 So I wanna keep this video short and to the point since this is a truth musicians need to hear. Since it's one of those things that musicians are addicted to, yet fails them immensely and hurts them more than it ever helps. And what I'm talking about here is posting teasers for your music. Now you may be thinking, how could something so simple be so harmful? And clearly I must be exaggerating. After all, we all know that your favorite musicians post these teasers and countdown clocks nonstop. So why shouldn't you imitate them since after all, they do it and they have a huge fan base. So obviously I must be wrong. Well, I'm not just some mean old man trying to ruin your day. Instead, I'm actually your friend trying to give you some tough love. So in this video, I'm gonna convince you to never post a teaser again or at least until you have 100,000 fans waiting on your every move. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon and this is Muse Formation. So in my experience talking to most musicians I have meetings with is they have no idea what scaling means. In startup douchebagland, scaling is the concept that you can do some techniques at one level, but they don't work at another level as you grow your audience. Meaning that techniques to build you up when you have a very small audience don't work when you have a bigger audience. Makes sense, right? When you talk to any big music managers or those startup bro douchebags, you hear them saying this word. And why is the artist doing countdown clocks and teasers? This is exactly what I think of is musicians clearly don't get the concept of scaling. But I can't be that disappointed with them since it's natural for smaller musicians to see their heroes with huge followings doing anything and they don't get that they're doing what works for them with their legions of fans, but not what worked with them when they only had 25 followers. But why is it that that doesn't work? The problem smaller artists aren't recognizing is teasers and countdowns are all about preparing a large group to pay attention since it's hard to have heard and assemble a large group's attention with all that's going on in the world today. For them a teaser is a call out to the countless people who can't wait to hear from them that something is coming so that when they revisit the songs they love from them they may remember to check out if they've released anything new. And since their audience has built deep bonds with them the audience is willing to put up with some annoying teasing from time to time. You who barely has a deeper relationship with any of your audience, not so much. For you it's a waste of an opportunity where you could have deepened the relationship with the fan or started a new one. But I know right now you're probably thinking you have some fans so why not get them ready for what you're about to do? So let's talk about why this is a waste of opportunity for you. When you tease out content it says to any of your few amount of followers who is actually paying attention that something is coming. So if they were in the mood to hear from you or make a deeper connection with your music as a fan you've now lost that chance because it's not very likely they're gonna go back and listen to your old songs since that's not what you asked them to do. You asked them to wait for something new that's coming. As well there's hundreds if not thousands of different musicians, comedians, TV shows, tiktokers or whatever we're calling them who are trying to get your fans' attention every single day. And now you're wasting that opportunity that if you actually sparked their interest with a teaser it's the dumbest thing you can do. And to be honest for all those big R's it's just a necessary evil for them since so many people are competing for their attention. They don't wanna be wasting this opportunity either. Now part of their teasing is oftentimes their fans have deep relationships with their music and may go listen to that backcattle but you aren't rich in backcattle and most likely that's very good that fans are bonding with or else you'd have more fans. But I know some of you are still skeptical so let me take down every ridiculous argument of why you should post this teaser. Every time you're teasing content you lose a chance to remind someone to build a deeper relationship with your music. You also lost a chance to make a bond with a fan since you're saying something's coming soon when a far more effective use of your posting is hey, remember that song we introduced you to last week? You liked it but you didn't really form a deep bond with it. Why don't you go back and see if you listen to it again and maybe it'll bring you more joy. You know that phenomenon where you listen to a song again and you like it more? Maybe that'll happen if you revisit it. A teaser says maybe you can have something you would like in 10 days, which is totally stupid and uneventful. And let's also talk about the time suck it takes on your time to make the content of the teaser. Anytime you should be spending on making content should be how you tell stories around your music. And I made a video about how you tell those stories that's linked here or in the description below if you wanna learn more. But you wanna tell those stories about something somebody can form a bond with. You can't form a bond with a teaser. You can form a bond with content that's already out that you can keep going deeper with. Which brings me to my next point. I want you to ask yourself something. Have you ever in your entire life marked a calendar to check back when an artist drops a new song? Really? No, you get reminded because you follow them and then you hear about it after it drops and then you check it out. No one sets a calendar for 10 days that a video is coming. And if they do, they definitely have bodies buried in their basement. But now you may be asking, so what's the harm in posting a teaser? Is this really detrimental to my growing a fan base? Let's remember with social media, you're trying to strike a balance between posting enough that you bring awareness and remind your followers to keep growing their relationship with you. But also not posting so much that they grow bored with you and how often you post. So let's stop and do a hypothetical situation. Let's say it's gonna take you 18 months of releasing a string of singles to get you to break as a band and get those 10,000 fans we're aiming for. And you're following my method for releasing a new single every six weeks during that time. If you wanna know more about that, there's a video leaked right now or it's below in the description. You're going to need to continuously reinvent new ways to tell stories around the material you told them about while also not annoying your fans with the same content over and over to the point they don't wanna follow you anymore. Whereas let's say instead of teasing, you spent that energy posting about the song that your fans have already listened to once and maybe you get them to listen again and this is the time they listen to it and fall in love with your music and decide you're one of their favorite bands. That never happens with a teaser or even better if you post a reminder to grow the relationship with a song that your fan may listen to and then share it because they are so excited. Whereas if they share a teaser, they just shared something that no one could build a relationship with since the content doesn't exist yet. Big fail there, my dude. You only have so many posts you can make before your existing fans are so annoyed by you talking about a song. So wasting it on a teaser that something is coming is a big waste of time. Let's also remember the expectation a teaser brings. Let's say fans come back when you have delivered this teased content and they don't love that song or it's just a little underwhelming. They may reconsider their relationship with you since you disappointed them. Whereas if they checked out a song that you linked and you haven't hyped it up that much, that happens to them all the time and they're not that disappointed. I mean, hell, as a 1975 mega fan, I'm part of a fan base that gets pissed off at 75% of their singles. I mean, teasing for them is promising their fans they probably are gonna be disappointed. So it's always more effective to use the content you create to remind people to keep building their relationship with a song you've already released rather than promising them something that's coming in the future. Lastly, I know you're excited. I know you wanna talk about it and start bonding with fans over the songs you're excited about. But like pop punk musicians and the messages they get from underage fans, you gotta keep it in your pants. Be like Axl and have a little patience like he did when he took 10 years to get that record out. Thanks for watching. Am I missing anything? Is there any other way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I wanna answer them. So leave them in the comments since I answer every comment in every post. I hope you liked this video and if you did, please like, subscribe and get notified. And I'm gonna be breaking down the concepts in this video along with how to promote your music and how to make songs you're happy with in the future. I have a Facebook group linked below that is only helpful information. No playlists or con artists, only artists having helpful discussions allowed. If you wanna learn more about me, work on a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do, go to jessecanon.com or at jessecanon on all the socials. One last thing, there's two playlists here. One is on how to grow your fan base from zero to 10,000 fans and the other is on how you promote your music with Spotify. Or you can hit the subscribe button below and stay tuned as I have tons of tips for musicians.