 What's up everybody is lady j bookums, and I'm here with my god brand man shine. What do you do? Yo, what's up? What's up? So look we won't talk today about Instagram and the fact that they are taking away the likes So they've been posting this on all the social media platforms. Everybody been going crazy They everybody saying stuff like oh all these IG models Everybody just about to be mad, right? Thank you. So we want to I would really want to get into this with you, right because The fact that they're taking away the likes like what does that really mean for people? You know I'm saying right Especially like influencers that kind of get sponsorships and stuff like that off of having all of those likes man The first thing in my mind that I already know that affects is really quality of content, right? It just creates more transparency because most of everybody has been paying attention to numbers and that's the finesse, right? Right because we know we can fake numbers. We can right now You know the whole okie-dokie situation We know what that looks like and then a whole social proof like oh, man This person has all these likes maybe this this content is important That's gonna force me as an individual to now judge your shit based on if I like it actually or not versus What other people think so pretty much for me I feel like it's gonna make people level up when it comes to creating the content, okay, you know I don't I don't know if Like the reason why IG said that they're doing this is because they're trying to cut down on Certain things like you know kids killing themselves and people hurt that stuff. Yeah, so it was like, you know people Coming to Instagram and feeling a certain way because they don't have likes which which some people make it feel like I'm you know, I'm not that person I'm not worthy and then we have people who start doing all kinds of crazy things Just to get these lights and I don't know if Instagram feels like yo y'all giving us a bad name because y'all calling Y'all going hamburger. You know me trying to just get likes, you know that term do it for the gram You know me do it for the ground up man, but listen like I don't know if that's like If it's a thing because I know as a woman and just be an industry or whatever when I pull up on Instagram And I see like all these women that look like Super bodies and everything so it's like us old average girls, you know We for a lot of people when you pull up and you see stuff like that it makes you You know feel some type of way about yourself like your self-esteem right and everything like that So I think that that has something to do with it. Also. Yeah, and that's interesting because I feel like so much of that Stuff is fake obviously gonna talk about what this means to artists, right? But even just generally speaking I think artists They face the same struggle that other people face for other reasons just like you talked about as a woman though, right? But it's that same facade where so much of it is fake where a lot of times these women that They have They have those type of views right that well no not those type of views the women that have those looks right they Copy they copy the game in the same way a lot of artists just artificially I'm gonna do with the what's popular right and those women do is popular in real life a Lot of guys aren't treating them the same in the same way a lot of these artists who have that whole social proof look But in real life, they don't have fans right a lot of those women's don't have fans in real life That like it's good for the graven I'm not saying that Like I'm not even talking about some some more or my preference. I'm just saying like what actually is happening So because they fake their views too and that's another thing, right? So now you might be thinking I need to look like this Because these people are getting likes and dudes are coming at them when dudes aren't necessarily treating them out like that always in real life and Some of them got fake likes too. So you're they're playing that whole IG model game Let me be the influencer, but it's actually that's the crazy part though because this fake stuff is actually affecting your real mentality So that's that's why so that's that's what I'm saying Like I think that was one of their main points like we have so many people Trying to be something and not really accepting themselves, you know And it's and it's just affecting the world like social media is so powerful right now, you know me and and I think the younger people coming up, you know We have it's like a generation of a certain type of person right now Like a certain type of women or women a certain type of male and this is what everybody is striving to be Yeah, you know what though? Like I don't think Instagram care. I really don't I think they're trying to like cover their ass real quick Yeah, you know at the end of the day. I mean, of course, I'm not saying the individuals in Instagram Don't care about society However, collectively when you create a company that big and how things go and having to make money, that's the primary bottom line So I think also some of it is Them just trying to adjust and maybe things are getting more out of hand even or out of control Then we might know we might think or they might be looking at the threat of tiktok Which we got to talk about a little bit right because tiktok is actually better built for Quality content versus just social proof likes and all that stuff than Instagram is which I can say we can get into that But like alright, what do you think in terms of artists then? Like what or just anybody wants to be a quality influencer because so much of it is the same But what's your perspective of what the adjustment is going to be like a what are we gonna start seeing? so I feel like You know when it comes to taking our likes away because I had an artist asked me like You know, what is this going to do for me as an artist in my music? Like especially like going viral right because they was like, you know The whole thing of going viral is because you you're getting all these lights You're getting all this engagement people are starting to recreate your content and repose you and all that good stuff So I had a question come to me and was like well, you know, is this going to affect me going viral? So I pretty much I don't think is going to affect artists in the way that they think like I Really think it's better for them because especially independent artists because a lot of them don't have a lot of