Dan Black Music Marketing Consultancy (2026)

03/02/2023

One more thing to add 👇…

Run long form live performance based videos inside the IG Reels ad placement.

People are craving longer content.

2:30 minutes minimum.

Be the anti trend.

Stay Dangerous

- Dan & Chris

The Fase Base Growth Specialists P.S Use Ads

20/09/2022

It's great when your fans recommend your music to their friend & family.

But wouldn't it be much easier to take matters into your own hands?

Here's why we use Meta ads to create an indirect introduction to a cold audience 👇👇

12/08/2022

𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐏𝐑 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐮𝐩 😴

Playlists, blogs, radio & influencers do not provide you with any KPIs that you can track.

If you can't track the performance of your marketing efforts then how do you know if they're working or not? 🤦‍♀️

The tools made available to you from paid native traffic on social media means you can actually see who cares about your content.

We like to focus on video views.

Not 25%.

Not 50%.

We haven't fully got their attention yet.

We want to know who actually cares about our content and has watched it to the end, these people will offer the biggest amount of brand retention because they are more likely to remember you.

Not only can we retarget those people with more content to consume, but we can create lookalike audiences.

And ensure we only ever target people who are more likely to engage with our music/brand and bring them into our ecosystem.

That's a pretty smart way of getting in front of a cold audience to introduce your music too.

Rather than blindly chucking your music & budget at a PR strategy that can't guarantee results and offers zero return path to continue the conversation with potential fans.

Don't invest in "fingers crossed" strategies, your music deserves more.

09/08/2022

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨𝐬 ⛔️

At least at the beginning of the Fan Journey: Discovery

Not only is it without doubt the most expensive way to be discovered by a new audience, it's also one of the hardest ways too.

The reality is when you post your music video on social media, it looks like an ad.

Which means people scroll straight past it.

And all that precious budget was spent on reaching someone just to give you the swipe treatment 🤦‍♂️

For decades the big hitters have been dropping music videos to compliment their single release so why wouldn't developing artists mimic their idols?

The only difference is these artists that you inspire to don't need to focus on their top of funnel (discovery) because they already have an established fan base ready to consume anything they release.

At the beginning of your career, or "Discovery" phase, your focus needs to be on bringing active fans into your ecosystem and actually growing your direct-to-fan engagement.

And nothing does that better than a live performance based video of the artist simply displaying that raw talent in a unique environment.

It's cheap and easy to make + from experience we know this type of content generates the highest engagement ✅

Give the people what they want!

08/08/2022

𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚?

The short answer: NOPE ⛔️

We get it - inflating your numbers can look good to a potential promoter or label.

But inflating your numbers essentially means you're lying to yourself about the actual size of your true fan base.

You're not an influencer ❌

You are a thought leader ✅

And your content needs to be on brand.

OK so you might have a smaller fan base but that fan base will be enriched with high quality fans who are more likely to engage with your brand.

And more likely to take you up on your offer when you call them to action.

06/08/2022

𝐃𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐩 𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬?

One of the major issues a lot of artists have, especially when they start out, is that they feel overwhelmed with the amount of work that goes into building a successful music business.

With the amount of social media platforms available to you that allow you to easily market your music, it can be hard to know at first which ones you need to focus on or not.

One of the biggest mistakes artists make is trying to get a grasp on all of them, become a "jack of all trades"

But of course what this means is you’re only ever able to give each one a minimal amount of attention, and stretching your recourse across all means you won't have enough data or budget to see any meaningful results.

But if you were to dedicate your time to one ecosystem to begin with, you’re able to grow and learn at a much faster rate.

For example we recommend that everyone of your artists needs to have a good Meta ecosystem before shifting any focus to anything else. It’s probably the most advanced ad platform available to you because it’s been around the longest, so it knows more about its audience,

Which means the wealth of data available to you allows you to gain a true understanding of your ideal fan avatar - the people most likely to engage with your music or your brand.

Once you’ve dedicated time and budget to this ecosystem you can repurpose your learning and data on the other platform to give you a kick start in growing a new ecosystem.

05/08/2022

𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩’𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙣𝙨?

