What’s your story?

Why this is the first and most important question I ask music clients + a storytelling lesson from Summer Walker.

Marketing music in 2020 (with the incredibly short attention span of consumers, the insane amount of content available for consumption and the seemingly endless digital tools ) is increasingly difficult. I’d argue that nobody really knows what they’re doing because if we’re honest there is no single solution and that’s why “What’s your story” is the most important question to ask any artist when embarking on a digital campaign.

It’s not enough to go viral or get a million streams, artists need to have a story and contextualise their existence in order to convert casual listeners into fans and advocates. Why? Because having a story means you can then make conscious decisions about every aspect of your (existence) marketing. Making conscious decisions means you can be consistent with your narrative and keep your fans engaged. Keeping your fans engaged means you can grow your audience and develop your artistry.

So to summarise great marketing = conscious storytelling + consistency.

The best artists have the best teams with whom they can communicate and realise their vision. As a creative director and digital consultant working in music, it’s my job to help bring the ideas to life and communicate an artists vision to all the creative partners so that once the music is out, the visual tools we use to realise that vision can be the most effective.

Music is often about stories, journeys, emotions etc, and the main character is usually the artist aka the storyteller. And yes, the best artists are indeed storytellers; Quincy Jones didn’t executive produce Thriller without first creating film scores... But today, it’s not enough just to tell stories through the music.

“Because the predominant methods of music discovery online are visual: Instagram + YouTube. If you hear a song on a playlist, radio or on TV, the first places you go (at least in the US) are Instagram and YouTube.”
What does a Creative Director do by Amber Horsburgh

Back in the days before digital, the media outlets were the key gatekeepers/ consumer-facing storytellers, but now artists can connect directly with consumers and this is where some artists fail and some prosper.

Knowing your story as an artist often comes from years of development or and honing your craft but it also comes from just being you, years of living, breathing, consuming content and resultantly defining your taste. It takes really digging deep to know your story but you need to start digging.

3 different ways to ask “What’s your story?”

• If you were an emoji what would you be and why?
• Why do you make the music that you make?
• If your music was a colour what would it be?

From your instagram bio to your tweets and your video, every digital touchpoint is an opportunity to connect with your fans. Immersing casual listeners into your world isn’t just about spectacular light shows at huge festivals, it’s about each photo and graphic you share. Think about every step.

A digital marketing lesson from Summer Walker

On July 10th, Summer Walker dropped an EP entitled “Life On Earth” a follow-up to her 2019 debut album. You can see how her digital storytelling comes to life not only through her post-release assets — think of the lyric video for “White Tee” and the dancing alien video across her socials — but also, through her pre-release activities, the title of the project feels like a natural development of her story.

Summer maintains a sci-fi almost alternative-future aesthetic that was introduced in her previous release “Over It” through the music videos for tracks such as “Playing Games”.

Summer Walker is a standout storytelling case study because I’d argue she taps into the notion that the best time to market your music is when you’re not marketing your music.

The biggest mistake I see artists make is switching on and off, having a stage presence and then a real life persona without creating synergy between the two. As I said earlier marketing isn’t easy, but it’s even harder when you’re pretending to be someone else.

If you know who you are and what you’re about you can tap into this when naming your projects, when thinking of creators to work with, when developing video treatments etc.

Summer Walker has created synergy in her digital storytelling by using her finsta to share day-to-day musings on existence as a whole. The less polished content bytes are how she connects with her core fanbase and advocates.

Before even announcing the release of the “Life On Earth” EP, Summer was engaging in culturally relevant topics regularly, almost introducing the themes of her EP into her wider story.

Creating synergy between the stories in an artists music, their offline activities and their online persona is how to hit the marketing jackpot but it’s not possible to align the three without a conscious awareness of what your story is.

In an increasingly content hungry world, there is pressure to create constantly. The good news is you can get away with creating less frequently by being more strategic in your storytelling approach but first you’ve got to know what your story is so you can focus your efforts on the most engaging content formats.

“To know your future you must know your past”

― George Santayana