likes anyway So now we can pull up on your page and not really judge you off of how many likes you have but more So just off your content, right? So it may be better for an artist as long as you have great content Like if you don't have good content then you wasn't winning anyway But if your content is good and people pull up to your page And they don't have to judge you based off of how many other people like you the name It might help them make a better decision of should I follow this person or should I not instead of just being like Shallow about it like oh, I'm gonna follow them because they got 500 likes on all their pictures and stuff like that Right, so I think it might be better for artists and I don't necessarily think it's gonna affect people going viral because like the algorithm in and Having people still post your content a whole bunch of times like it's still gonna get out there if that happens You know, I mean, I don't think the taking away likes is gonna stop somebody from going viral Also, if y'all didn't know if like artists didn't know you'll still be able to check your stats Like in your analytics. So as long as you have like a business page For your Instagram, you can still go and check your stats because I also had somebody asked me like well How am I gonna know if a post is doing good? You know, so I'm like, well, they said that, you know The stats will still be there for the user for you to see like in your analytics So you can still say, okay, that's posted good. This posted it. Maybe I should do something. Yeah I mean one I think I don't know if people have started to see this already I had seen this already on my page where you know, you can't see Five or five hundred people have liked this post, right? It used to show that easily But now it'll be like you have to actually click on gotta click into it just to get into it, right? It's an extra step. So they slowly are like training people, right? That's just how the behavior game goes. They're training people to get to that I thought about this like months they already know they've made a test that it was smaller crowds and all that stuff man Like so if they're gonna get to a point where so when they finally get to that jump It's not gonna be as big as it is of just like oh tomorrow We like we see it this way and now it's that way. It's gonna be steps in between They already have people's attention. It's not like they have to to rush the process right in that kind of way and I Think the bigger impact though is just the fact that the sheep are gonna be confused Yeah, right like a lot of people only like stuff because Other people is popping right because of other people. So now people are going to be like forced to figure out what their own opinion is Right, I wonder how it's even going to look though because like okay if you have a video, you know And you like something you can see the views or whatever But it's like if it's not a video like there's there's literally I guess gonna be nothing there like you're just gonna like Yeah, it'll just be a little bit less cuz it like cuz it kind of looks weird to me now with that adjustment on my page I'm just showing like these two people versus a number But yeah, I'm sure it'll just be it's gonna be like a cleaner look or something like that because you can still like right a post You just can't see like the number anymore Like I like I like your post Leijay I Can't see how who else liked the post but you can see the background the like feature was still there They're just not showing like right. That's what's happening. That's that's what I believe is happening. Okay, you know Yeah, cuz it's I mean it still has to be some type of engagement, right? So it's like they're not gonna stop you from being able to like it They're just gonna stop you from being able to see like how many likes you have because when when we talk about Doing stuff like running ads and stuff like we still need that that type of engagement. So I don't know maybe I Don't know if it's gonna force people to like comment more You know, maybe that's gonna be interesting the engagement because they I don't know if I I read or heard anything about them necessarily Stopping or starting the line. Yeah, I I haven't heard specifically But that would be interesting just what you saying that if you're taking away the like for real the ability to even engage in that way Would force people to comment more that would be interesting because that way in my in my opinion That would be a higher quality of engagement likes become so passive You know, you scroll and don't even know what I'm liking. I'm just Don't you don't you know, that's that zombie mode, right? And that's what I mean though like that's what it's gonna it's gonna definitely affect those in terms of the sheet because the quality of content I'm at the The from the content perspective, there's gonna be no curation There's the curation is gonna happen algorithmically, but in terms of curation based on somebody's opinion 500 people like this this must be something I should like that type of social proof Of course, maybe comments right becomes the thing like we talked about But we might have all the box, you know, you know people always find a way They gonna be trying to fuck off for that forever But I think the huge part about that is something that we've already actually have seen of the effect of which is just the internet and social media in general which has Took away in the same way This might take the ability of people to judge quality of content in that way people already because of the internet Have them don't have the ability to judge other people rightly and what I mean by that is You know you hear comments or you see all these horrible comments, right? Right, and they'll be be somebody who says like oh man, you are lying. What you said is completely untrue Something like that and then somebody else is like oh, I love what you're saying. I relate blah blah blah Lo and behold either way it goes. We don't know if this is a 12 year old who has nothing to do with anything, right? So he has no well somebody could be trolling somebody can really be against you, but they could be like Just dumb right somebody else obviously could be highly credible Like really be a real life expert in that in the industry or whatever is going on Then there's all kind of other betweens But the point is in real life You will be able to see this person and know should I listen to this person or do I even care what they say? Right online when some of