 the music industry is shutting down and that has implications for what you might be doing for your rollouts, the people you might be trying to connect with, and even the way you're able to market your music. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that. Jakoria, I'll let you lead the way when it comes to let's start with Spotify and how things change around Spotify this time of year. Yeah, so this is the time of the year where you are reminded that these are just people with a job. And they all as amazing as a lot of them might be at their job, it's still just a job to them and they want to go home and do nothing and be with their family. So I actually think Spotify might already be on vacation. If not, it'll probably be maybe within a week or so after this podcast episode coming out. And that's the biggest thing with them. Spotify, Apple, pretty much all of the major DSPs, when they go on their breaks, editorial playlists are a lot harder to get. You might have that one person in the building or your rep that likes you enough to continue pushing you. You could be a big enough artist where they wake you up like, bro, I know you're on vacation, but Drake just dropped that man in the playlist, right? So there's some caveats, the people that can kind of get around it. But for majority of artists, like you are probably not getting editorial placements right now. Or it's going to be very, very hard for you to even pitch yourself for editorial placements because they're not checking their email, bro. They don't break. They're out doing things. So if your marketing strategy is very editorial reliant, and you are not a big enough artist to kind of circumvent that, or you don't have a strong enough relationship with your rep, so what they willing to leave their family for a little bit to help you out, then it's probably not worth it to be dropping music or dropping songs that you want to have that type of a push. You're just dropping something to give your fans something and holding them over. And yeah, of course, you can still do it right. But if you're like, no, I need this shit to go. This shit really needs to go. And now probably ain't the time for it. Yeah, it's not a chance. It's not like really, you know, it's almost too, no, it's too late already. Right. You really should look at October as your last month to plan ahead. Because, hey, if I can't schedule this thing before I leave the office, then it's not going to happen. I'm not about to come out, like you said, unless it's one of the big ones that, you know, things move. Well, I really like it. Like Sam, Sam got his arson some playlists, but he was telling me about the relationship they have with their editorial person. Like she really likes him. So she was willing to be like, all right, I'll help you out. And she didn't give him nothing massive, but she got him a couple things that show like, hey, I fuck with you. I'm still on break. Hey, that's important. That's when we always go back to the importance of relationships, relationships. And that's established over time. It's not like he came in, some have some major label, give them these or anything. That's a direct relationship contact built over time. Right. So relationships are definitely going to give you a little bit of extra leeway in this time of year, but for the most part, USOL and just leave it at that. Right. So that's Spotify. Now, another thing is advertising. I was just talking to somebody the other day and my brother too, ironically, two people, not even in music, but they're like trying to run ads for something, right? Different things. And I was like, hey, y'all haven't done any type of, well, one person was doing a course, right? You haven't really sold anything online before December into time to start. Especially if it's not even like, oh, it's a Christmas specific winner. I don't know a specific thing. Like, no, it's not a time to just, oh, let me try to use my extra time to run some ads and hope to make some money. This ain't that time. Like the numbers get heavy because you got to think it's more competitive in that time, which means it's more expensive in that time. And that's never going to change. So you think like, oh, well, I might catch people slipping because no one's going to be running ads because they know it's competitive. So maybe I actually hit them on a less competitive. No, that's not going to happen because these companies, these big companies, they work that into their numbers. They don't care. Hey, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars. This is just what we do. Period. It's not going to change and we got to make shit happen for Christmas period. It's like you a little whoever with your 50 cent bid, you know what I'm saying? You're not about to get this. We're prepared to lose lots of money to win over these customers if you're not. And so it's also important to mention too, that's usually the case in most of the bigger countries. I don't know where I'm looking for it. I don't want to say that first world country, but why would you want to say it? I don't know, man. I feel dirty. I feel as fucked up. Let's say it's more of the consumer-sensory