The bottom line is you need to be turning up every single week to have one-to-one conversions with your fans, to keep them turning up each week!

Remember that your fans are REAL PEOPLE and we need to talk to them like they are REAL PEOPLE.

And the best way to build up this retention quickly is to have lots of one-to-one conversations with your fans.

You need to make sure you’re taking at least 30 mins everyday to get back to your fans and join in on the conversation

You are probably spending more time than that on social media anyway!!!

Replying to DM’s & comments even just to acknowledge someone who’s engaging with your post. If you go live once a week for a live Q&A for example, you can quite literally have a live conversation with your fans and let them get involved in your creativity.

Owning a mailing list is probably the best way to engage with your fans on that 121 level. Generally on social media you’re having a one-to-many conversation and it’s way too broad.

Emailing someone directly already generates a more meaningful touch and you can utilise the data available to you to get super personal as well.

If you show that you take that time to get to know individuals in your fan base, you’ll build up that respect and trust much quicker and in a much more authentic manner.

This way you’ll have genuine human connections which people will remember for the rest of their lives which will benefit you when calling them to action.

04/08/2022

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲?

Being a developing artist can sometimes be more than your average juggling act 🤹‍♀️

To find time to even think about your social content strategy amongst writing & producing new music, gigging & in most cases working a day job can be overwhelming to say the least.

But the reality is if you don't have one foot on marketing your music and engaging with fans through socials, then they will inevitably be making life a lot harder for themselves.

The main goal here is to find a routine that works for you & your fan base.

When it comes to this area many artists overthink what content they are putting out there and find it quite time consuming.

But you won’t know what content works for your fan base until you start trying out different things.

Organisation is the key here - if you use a content calendar to plan your social week then you’ll automatically feel less overwhelmed because you’ll know exactly what you need to do to stay on top.

And if you can’t find the time to post 3-5 times a day then start posting once a day (or what you can afford to do) then once you get into the rhythm, try upping it to again, what you can afford.

No one wants you to take away your creative time, but this is your music business, and posting regularly, replying to comments and interacting with your fan base will build up that retain much quicker and warm your audience up ready to CTA.

The beauty of all the different mediums available to post on social platforms means you can keep it fresh and post different types of content each day to avoid your content becoming stale.

A great time saver you can do is repurpose your longform content!

You can take all the best bits, highlights or interesting past of your long form recurring content and cut them down to a size and length that fits the platform we are sharing them too.

One hour a week recording a podcast or live session can create multiple pieces that can provide you with an entire month's worth of material.

03/08/2022

𝙊𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙘 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙑𝙨 𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙙 𝙈𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖

Well actually there is no competition.

The common misconception is that they are not mutually exclusive.

These are to be seen as two completely separate strategies with 2 completely different objectives.

But are both just as important to have as part of your marketing strategy and both rely on each other to thrive!

With paid media our goal is always to reach brand new audiences and bring them into our ecosystem.

The reason why is because nothing introduces your brand to a cold audience better than paid native traffic on social media because of the tools you have at your disposal.

The reason we don’t use organic content to reach new audiences is because you can only ever reach people within your current ecosystem using this strategy.

And that’s exactly what we use it for!

Your organic content should be tailored to educate your audience and give them plenty of content to consume after they discover you.

You don't want your socials looking like a ghost town otherwise you’ll lose that new fan retention when someone enters your ecosystem.

02/08/2022

It’s no longer 2018. Stop chasing playlists.

01/08/2022

What does your team look like?

29/01/2021

Feeling underwhelmed with how your last release performed? 👈

Many artists will put music out and cross their fingers for results…

Or pay for playlist promotion and not get what they were expecting.

Instead, you need to focus investments you can measure…

Such as social media Ads!

They help you define your target audience

And then follow up with the people that care most about your music.

For example, you can track metrics such as people who watched 95% of your latest music video…

And then re-target these people who created a memory with your music in order to build an artist-fan relationship with them.

By doing this, next time you release music, these people are much more likely to engage with it…

Do this release after release and eventually your fan base will grow.

How did your last release perform? Let me know in the comments or DMs.

Follow for all the best fan base growth tips

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diymusicians

Dan Black Music Marketing Consultancy