these bullying effects come like or whatever people saying you get more effective for me because you actually lose Sight of the ability a judge is this person credible like they're certain people if a homeless man came up to you and said Some crazy to you you would still be like that was wild, but that's a homeless man I'm not really taking it a certain way right online You don't know who to like wow crazy person that you probably shouldn't be paying attention to in the first place is so from a Mental health part that was like a why certain things start to happen online. It just became so huge Yeah from and taking that back to the likes being like gone, right? now it's a similar impact in terms of like It's a similar impact in terms of now it democratizes where all these of the content itself is the relevancy itself just like before But no like right it's interesting though because now judgment changes that's that's love will just leave it at like judgment changes at the end of the day and Like when we go to let's talk about tick-tock Let's roll into that because right when it comes to Ways to post and promote we already know it's a hot spot at the moment. I Think Instagram a large part of it might have to do with the quality of engagement that tick-tock is able to get because of their algorithm Right is really built More for quality engagement. Are you familiar with how like how it works? So not not all the way you can break it down So I Got some other stuff, but all right, so their algorithm works like this You post something we talked so much about trying to get into the 4u page and all that stuff on tiktok Really essentially everybody gets to the 4u page on tiktok where and we can talk about why after like so you post your junk goes into this small batch and Everybody When we talk about the small batch is going to be a batch of people's 4u page if you go on tiktok You'll scroll you'll be like five hundred thousand likes three thousand likes on this person's posting a five million views And then you'll see somebody who has like two views and seven likes and because you're one of those first you pick for you Pages that they're testing it on on your 4u page, right? and After it hits that first layer that small batch They analyze the algorithm says alright How many likes like purview and all this kind of stuff is happening and that determines if it makes it to the next batch All right, it makes it to the next batch. Then it's the medium batch Oh, and it stays in that first batch for two hours. Okay after that medium batch And then they do some more it gets a little bit more intense. You have a bigger audience and they really start to judge not just on Um likes and shares which all also because like they are really relevant But then the completion rate like watching the video All the way through and how many replays happens becomes even more relevant right at that time, right? then It goes to the third batch which is a larger batch the largest batch less people make it right you got to think about a Pyramid so now we're getting to the upper, you know 10 to 5 percent of content because the medium batch is pretty big and you can get probably I don't know 50,000 likes also just a medium batch alone, but Yeah, it is oh very good tiktok has good numbers, right? And before you get into that third batch that that large batch There's a in between where they start to test for like hate speech um Like all kind of wild stuff and I'll tell y'all folks right now if you Post the weed on it's on tiktok Man that that junk is gone. It is gone. Really? Yes. I know a lot of y'all who are you know y'all y'all will struggle in that place tiktok is different, man I I'll preview it now really quickly now before I get into that finishing that the batches Look tiktok is owned by china All these other social networks. We're we're talking about and that we used to our own like our american China is different man Like y'all have to the control over their social networks their internet all that stuff is different The mentality the literal political Thesis and way of being is different than the american man, right? You know i'm saying like it's just different so Like get out your bag because it's this is this is a new wild game. It's wild to us at least I think it's good though because I think artists need to be pushed to step outside of their comfort zone Everybody and learn how to yeah everybody and learn how to do something different and adapt to it And make it work for you in whatever your industry is so I think that's a good thing No, I'm excited about it Right, you know, especially especially if you weren't winning in the last wave because you were just too late and just the rule Whatever is your chance, you know, I'm like go ahead and hop into that But so it's stress tests for the third like that's one of the other things after the regular algorithm stuff for intermediate batch On the way to the third batch, even if you make it numbers wise if you got that hate speech or just some other stuff They don't want them in there starts a test for that large batch Bam bam bam like it's there for four days Right. Um And obviously that just gives you an opportunity to give more likes that just means And you're also going to be pushed on so many more pages and very few content gets pushed on as Many pages and then they have a fourth and final one Which is like Crazy it's hard. It was hard for me to believe what now you want. It wasn't even hard for me to believe this at first It was just crazy so After it graduates from that third batch if it makes it there remember like say now you're like talking about the 1% right of content, right? They actually have a real person who works at tiktok. Look at that jump and be like Yo, it's time for this thing to like die out. So expire or really they be like bow. This thing about to go super viral and it goes super viral so so Getting back to the viral concept. Yeah, you know Art now, I don't even know if a lot of artists are really hip to tiktok First of all because I know I've been I've been trying to talk about it. I've been seeing like the rise I've been seeing the potential in it as far as Art is having the ability to get on there, you know with their music Create their content and then other people can use their music to create content So it's really like you can literally build up your fan base over there and and and get those likes up and stuff Especially if you're not getting it over at instagram or the other platforms but I know that like people are