countries. Right. Let's say that. So you're US, you're Canada, you're United Kingdom, right? Like those countries is a lot more. You can probably still run ads in places that don't care as much about the holiday season. So that holiday season is different. You know, maybe you're Brazil, you're India, things like that. But most of you probably ain't trying to do that all the time. So I know what we tell clients is, hey, it's not saying it's bad to run ads during this time. You can still get good conversions. There's still going to be people, I will argue more people paying attention to social media, which is so ironic about it, right? Right. Right. Yeah, it's way more people looking, but it's more expensive at this time. But so it's like, you can still pull an audience out. It just might be, you know, when August, your ad might have been getting you a 50 cent cost per click. And then December roll around. That's just $1.17. You still maybe getting high conversions. Maybe your music is still growing. I'd be able to slow a rate, but you're still pulling quality people out. So I know we're telling clients, let me take a quick second to say, if you're an artist trying to blow your music up, or if you're a manager, a music professional in general, trying to help an artist blow their music up, I have something that's a game changer for you. And it's completely free. As you may know, we've helped multiple artists go from zero to hundreds of thousands of streams. We've helped multiple artists go from hundreds of thousands to millions of streams, chart on Billboard, GoViral, all of that stuff. And we've now made the way we've branded multiple artists and helped them go viral completely free step by step in Brandman Network. All you have to do is check out brandmannetwork.com. You apply. It's completely free. But the thing is, we're not going to let everybody in forever. So the faster you apply, the better your chance of getting accepted. Brandmannetwork.com. Check it out. Back to the video. So I know we're telling clients, hey, there are going to be some platforms where we might advise you to just shut it down. So I know for us, YouTube is one of the, the one we have the most issues with around holiday time. YouTube around this time, crazy. Oh yeah. The damn near, damn near such a house of the world. Other ones, Facebook, TikTok, whatever. They get expensive. They're not like hard to work. We're not having like issues with them getting pushed through. So I was like, yo, there might be some we completely advise you to shut it down all together. And then maybe other than what we said, like, hey, this might be worth you just kind of biting the bullet and dealing with the higher cost per conversions or cost per clicks or whatever. Because when, you know, January, February rolls around and this just stops, you just around February, like what? When February rolls around and this just stops and then you got a normal, all this data we built up, right? Like all the brand value you've been building in the marketplace, like that's just going to damn near double triple then because you're not going to be starting over like all the artists who took December through or November through January. All right. So, but that, that depends on what your plan is, right? Yeah, exactly. The beginning of the year for whatever your rollout or your yearly plan is, like at the beginning of year is really important. You got to get popping for whatever that reason that is. Like I know there's some people who are like last year, we had some people that really stressed wanting to be able to start doing some tours or do some shows like by March or whatever, which means we have to set up and create the fan base or the level, certain level of awareness that you'll be touring with. All right? Yeah. So things like that, then you probably want to start early, which means you could justify marketing at the end of December and really, you know, running through December, I would still probably advise not, but right after Christmas, like that was where we saw some success like in between that, so what the six days in between Christmas and New Year's, like when they start, then you go ahead and get that warmed up. That's enough. So long as you spend enough money, you know, put $20 to $50 a day in that period of time, like $5 a day isn't really going to warm you up. Like we're cool with $5 a day ads for people who want to do that, but you're not going to get warmed up fast enough to see the results like what we're talking about. Yeah, $5 is like 20 cents during the time. Yeah. So keep that in mind. But you know, even like you said, the attention is really there, which means content. Yes. This is the time for content to go hard on content. And really you want to have momentum with content too. Like it's nice to already have an audience if you have been doing content all year to then just be able to use that extra time to go harder and take advantage of attention. Right? That's really going to be meaningful as the recession comes as well, but we'll get into that and like do a whole episode or video, like just breaking down some things artists can do or keep in mind