Marketing tips that the EDM industry can learn from Gary Vee

Gary Vaynerchuk, or “Gary Vee”, is somebody that is highly respected within the wider entertainment industry. Regularly speaking to the likes of Logic, Krewella & T-Pain, he has been able to use his following to instil respect, gratitude, and self-awareness into his core fans. But despite all of the motivational content he puts out, Gary Vaynerchuk is also a prominent user of social media. With tens of millions combined followers across his social networks, Gary has been able to deploy attention where it matters the most: his consumers. In this article, we’re going to break down some of his marketing strategies, and how they can be applied to the music industry in order to propel your career towards the top tiers of EDM.

Throughout the past few decades, there have been numerous business opportunities that have propelled companies towards billions of dollars in revenue. For example, in the early 2000s, Amazon spent the majority of their marketing budget on Google AdWords. Consequently, they became one of the biggest companies of this current era due to the fact they were able to deploy their dollars where the consumer spends their time. In a similar fashion, the Facebook targeting platform has allowed companies such as Wish to enter the Top 20 in the App Store, and generate several billions of dollars during the past few years simply because they spent their budget where the consumer was. You too can do the same. So many producers are romantic about the algorithm, or even worse, organic reach. They are caught up and romanticized in the game of numbers and metrics. However, if they actually took the time to learn the Facebook advertising platform, they would be able to generate more fans, more ticket sales, more merchandise revenue, and ultimately dominate the EDM industry. Why? Because they would be placing their artistic brand directly in front of their target audience. Amazon did it. Wish did it. Gary Vee was able to do it. Why can’t you?

Gary Vaynerchuk has several beliefs which have allowed him to build a strong & highly engaged audience over the past few years. One of his main practices is inspiring people to manage their own social media. Instead of paying somebody else thousands of dollars to manage it for you, it’s a good idea to learn the craft yourself so that you don’t become vulnerable to any changes within the digital landscape. For example, an economic crash that puts your social media manager out of business due to a lack of funds, and thus your social media profiles suffer as a result. Take the time to learn how to optimize your content for the algorithm of each platform, how to connect with influencers to build your audience, and dominate the space in which you desire to be in. Additionally, it doesn’t hurt to engage & reply to your audience on social media. By building up a strong relationship between the artist & fan, it makes them much more likely to want to purchase tickets, or simply stream your music. 

Another tip that Gary Vaynerchuk has shared over the past few years is that context to the platform is extremely important when it comes to creating content. What works for Instagram may not necessarily perform well on Facebook. Likewise, a video on Facebook may not get great engagement on YouTube. By understanding the different nuances of each social media platform, it allows you to optimize your content, and ultimately obtain a better ROI (return on investment) with every piece of content that you produce.

As briefly mentioned a few paragraphs ago, reaching out to social media influencers is a great way to expand your social media audience, and grow your fanbase. Let’s create a scenario in which you put out a new deep house song on Spotify which is starting to gain a lot of traction. You could reach out to travel influencers (as the style of music fits with their brand), offering your music for free for them to use in their content. If each video averages 85,000 YouTube views, and you put in the work to get 75 influencers to use it, that is over 6.3 million people listening to your music. If the Spotify link is in the YouTube description or a pinned comment, this will easily translate into even more streams for your music on a global scale. 

The truth is that there has never been such a great opportunity to promote your artistic brand. Gone are the days in which you had to send demos in the mail to major record labels – with the hope that they will even listen to it. After all, the internet is a platform full of opportunity that will enable you to achieve pretty much any dream that you may have. Instead of worrying about “organic reach not being great”, consider the benefits social media has for your career. It’s a platform. It’s a way of instantly communicating to your fanbase in a matter of seconds. Sure, you could complain that you have to pay to reach some of your audience in order to get great reach on your posts. However, most people tend to forget that the platform is free. If they want better results, and for their music career to progress, surely it is worth paying a couple of dollars to fulfil your ambitions…

You do not get to pick & choose where the attention of the consumer is. Instead, you simply have to adapt. A few years ago, Soundcloud was a haven for electronic music production & promotion. Now, not so much. Platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram & YouTube have become the dominant leaders within their respective markets. You can choose to seize the opportunity or let it slip away. Your choice. But as Gary Vee would say, It is a battleground of attention. Understand what content your consumers what, and reverse engineer that.