are really getting known from tiktok like artists like now that's You know, he talks about it a lot. He credits like tiktok for you know, him going viral pretty much, you know I mean, so can you can you talk about like or can you just like tell artists how How do they go about like getting on there and getting it started so that they can start getting to those tears All right, so for all the primary basics Yo We got a whole playlist on the youtube channel So just go like how to how to get tiktok famous Google that and the brand man channel y'all will find like the whole playlist on the basics How to upload your music and just the main stuff, but when we get into Like how you should approach it as an artist one You gotta spend time just getting into the community Like understanding how it works right liking stuff getting to feel that whole thing right just research research research To get a feel for what that's like figure out where you can jump in we like we're playing double dutch at this point Right, like you gotta wait that out feeling like tiktok is like for kids though No, man, it's not and like tiktok as a company you gotta realize Like for one a company is gonna make want to make as much money as possible Right right especially if it's social network though It's really benefiting off of the demographics that are in there and once you monopolize a certain demographic You've got to only you the only way you can really grow is by extending that So they're trying to get older and people have been saying musically which tiktok And those type of platforms have been young for a long time now right it's been about three four years So some of those people who are 15 or 19 now some of those people who are 18 or 22 now Right if they actually stayed on and didn't die off some have some have it So it's going to get older It's inevitable and just think about how late some of y'all got to tick um to instagram All right, a lot of the people who are huge on instagram Right today are the people who are like really moving early right they've been on there for years And then the people who got huge later or people who had resources and invested like who needed more to get out there The people who actually are On top still and got there from organic that was because they were there early Right So if you don't have no money if you complain, I don't have resources The oldest person has investors and but like if you don't have none of that You need to be on the organic early train before all that other distraction comes on All right, so like just get on it. You have to learn it No, you don't need to know how it's going to be used And maybe exactly how it's going to apply to your brand that might be hard for you to see it first But that's a part of like learning this game testing and growing out because Look, you can't be selfish right these these social network stuff is about entertainment bringing other Getting other people's attention, but you got to deserve and earn their attention So if I just get on here and say oh man, I post in my music and they don't like it and it's not getting viewed It's like bro Like people don't have a reason to care about what you're doing or what you're saying Even if your music is amazing So that's one and then two even if you don't want to get into the content. I'm posting on my page Putting your music on there as a sound and getting influencers to post it I think that was like the biggest The like the the biggest thing when I really started to look into tiktok You know the fact that you can actually put your music on there and and people can Create content with your music. I feel like that was like golden You know, I mean like that platform is literally geared towards music You know, instagram is not really geared towards your music. You know what I mean? So why not get on a platform that's actually geared towards creating content with music You know what I mean like that's for me I feel like that's a no-brainer and I know it was something about tiktok where you can actually Uh receive like you can go live. You know what I mean? It was like a live feature on there It was talking about receiving like donations. You could take payments and stuff like I know you like that I'm all about monetizing when we talk about monetizing your music Bro, it's so many different ways. So you can literally go live on tiktok and get money at the same time You know, and all you got to do is just get on there and be consistent I think the main problem with artists is like they always want stuff right now So it's like if they do it right now and and they don't get that result They're like, uh, no, I don't want to do it. You know what I mean? It's like you y'all got to take time They're like build already gotta build. Yeah, I watched the artist go from like zero To maybe like 70k and making his first $50 on the platform now. He's made hundreds on the platform. But in like a month and a half Like, you know how much time it takes to do that on a youtube page you get to like a rack and followers And even longer to make that much back in advertising Especially if you're not just on no like bull A long time Like it's a long time right And to do that today is probably even longer right and then instagram you mentioned a huge point In the dna of tiktok a large part of it is just music right and and sound We'll just leave it at that because sometimes they do like little acting things and all that stuff Instagram's dna was pictures That's what they started off for photography those types of creatives and they gupped out from there like that alone Like shows you there's some innate things to to artists that you got to build off of. Yeah, I get it Some people like to sit on their hot horse and act like oh, I don't want to do that because that's not cool Or it's like always young kids and it's not for me You can say that but then when you end up on tiktok two years down the road, but you also taking the L Then look you the only one who have to answer for your stuff. So a lot of times You have to put the ability because look business It don't care about who who's benefited. It just cares about like you follow the rules You get the results you do you follow the right behavior So look I go test this stuff out and maybe tiktok like gary v is finally starting to say because I think he don't want people to Like like after after snapchat like died and I like a little bit a lot, you know Like because what the reality is look even if this thing dies A year from now the opportunity and the