for the recession times. But content is it's something that you want to use this time to make happen. Yeah. But it's like, you don't want to spend in my anyway, my left star figuring out the free the free ways to do it, figure out the free, figure out the free. Now, with that being said, I want to, before we leave this, get into just a few promo ideas, because some people, they don't like, they say, should I do a promotional idea? Like I'm an indie artist. We're big in saying indie artists don't have to follow label moves. Right. Just because of the industry shoots shuts down from a label standpoint, a corporate standpoint, it doesn't mean that any artist can't drop anything through December attention to attention. We just talked about, Hey, people are at home. People are paying more attention online. So that could be a great time for you. You got less competition from a music standpoint. Right. But there's some caveats, like we know, generally speaking, a lot of people revert back to more like Christmas type traditional music, traditional type of music. So now you compete with those. But at the same time, there's some things that you can pay attention to with the campaigns, which we'll get into those specifics. I want to start though with if you have a fan base already, right? Because if you have a fan base already, this is a great time to reengage and create a reason to talk to your fans. Right. So let me see. Yes, we can offer a holiday merch deal. Like there's, I got a friend who every single year, the numbers he runs up on merch every December is ridiculous. Right. For multiple artists because he works with multiple artists on it. And these are major artists. And I didn't realize, I didn't realize they took it so seriously, to be honest. Like it's almost like how toys are like, these are going to be Christmas gifts in that time of the year or thing they treat like that. And I'm like, are people really looking at, I don't know, Drake merch, like, Hey, let me get that merch for Christmas. Or do they care? The numbers say that that should work. Like the numbers that buddy meet him. Oh, man, we did three million last year, man. And one year, like he was talking about how when COVID happened that they did their normal thing, but the supply shortage was crazy. And all since the shortage was what it was, all of a sudden, the people who got you know, bigger, bigger budgets, right? Those bigger companies, those suppliers and vendors, they start moving towards those people. It's like, well, somebody's going to suffer. It's going to be my small vendors. Right. And these people are making a few million. But you know, these other people that are competing with our tens of millions and hundreds of millions worth of business. So that's something to consider that might be, I don't know what it's like now. We do know the supply shortage still applies when it comes to merch, but I don't think it's anywhere near as crazy. Obviously it's 2020 when it was a surprise. But he was like, yeah, man, I had to call all these backup suppliers, put in some threats and, you know, I've been consistent with business. Finally, for them to go find this one color because we had already sold, I don't know how much money in this color. These are like the real logistical things that actually become really more important. I know a lot of times we focus on getting views, getting growth, and making sales. But the actual running of the business and dealing with that stuff is that really is the game. So once y'all get to that point, y'all start to encounter those things. But doing something like that, right, reengaging for merch, we know that that's important. And merch can look like anything, not just clothes, obviously, or giving a single. But not like, hey, I'm trying to grow and blow it up. Like maybe you just want to say, Hey, here's a special single for y'all, a song I recorded because you already have a fan base, or maybe just doing a special message. And it's like some video that's memorable, and you send it out to your fan base. You have to use, if you already have fans, I don't care if it's just 100 on your email list, you got to take advantage of that moment to do something that like brands you in their memory. Yo, such and such hopped into a sleigh in the middle of the street and started rapping out of it. You know what I mean? Or he was sitting in the middle of the intersection and people hunking a horn at him. He got a sleigh, create something, you know, just something that they're going to remember. And then, you know, if you got a certain type of audience, maybe that's just showing love and healing, whatever that looks like. But you got to use it to at least as an excuse to stamp you in their memory and extra time, and then, you know, make money if you down for that side of things too. Yeah, I grew that holiday time was definitely the best time for community engagement because you can do so many things under God's holiday spirit. Like you say, even like, it's your chance to be more emotional, be more vulnerable if you feel like you need to, your chance to give away things that maybe you weren't going to do something with anywhere. I