© Vinny Ribas
Today’s music market is so cluttered that it’s almost impossible to cut through the noise. But there are 7 things that will always cut through on EVERY online medium, and they initially have nothing to do with your music. They will endear people to you, which makes them want to engage with you. Once they engage, it’s easy to move them to listening to what you have to say in your music. These are:
- Your personality. People love to love others with a unique personality. Always put it front and center. Consider it your billboard to get people to check you out even further. That’s level one of engagement.
- Your values. People want to be around people who share the same values. Make them known and you will begin to attract people who relate to you. They will comment and share your posts, and ultimately your music.
- Your opinions. Some people will share your opinions and tell you so. Others will love to challenge them. Either way you have captured their interest and begun a valuable engagement.
- What you stand for. People love to be associated with like-minded people. It creates community. And once you’re in a community and share your music, the other community members will share it as well.
- Your passions and interests. It doesn’t matter if you are into sports, dogs, photography, antique cars, helping the poor, your religion or anything else. Go where they congregate (live or online). You’ll suddenly be surrounded by welcoming people who have the same passions or interests. You will find your tribe and thus have a lot to talk about. That makes it easy to introduce your music and get people talking about that as well. .
- The value you bring. You will find a loyal following if you are consistently making life better for them. Maybe you love to teach (as I do) or inspire people. Or possibly you keep people up to date on an active topic. Or maybe you make them laugh even on a bad day. No matter what form it takes, you will attract people who want or need more of what you offer. With that kind of following it’s easy to spur engagement. And equally easy to introduce your music.
- The emotions you evoke. It doesn’t matter if you like to write blogs or poetry, take, draw or paint pictures, or even create videos. It doesn’t matter if you make people feel better, think deeper, feel more loving, smile bigger or get angry. If you are consistently evoking one or more emotions you’ll become known for it. That will become your brand. From that you’ll find a tribe of people who appreciate being moved. From there it’s natural to show how you do the same with your music.
The bottom line is this. You must relate to people on a personal level before you can turn them into super fans. People who hear and enjoy your music in a playlist or by seeing a one-off video but don’t know anything about you as a person will simply not have enough to grasp on to. And simply put, that is why they move on to someone else as fast as they came. The only way to prevent it is to hook them with you as a person as well as with your music. .