level of attention you can get for a short period of time Now is extremely valuable And if you don't make yourself get good at doing something like that You're the one who's gonna suffer Right, like you're the one who like if you if you got trash marketing tactics Or you just not good at the business and like that whole part of it You you gonna take the L. It just is what it is. Maybe you aren't good enough for it So you got to get out the mentality of I just don't want to hop on the way because I'm too cool Or I'm better than this man. Y'all got y'all got a ghost ride the way You got a ghost ride that way and I tell artists all the time like you got to be where your fans are You know, you got to be where the people are like right now the people are really coming up on on tiktok Like it's it's it's just really something that's being talked about for many reasons So it's like if that's something that you notice just in business That's a strategy So when you when you see a rise in something in business, you're like, yo, we got to do this Like let's get the plan together and let's jump on it and just ghost ride the wave until it ain't no more You know, I mean, so it's like we have to learn how to adapt You know, I mean because it's always going to be something new coming out And then always sometimes with these profiles just like instagram You know, everybody love instagram But now instagram is making all these changes and it's making it harder for people Creatives to do what they were doing before So it's always going to be another app or another platform that comes out and be like boom since you can't do that over there We're going to make it over here And then you're going to have a whole bunch of people run over there and and run it up until they start changing You know, I mean, so it's like, yo, you got to stay up to date First of all with all the new stuff that's coming out Why do people like it? How can it benefit me as an artist? How can I come up and cap off of it pretty much? You know, I mean until I can't no more and then you just you have to do it Like artists is like you said you got to get out your own mind get out your own way man And just step into the light Right what I love about tiktok is people Actually listen to the music It's weird, but people like I got campaigns where Like all right thousands of videos been created to the can um like To their to their sound or them their song, right? But it's just from tiktok only tiktok Now people have gone and got tens of thousands additional plays of their music on Spotify, right? Thousands of plays on the the youtube video Increasing the um the followers on instagram, right all of that stuff without even promoing those other things at all Like I got one dude who's like, yo people are in my I forgot to post anything about my music and people are like Where can I find his music right and because he's just he's an artist who does it as a content creator standpoint and then other people in the comments helping find his music, right? He has all that action, but once again if you do not One of the content create at this time, right and get into that way But you're just still in the study trying to figure out how you're gonna jump into this game The ability to find to pay influencers while they're cheap at the time Right and still get that benefit and still get videos created to your stuff And you don't have to do anything physically as an artist show your face at all Is there's still a lot of value in that as a platform? I mean, that's what great promotion looks like because like I remember you mentioned Like you already talked about the whole like promotion versus just posting Okay, I wouldn't get some of your insight on that because you know It was something that you noticed and had been talking to artists before I think I've talked to artists like that before but it's been like a long time Or I've had that conversation. So I want to say like what is that? I didn't even know it was a thing What does it look like 2019? It's definitely a thing. Why is it still a thing? It's definitely a thing and I I think it's it's a thing because of the lack of knowledge from from artists You know understanding what it takes to actually like push a record, right? So I think for artists a lot of times, you know artists They basically covet what they see so a lot of artists see the major artists doing certain things like going to the studio performing and You know just posting on instagram or posting on social media Like that's really all they see they don't see what goes into Marketing that song that we all know and love, right? So when what they do They go to the studio. They make this song They go perform and then they just post it and then that's the end of it. You know, I mean So it's like that's that's the structure that they follow And and then they sit back and try to ask yourself like well, why is my music under performing? Like why am I not getting results? You know, I posted this on instagram But yeah, that's the key word you posted it, but you didn't market it It's a big difference from marketing and posting. Okay a lot of artists will they'll have a new song They might post the little promo video a little cover art Another thing I'll do a lot is post that same exact content like four times, you know, I mean like we might like it one time We might even like it twice just because I might know you so I'm like, let me double tap twice But like I'm not gonna like you three times, you know, I'm saying like I'm not about to like the same post three times So it's like You got first of all you have to figure out multiple ways to create Content for one piece of thing, you know, you have this song It's so many different things that you can post right you can post behind the scenes of you in the studio Behind the scenes of you performing rehearsal, you know, you can Drop little lines and actual fan base like should I go with this line or that line? Like even before the song drops to even build up hype So you have all these different things that you can actually use to Promote or market, but a lot of artists don't do that. They use this one piece of content they drop it on their social media one two three times and a because it doesn't get a lot of Engagement or b because they don't know what to do next with it They just move on to the next song and then they're like a week later They're like oh i'm about to drop this song, you know, I'm saying and then and then their page becomes Just watch this listen to this go watch my video