Engagement

I thought a post dealing with engagement would be a good idea.

Yes engagement is important. Ideally, engagement with the right people, at the right time, with the right message is even more important. The opposite is also true. Engagement with the wrong people, at the wrong time, with the wrong message is completely useless at best, critically dangerous sometimes.

Engagement should not be aimless. It also should not burn valuable content for no obvious, large gain.

Here’s the thing:

1. Thinking in terms of who has heard any of your songs or watched any of your songs and comparing that with people who have never heard any of your songs or watched any of your videos… which group is larger? Those have heard/watched you or those who haven’t? What sort of percentages are we talking?
2. Thinking in terms of how many times you were exposed to the last trending song, was it more than once? Was it always in the same way? Was it always in the same place?
3. Do you know what “reach” is? Do you have a good understanding of it and what aspects of reach are important

For 1, I’d be hugely surprised if in truth Those who haven’t heard your music or watched your video wasn’t by far the largest group. I’d be surprised if that group wasn’t of the order 99.999% haven’t heard your music.

Yet the majority of artists focus 99% of their effort into talking to the same people, in the same place?

For 2, I’d be very surprised if you were not exposed to the latest trending song many times, in many ways, in many contexts.

Yet many artists post only a couple of times, sometimes only once, to tell people about their releases and other news?

For 3. There’s a good chance you have some understanding of reach, but at the same time have done very little to apply it to your own marketing efforts.

Yet the majority of artists spend 99% of their time talking to the same crowd. Not just the same crowd but struggling to engage them with interesting content. The language they use, the content they promote… is all geared towards people who have already encountered their music. Not just that, people who are familiar with them.

I’ll let that sit for a while before I post part 2…