Good habits that all content creators should adopt
Many artists limit their creativity and simply focus on their music alone. At the earliest stages of your career, in particular, you’ll need to work on a number of different aspects, from content creation to advertising. Although your music will always be your main focus, content creation is an incredibly valuable aspect of your career, as it is the main method for driving streams. Without great content, your music simply won’t be found. But what makes a good content creator?
Nobody is born as a talented content creator, it is a skill that must be learned. Many of the skills you develop simply require you to lose the fear of failure and experiment. This enables you to gradually develop your skill over time. Without the money available to hire a PR firm, you’ll need to work on your ability to create and distribute content. In this article, we’ll look at some good habits that all content creators should employ.
Be aware of current news
Firstly, a simple good habit that you can use to increase your awareness is checking up on the latest news about the industry daily. This way, you’ll be much more in touch with fellow musicians, industry professionals and ultimately, listeners. Without being aware of current news you’ll soon be out of the loop and feel disconnected from your core audience. Being up-to-date on the latest news will also make it much easier for you to feel inspired when creating content. You may even choose to base one of your campaigns on a current event. Not to mention, getting involved in debates (without sharing any extreme views) is a great way to increase engagement and draw more attention from potential listeners. For example, when Swedish House Mafia reunited at Ultra, many artists posted about their excitement, particularly on Twitter. Some of these tweets accumulated thousands of interactions, providing increased exposure for the artists who posted them.
Welcome back @swedishousemfia! We all missed you!
— Hardwell (@HARDWELL) March 26, 2018
Keep creating content regularly
Sometimes when taking a prolonged break from creating your content, it can be difficult to get back into the flow. To combat this, keep your mind active by returning to content creation daily. If you don’t need to be creating content at that time, you could simply use your time to make notes about potential future campaigns. Even simply spending 15 minutes per day focusing on your content ensures that you won’t lose touch with your audience and will continue to be on top form with your creativity.
Take the time to understand your audience
An activity often left neglected by artists is the use of analytics to understand the audience better. Without really knowing your audience, it is impossible to create content to the best of your ability. You need to know who you’re speaking to when you post, and what kind of content will provoke the best response from them. For example, a luxury clothing brand won’t be using the same tone of voice that you need to use. Think about your demographic and their age group, location and interests. Finding out these details is possible when looking through analytics on any of your main social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the lot. Create a document with these details that you can refer back to when you need inspiration.
Don’t just look at the numbers, go much deeper and research fellow artists in order to better understand your audience and their preferences. Find out which news outlets they regularly keep up to date with, find out which brands they associate with. All of these details are invaluable when trying to understand your audience on a deeper level. If you want to find out whether you’re connecting with your audience effectively, take a look at whether your engagement level has increased or decreased lately. Has your research paid off? While it may seem complicated at first to try and completely understand your listeners, over time you will understand your audience much better. Once this occurs, you’ll find connecting with your audience much less difficult, it may even become second nature.
Be different in order to stand out
While it’s important to be inspired by fellow artists, it is important to stand out from the crowd by offering something different to your audience. Why would a listener choose you over a fellow artist? Although you may think that this preference falls down to music alone, it doesn’t. There are plenty of other reasons why fans may attach themselves to a particular artist. This could be personality traits, recognisable branding or even just a personal connection. Think about artists like Marshmello or Martin Garrix. These two artists are incredibly different, and they share a certain persona with their fanbase. Most people don’t feel particularly unique or that they have the ability to stand out from the crowd. The key to this is that you can engineer a persona. Take Hardwell for example, in his documentaries he regularly mentions becoming a different version of himself when he is Hardwell, as opposed to his regular self. Although it can be helpful to use your own real differences to set yourself apart from the crowd, you can simply create a persona for your music.
Never underestimate the importance of content creation, in the earliest stages of your career, it will be a huge aspect of your daily routine. Even when you have advanced to the stage of being able to hire an external agency, you’ll still want to play a role in determining your campaigns. Content creation is key to connecting with listeners and getting your music out there, so make sure that you are employing the right habits to give your music the platform it deserves.