blah blah, you know what I mean? And there's no conversation going on on their page. So how can that? all right, how can they Like change that though so Before you start dropping music you have to develop a marketing plan You have to think of like your question to yourself is okay. I got this song Even before you record the song you can be like, okay. I want to make a club song I want to make a twerk song, right? So if I know I want to make a twerk song I know what kind of people want to hear this twerk song, right? So and then when you know what kind of people want to hear it you can be like, okay Well, since I know that I know where I can put it, you know where what dj's I need to send it to What clubs I need to pull up and try to get played like you when you start with Asking yourself questions you start developing the plan on how I'm going to get my music in front of new people every day You know, I mean, I think that's valuable Just what you said as far as just asking yourself the questions, right find an answer to those questions, right? But And those are specific questions. That's not how do I blow up? How do I grow my fan base? Right growing a fan base is only a result of those actions which come from Proper action like what which means proper questions have to be asked, right? So, yeah What's it like people like the song? Where are these people? All right, how do I get my song in that place versus? It's true man. It is true a lot of artists are just yeah, I record the things that you see Right, just how they say a kid see like sees certain things and that's what they're going to do, right? Or oh, we need to have more representation of minorities over in Movies so they can think they can be these different things how people say all that stuff Artists are doing the same thing. Yeah, right. It's like, okay. I think that I can record Go to this show post and it'll be good, but it's so much more than that and I think even when We tell people though, it's more than that And even when we break down certain stuff is this other side, right? Where some people think that It's okay. I'm gonna do these things now, but they don't realize how long you have to do these things How much action and energy it takes to actually break through and then there's these other people who Even when they get the keys information wise They still think nah, I gotta be some extra extra stuff like they're kind of conspiracy theory Like in terms of like nah, I gotta be some extra stuff some super secret person It's like they want to act you about steps, but they don't want to do no work You know, I mean that's the part that's being avoided, right? It's like, okay I'm gonna do the simple thing and nope. This is gonna happen. I should get a fan base. It's like, okay No, you say I should do this or I'm gonna do this. I did this one time I should get a fan base. It's like, no, you got to do it a lot of times or it's like, okay I'm doing this and I did it a little bit and I did it As a matter of fact, I did it for three months and I'm still not blowing up. What's the secret, man? Y'all lying to me. It's like, no, it takes more actual work, right? Like even the answers the answers have to be done 50 times 60 times over and over again to create that energy To to break through like that's just I can't look I can tell you this This is a saying that I learned a while ago So the saying is that a hit song Is not created. It's marketed. Oh, yeah 100% So so when we think about you know dropping our song, let's like when you think about like let's say Cardi B or whatever You know, you might not like Cardi B. Some people will but the labels understand that What we have to do is have that song everywhere Everywhere the fans all show us like when you turn on Pandora She's spinning when you turn on your radio. She's spinning when you go into the club She's spinning when you go into like a little lounge. It's like it's literally everywhere you are and see artists Don't do that with their music They don't put their music on every platform that they can put it on and and market it there They only focus on let me pull this real quick on instagram or let me post this real quick on facebook And then you drop this real basic message that just says new single out cook the link in my bio like there's there's no Like there's no hype about it. There's there's no even excitement You literally have the same line with every song that you drop, right? So it's like you're not putting your music in all these different places. You're not Forcing it down people throw. That's why we hear music like this might be a song that you don't even like But like a month later, you know all the words that's because you hear it everywhere That you go right and it just becomes in your mind. So it's like People you can't help but to sing the song Yeah, I mean because this is what it comes down to in my opinion Like one based off of what you just said write that saying that I love so much Is not created it's marketed What's the one thing that creates it the one thing you can do all these other things? But there's one thing at the end of the day that's going to determine whether it's a hit or not what you think that is Tell me Awareness Yes, you you talked about it like from the steps like what it looks like, right? But it's awareness, right? It can't be a hit like we only qualify if it hit is if it's known By a certain amount of people right now you can have a song that should be a hit Like in terms of it should be known by a certain amount of people Of course you have those songs that have a huge amount of awareness And they're trash songs and they don't become like that for real for real hit But no matter what the last gatekeeper to Like whatever everything else can be done like the last gatekeeper is just the awareness That part has to happen if that part doesn't happen, you don't have to hit right right So it's like when you dissect everything down from there now you have to choose Okay, can I create awareness in a lot of environments and do it on this mass commercial scale? Or can I just do it in a small niche and be omnipresent, but we want to talk about the secret of secrets that are separating some artists from other artists or like when we talk about labels and what's going on there versus some other artists One of the main things just goes back to resources, right? Of course, they have the ability to create The awareness like even outside of that now we want to get into the work that gets done We talk about the stuff that you just