 Let's be honest, with TikTok and Reels driving so many new fans for artists blowing up their songs, when it's not working for you, it could feel like you clearly must be some idiot. Or like it did when you missed a crucial day in class, because you cut school to stay home and listen to that new Frank Ocean record the day it came out, and then had no idea what the teacher was talking about for weeks. And while I'm sure you and Frank shared a special intimate moment, it really sucks to feel like things aren't working as well as they do for other musicians. And while I know your feelings run deep for Frank, trust me when I say, at the end of this video you'll be thinking about me the way you think of Frank. Okay, probably not, but anyway, I'm about to really show you some amazing ways to get your songs to finally get heard and break you out of your sadness, so let's do this. Now I know I'm always going on and on about how important it is to find your community, and so are all the other people who do what I do because well, it's really important. I'm about to show you why it's so important, so if you haven't watched my video on Finding Community, click the link in the description. Anyway, one of the reasons we all go on and on about this community thing is it really can make your content explode. I'm about to show you a bunch of reasons that if you don't reach out to people and keep being an island boy, well, it doesn't go well for you in promoting your music. Now, the last time I did a metaphor for content, I kinda messed up, and I used the example of the human centipede, and I learned from my lessons since some of you didn't find that as funny as I did, so I'm not gonna call this next lesson the circle d**k of content or the lemon party of content, which, if you don't get, don't do your Googles. Instead, we're gonna go with the very wholesome circle of content life, since what's more wholesome than a Disney movie that if I show too much of, I will be sued for every dollar I have. America! Oh yeah! That's right. The most basic example of the circle of content life is the endless replies that you can get caught up in in your algorithm when artists and their friends are replying to each other on TikTok. And it creates almost a scene effect, where the fans of each person who's replying continue to see all the other content, and you almost get brought into a whole world of artists who know each other. You probably have experienced this, but if you haven't, what the hell am I talking about? An example I saw go viral and get huge gains was the artist's medium build song that they did with ex-ambassadors. And then they were replying to each other, singing along the song, and making duets and other content together where they were tagging each other, so if you got brought into one, you'd probably see the reply to another. Because when you continually reply to each other and others who make videos, you get locked into this almost circle where TikTok sees this as something you'd like to see. The most recent example of this happening to me was Sophie Powers and Ashley Sienna's TikToks for their banger obsessed. Seriously, go to their TikTok pages and watch a masterclass of replying to see what I'm talking about. But I want to discuss why this works. When you're replying to one another, TikTok sees this as a conversation, so they want to keep you going in that conversation. They don't get it, it's just a bunch of musicians who work together and they see it as a hint of that you want to be involved in the conversation. But if I were trying to market your song right now, one of my first questions for you is which of your friends can you coordinate with to do a fun reply to some of your best content? It gets an algorithmic boost when people are starting that conversation. Since we really see the content that gets replies, especially if it's in video reply form, is if you reply to those comments or you do a stitch or duet and to some extent do reposts since those all juice the algorithm. But some of you are thinking, I don't have features on my track, so how could I do this? Between you and your friends, bands or other artists you know that you play shows with or even just your friends, you could be doing this too. What I mean here is simply duet where your friend sings along and endorses you or acts something out to your lyrics. Encourage fans or whoever to make replies as it ignites the algorithm even if they have few followers. And if a fan gets locked into this circle of content where TikTok and its algorithm is continually serving it, it's more and more likely that your earworm is going to get in their head and the algorithm will help them get addicted to you and then become a fan. And if you have more friends who are participating in this, it gets an even bigger circle content net that can really move people in. Since these replies right now are one of the main indicators to the algorithm that this is a good piece of content and it should be spread. I kind of think of this like when those ants get sucked into one of these ant-mosh pit things that's on the screen right now. You continually get served this conversation for as long as you engage with it and I'm sure you've seen this if you scroll through TikTok. The algorithms inherently see these videos as all conversation and the viewer is interested in that conversation. They know that they should keep serving it. But one of the things to keep in mind is that term I keep using, conversation. Let's get into that a little bit more. Let's do another example of this circle this time on YouTube at first. Recently, the group Health, who we did a big dissection of on the members only feed where we show you what's working in music marketing right now, not in the past for $5 a month, which would make you a member if you just click the link below. Anyway, they were on Amoeba Records classic YouTube show that's massive, what's in my bag? Where band members go and shop and talk about the records they pick up at the store. But the group got some interesting comments as they do. So what did they do? Well, they made a reaction video where the singer reacted to some of the comments. Now, I know many of you are like, that's nice, Jesse, but no one show as me on, I'm not cool. Let's say you have one friend who is an artist and you decide to do a sketch or just