got these songs that I hate. I don't think that, well, maybe I hate, but I got this song that I don't know if I'm ever going to put out. Let me just give it to them as a gift. I won't do nothing with it anyway. Let me just make them feel like I'm doing something about them. So I agree. I think like now is the time to go back and figure out a way to rework your email list and work your SMS list, you know what I'm saying? Dust off that Discord group and get back in there and get active. Have some town hall meetings. You probably have more free time as an artist as well, most of you maybe, you know, kind of age and things like that. So like take the time out until I talk to your audience a lot more. Do more live streams. Do more, like I said, town halls and your different socials. Do respond to more DMs and be more personable. Don't just write a three-word message back. Send them a voice message, right? Send them a video. Exactly. You got more time to do it. Don't just do that, General. Thank you. I appreciate you guys. Y'all are so supportive and then leave because there's so many people doing that. You're not going to be remembered. Yeah, bro. Hit them with the video message, man, or the voicemail. They're going to download that shit, make it their home screen. You in there, bro. Some things go back around. You're great. So I do think, I do like, I do think that that that's what this time is for. Community engagement, figuring out how to monetize. Because this is a low barrier way for you to figure out how to monetize because you can try a lot of things that you may not have normally gotten away with the rest of the year under the guise of holiday season. Black Friday deal, Christmas deal, Thanksgiving deal. Yo, I want to sell these t-shirts that I couldn't sell the rest of the year. I was selling them for 20. I want to get them off for 10. If I sell them at 10 any other time of the year, people are going to think, oh, it's because he can't get t-shirts off. I sell them for $10. Now, that's a Christmas deal. You know what I'm saying? Like, he's just fucking with us and throwing us a Christmas deal for it. So this is the time for you to get off a lot of those, you know, pricing, bundling, you know what I'm saying, different merchandising options that might look a certain way the other, you know, nine, 10 months out of the year. But now it's just like, okay, he's making something work for the holidays. Holiday spirit, man. Just another one of these many deals I'm seeing at the time. And it worked. It really does work. Like, that's, that's the part of the stress. Like, you think, oh, am I just writing stuff or everybody's doing it? Does it work? Even though everybody's doing it, it still, it still hits. All right. So now with that being mind, another thing for the campaigns is the influencers, right? Yeah. We'll talk about that. So the ads, Spotify, editorial playlist and influencers. And in your words, they go back to being regular people to back to being regular people. These superheroes, whatever you want to call them the other day, I'm on vacation. I can't tell you, you know, I feel bad sometimes. Like, I'll be like, go back to work. Like, what do you mean? I just need you to post for this campaign. I remember one, we had a campaign that we were supposed to run and we had like 15 grand for that campaign. I fucking know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. And it was December. They came to us December, you know, and we couldn't really get off the money because everybody was on vacation. It was like, bro, this is such a great opportunity. Such a big artist and all everything that they're doing. There's so much money over here for us. We just need to make this thing work. And all these influencers, you know, want to take care of their mental health and shit. It was like, ah, I don't want to be like, go back to work, but do this one post. Ask everybody else, but do this one post. So it really is difficult and can be, especially when you deal with influencers who can afford to not take extra money. All the ones who already aren't making a lot anyway. So they really don't care. I only get like one of these a month. So I can pass off on this one this month. And the young ones, the young ones, the young ones, any influencer under like 26, you're probably gonna deal with it. They on Christmas break, you know what I'm saying? They going on vacation with their parents, shit like that. That'd be the funny stuff, man. I'm with my parents. Oh, man, I forgot that I'm dealing with a kid. We had one tell us like, oh, you know, I'm on Christmas break and I just really wanted to enjoy my Christmas break, but I'll be back making things in January. I'm like, when you go back to school, this is the time for you to rent your bag or bro, you ain't got nothing but time. Bro, that's the graffiti part for me, bro. Cause I'm like, when I was in school, that was opposite logic. Like, how do you have more time during school? And you just want to, like you have a busy break like that. Yeah. My breaks weren't popping like that when I was, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, I'm sitting in the house just more