talked about right. Oh, I'm not just writing a follow this link or oh Whatever right, you know, like these passive Irrelevant messages that don't really matter or may have an actual impact, right, right? They have the resources meant like people wise money wise But like the resources to say I'm going to put this much attention to this phase of it the copywriting Right, I got this much attention to put towards the actual video this much attention like they actually can put intentional intention to each of those steps where For one understandably, so Your artist is starting out and you don't have all these resources You got your regular job It's hard to put a lot of time into each of those steps individually. It's hard to do that as one person All right, so but that's like one of the things it's like. Oh the work has to be done You just aren't able to do the work right which it all comes down to sometimes So now you have to figure out a find what are the most important things and let me break through here All right now I kind of figured and I just did the work to get to here And you got to put all your energy into that versus like oh, let me Follow all these steps because you're not going to be able to put your energy in all those steps Right, so you just said like you just mentioned like a keyword for me, which was intentional, right? And I don't think a lot of artists intend to get a specific result Therefore they don't plan for the result, right? Like you're not intending to Get a certain amount of people to follow you or to buy your your merch or whatever You don't make any type of plan that's going to help you get to that point, right? You're not doing you're not even creating your music Um intentionally like y'all just getting in the studio and y'all just creating and then you're releasing But you have when when it comes to like if you know, you have a product, right? You start moving intentionally like I have this product So what I what do I have to do to get this product out, right? So now I'm making a list of okay. I need to sell this much How many do I need to sell this to and this is one thing I was teaching I had a something called the money formula, right because every artist says I want to make all his money, right? So and I'm like, okay, if you want to make this money, what do you need to get there? So you want to make $5,000, right with you want to launch a new song you want to make $5,000. What does it take to get there? Let's break down the numbers, right? So the money formula is basically how many fans you need like super fans times How much you need them to spend with you in order to get $5,000, right? So that how that breaks down it can be you have 100 fans That pays you $50 For this campaign. So if I know all I need is 100 fans. I can start doing things intentional I don't have to worry about 20,000 fans. All I need is a hundred and I can make $5,000 Focus yeah, exactly. So you can start moving intentionally, you know start putting together things when it when you talk about like a release Campaign or a single campaign or whatever you can start putting things in that campaign that will help you get those numbers Right, which means you're doing things intentionally. I can have a show where I say, okay. I'm gonna have A real quick y'all, you know, we had a quick uh Issue with the camera, but we back at it. So I want to I want to finish the point You know, we was talking about, you know, being being intentional figuring out whatever your goal is Figuring out what it's going to take to get there and then you can start creating the plan to execute, right? Simple, yep And I think I think that's the main thing a lot of artists just don't start with a plan They just get to the recording and then drop it and it's just so excited about that But even with doing that like to get that awareness that you were talking about I think one reason why, you know, artists don't have that awareness with their music or their brand or whatever is because artists A lot of the independent artists. They're not that visible Right, and it's like you got a lot of you guys only Jump on these platforms when you're releasing, you know, I mean, so it's like you haven't built up awareness for yourself You only jump up on instagram when you have this new song and then you post the video and then you're done with it You know, but like what about before that, you know, I mean, yeah, you're moving like a big big big artist When you're not there, so it makes it harder Yeah, yeah, yeah, especially if you expect Organic reach and content to be a thing and actually create that for you You have to stay visible kind of if you want that to happen because that's just how the algorithms and people Work and the real tension if you're gonna put a lot of money to ask to Re-up that the visibility then that's cool. But if you're not you're not gonna do that and you want to just try to Flex as much of this free You know, um content. I mean, it's free awareness as possible. You got to kind of stay in that game It's hard to like tiptoe, right? I mean, that's how you grow organically, you know When you're visible all the time people are coming to your pay They might have found you over here over there and then they come to your page And it's like you're I always say like, you know, whatever platform you use that's like your home page, right? Like your instagram instagram for me is my office You tell me so it's very important for me that when people pull up to my office My office looks like I'm open for business, right? So that they can go and click on my link and buy some for me A lot of a lot of artists like y'all don't look like y'all open for business y'all look like y'all close You ain't posting like three four months, right? So it's like When a when a fan or or a customer or whatever comes to your page, you know They're gonna look and be like, well, why do I even need to follow you? Like I might have liked your song, but I see that you're not even really on instagram like that Like you ain't posting that long. So now it's like out of sight out of mind. Like, oh, I'ma just let it go, right? So it's like we got to look like, you know, we are business and that's even down to the content that we create You know, when you come to a business if you walk into mcdonald's and they look real dirty You're not going to eat there, right? If you walk into a restaurant, everybody look lazy, you know Take them a long time to come and talk to you and say what's up, right? You ain't going to want to eat there. So