fake a conversation. Let's say you imitate a couple of singers and your genre is going back and forth. Put it on one of your channels, then the other person should reply to the comments that it gets. And as you make videos, you should make video replies and then have it become a circle where people are responding to the content and creating a conversation. If you have a record label, you can do this with your record label. Or even if you have a manager. I saw this great video here just yesterday of a manager telling the story of the early wins for the band they manage. It'd be so easy for that band to reply, to points to this, make a stitch of the video or reply to the comments and create a circle of content. Replying to another account that's posting about you just creates this circle. You can do this with so many things. You just need to actually plan and think about it. Since I see this in so many of the content strategies for viral artists. Here's Artemis who has literally the most viral song in America right now that horned up banger, I like the way you kissed me, doing a collab with the original Tube Girl. Then they reply to each other's content and it hits the algorithm. I know some of you are like, that's nice Jesse, but I can't get someone this many followers to do this with me. I'm not cool. But trust me, this stuff starts at a small scale even if the person is not that big. And you could work up and keep scaling upwards. You know that term scale? That just means going upwards as you get bigger. But trust me, there is a million clout goblins who are willing to do so many clabs these days. If you just search around, you got to remember it. Any musician's a little cooler than the average person. So you can probably find someone to do this with. Some of the extra sauce here though with what Health did was really smart. They also made short form versions of this where they cut down the YouTube videos which then makes this stimulate all sorts of different algorithms and interact with each other. So these algorithms cross over and help you grow on each one. And when you're spreading this content from algorithm to algorithm and people start to see you there and get caught in different circles, you only begin to grow more and beyond people's minds more and make it more likely that they're going to hear your hook. But here's another way to do this. Let's say when your best friend drops their newest track. You do a video like this springs five best Wozak core tracks and you put their song in one of the five. Then they stitch your video where you drop their song. Then when your new song comes out they do the exact same thing. And both of you reply to the comments these videos get about their songs are from other things and create that circle of content. One of the fun things of TikTok is people have no idea who you're watching. So they have no idea if an artist is pumping up a friend and if someone watches that video and then you do it or stitch it. Well now when they reply it will probably hit them if they watched it at all and they'll hear your hook again and hopefully get addicted to you. So many of you are thinking that none of this matters because you literally have no one who follows you. But I have a trick on how you can even get this started when no one follows you. And people have been using this on TikTok for years to get their followings. I've seen people do this in a really classy way. So don't worry about it being cheesy. So many of you claim it's impossible to find artists whose fans would like you that have say 10 to 50,000 monthly listeners. And while I think most of you are just not doing your homework like when you cut class to hang out with Frank Ocean that time, this actually really works well to find those artists. Anyway, you know how when you comment on someone's content one time you're gonna then see their videos for weeks sometimes in your feed? Well, anyway, here's a way to get into people's feeds just like that. So let's say you found one similar artist to you that their fans who would also like you and they have 100 to 300,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Let's say it's the artist Tushel, who I really like. First let's head to Musicstacks and see what microgenre they're in. And I see it's Grimewave. Make a TikTok reel in YouTube short and say this, my Grimewave people, I am really loving Tushel. If I'm into them, who else should I be listening to? And hashtag it with the microgenre tags you just saw on Musicstacks. Now post that video and wait for some replies to come in and then start posting your own content. And I bet you those people who commented on it are now gonna be the people who get served your video and will probably reply to you. And you will hopefully grow from this. And if you repeat this every two to six weeks with something different, you will probably see some pickup in the algorithm and get out of algorithmic jail. And if you really wanna pour some extra sauce on this when someone replies with a really sick artist recommendation and you really like them, make a reply video from that comment and say how sick they are and tag them and maybe you'll connect with that artist. And you can even do this with other things that belong in the culture. Let's say you make gent, which is like heavy metal for those of you who don't get it. Asking what pedals you should pick up aside from the one you already have, like the Horizon Devices pedal or whatever. Ask what other ones should be in a gent heads pedal board or something. Or if you're DJing some of the modern queer techno parties in Bushwick that I used to go to, point to a picture of a shirt that everyone seems to have and ask where you get it and what other shops sell things like it. It will do the trick for you, especially if you use the local tagging thing on all the apps. Now, can you feel the love tonight from all the nice collaborations you've done with others to make your music blow up and create this circle of content life? I sure can. So here's the thing, while you just learn this, if you really wanna grow your family's, you need to understand algorithms a little bit better. I made a great video to teach you that so you can get fans while you're asleep, which is on the screen right now. So make sure you watch that next if you really wanna level up. Thanks for watching.