics you want to see more of or any questions you'd love for me to answer, simply reply to this email.
Keep learning and growing,
Ava Rose Lynch
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