it's like we have to apply that same thing to our social media platform Especially if you don't have a website But even with that people come to your social media platform before they do anything else Before they go to your website before they're clicking on your product to buy anything from you It's like they come and check if I hear about a new artist Before I might even listen to a song I'm probably going to just go to your instagram page because that's the platform that I like to use the most So i'ma check you out, you know, i'ma i'ma click links if if you're looking like, you know, you're somebody I'ma that's when i'ma start clicking links like okay. Let me see what else this person does Yeah, right. So that's why it's real important for us to stay visible Have great content, you know and communicate with our followers on a daily basis because people fans They need to be able to rely on you and trust in you, you know So that they we can turn them into, you know, what I call one of my mentors Always uses this term MVP which is our most valuable payers, right? We we need to convert people from just being somebody who found our page Over to being a fan and then over to being like a payer because artists you want to make money We can't put all of me in my pair when I mean pair like some artist That's I mean a fan that's buying something from you, right because one thing about independent artists I think when they think of money they think like I gotta get these streams up but there are so many ways to monetize with your music and and streams first of all Even if you're getting streams that can take months to even get those payments So like what kind of money are you getting in between that right? Yeah You you have to be able to monetize So it's like you have to figure out other ways to make money with your music So that's doing shows, of course, you know, um, you can have informational products So there's a lot of artists, you know producers whatever that can teach other artists and producers how to do things Like we're just in this information Stage where like if you know something more than the next artist you can teach them how to do stuff Right and you can put a price on it. So now even if you only know a little more Right more more than they know. Yeah, you can put a price on it, right? So that's that's what we talk about or what we mean when it comes to like Monetizing you have to figure out what your product is because music is free I don't have to pay you to listen to this music, right? So it's like what product are you going to sell to me? Especially if I'm actually becoming a fan now. I'm looking for something from you Like I want a shirt or I want you know, I mean like people don't realize how much Our fans want to support people. They're waiting. They're literally waiting for you to just tell them what to do next, right? Hey, look man at this point a lot of fans. They know the game They know that you need merchants sell it like they know like they see the steps They've aware they've seen so much because this is the information age not just for you Right, the the fans know more than they ever have known before Right, that's why so many artists already know so much because they started off as fans and just seen it from that perspective Anyway, that content is getting out to everybody. So fans are aware of the process way more than you think You just got to you know, not play it fully yourself Make sure you stay on what your brand is and make sure you do it in that way and keep your Your integrity as an artist in that particular bag, whatever yours is in your niche, right? But other than that fans are willing to help you go through those hoops to get to where you need to go It's just about packaging it and knowing how to do it when to do it stay invisible And being on your piece and cues creating those systems So you can make sure you can do this consistently Not just have this one thing you you did great and now you don't post for five months like lady j's talking about Right, exactly. So I think I think you just like you just ran it down. You know what I'm saying? Like you just ran it down for me. Hey, y'all gotta be visible You gotta have content and I think when you start figuring these things out You'll have better content. I think one thing about artists is like a lot of the times I hear them say like I don't know what to post, you know, so So it can be like it can get stressful. You know, I mean if you feel like I don't know what to post You know and a lot of artists are not really documenting their process Like gary v always says like document over create. Yeah, so it's like you're you're doing all these things Quote on quote, you know going to the studio Perform blah blah blah, but like you're not even documenting this process and then when it's time to release a song All you have is this video You know, so it's like you got to start documenting your process as well And that will help you create the content and make you look like you're doing something Yeah, that's a whole whole whole another talk we can get into like, how do you know what to post and all that stuff? So we'll make sure we do that. But um, true. I mean, this has been this has been a good talk You know, I like talking to you. Um Like there's another It's another another conversation in the bag. We hope for we hope y'all got some value from it We'd love to hear y'all thoughts give us some feedback on this thing. Yes, and you know, lady jay Leave them out man. What's what's gonna be the outro for this convo? How's that gonna look man? You put me on the spot. I don't even know I don't even know but look I just for all of y'all that that may stumble upon this That don't know me make sure y'all follow me. We got great content. That's always coming out You know, if you have any questions or topics that you even like us to to hit on like, you know Send us a message reach out. Um, I don't know about Sean, but I do be responding to people That's fine here and there when it makes it But uh, you know, just reach out or whatever. Um, and that's that's pretty much it for me We out of here But we out man follow add lady jay bookums follow add brand network brand man network Because we're gonna be doing a lot of great things for y'all on that actual IG page We're only in like 300 followers right now But we're gonna boost that thing up and give y'all some like free stuff for some other things like that Interesting at some point y'all hear more about that later. We out. Have a good one folks. Hey