time watching TV and shit. Like, until mom get back until those couple of days come that are popping like Christmas or whatever, you know, it'll be concentrated, but most of the break, I'm not doing a thing. Well, really, and I don't have a lot of influences listening to us, but if y'all do, if I was you guys, this will be the time where I would reach out to every marketing partner I've ever worked with anyone has ever paid me for a campaign or post anything like that. And I would reach out to them and let them know I'm available right now to do work if you need it, because trust and believe we are not the only ones that struggle with this around. Oh, yeah. That is a great idea. And it makes you look great. Like, you can literally just be like, hey, hey, you know, hey, Sean, I really enjoyed working that 24k golden campaign with you guys back in March is one that you know that even on the holiday times are up. I got a little free time this month. Let me know if you need anything from me again. Here's my last couple of posts they've been doing great. Hope to hear from you soon. I was like, you know what, we do need somebody right now. I forgot about you. I have this one TikTok influencer who deals me every week asking me if we have campaigns. And he's massive. Like he has maybe like 15 million followers on TikTok, maybe close to a million on Instagram and probably like 400 counter YouTube. Every week he deals me ask me if we have campaigns. He has that money making machine optimized. Optimized. Hey, bro, just checking in guy ain't nothing coming out of the pipeline. Like, nah, this week, man, all right, holiday next week, then actually come around. Hey, bro, just checking in guy ain't nothing coming out of the pipeline. No, but we ain't really been doing the TikTok. And I was like, okay, right. Check on you again. Like every week, bro, I'm like, man, why can't all of them be like you, bro? Clothes, my house don't get fed. Uncent emails don't get open, man. Yeah. And those sent emails, they really do come in handy because we work with so many people, right? On the influencer end specifically, and you really do forget about some of them at times. Yeah. Right. And some fall off because of unreliability or something happens with the profile for a period of time. It's so much. It's always nice sometimes just to get that message, like exactly what you said. You're like, oh, man, I appreciate this. And since they hit me up, I'm probably not going to have to worry about a long lag and responsiveness and try to chase them down just so they can post. Like that goes a really, really long way for a marker. And it's also a nice time, like, especially if I'm like a solo artist or like just a manager and artist or not a big agency or team, this is when, again, you go back to relationships and having those few people that you do a lot of business with time over time over time, because then they'll be more likely to open a message or at least give you a clear like, hey, I can't do it because the I can't do it because I'm going to be on vacation. X, Y and Z is a lot better than just being unread and you're like, man, I hope they reply. I hope they reply. I could deal with not knowing that they didn't ghost me out of nowhere. You know what I mean? So yeah, y'all let people know because people are, as Jacory said, we appreciate it. Yeah, exactly. Much appreciated. So I know around this time what we tend to try to, well, not, we don't stray away from it, but we use a lot less of them are face for influences, right? So your actual people, your Tik Tokers, some degrees like YouTubers, streamers, things like that. We found some success with just using like meme accounts and I don't know what to call it. What we call my music blog pages, right? Like your our generation music, your routes, your talk to pops pages like that because meme accounts and music blog accounts are basically just media outlets and media outlets never plan to cut off, you know? Oh yeah. You never see a meme page going Christmas break. You never see our generation music be posting on Christmas Day. They be posting on Thanksgiving. Somebody got to post that. No, they got to post it, right? So like, those type of influencers and, you know, for some of you guys that's listening, like, that's not an influencer. Like for us, we look at anybody with an audience with an influencer, right? Give you a meme page, a person, a viral cat. You got an audience, you are an influencer in my eyes, right? So we're looking outside of, okay, we can't use the dancers. We can't use the reactioners and certain people are a lot harder to work with because they want to go spend time with family. But yo, these meme accounts, these music blog pages, these viral content curation pages, these people run their operation like a media outlet, media outlets never plan to cut off. Never. So they tend to work out a lot better, be more responsive and get things up faster than this time, which is great because we're looking for ways to compensate for all these other sides of the influencers that we can't that we can't really use that much during the time. Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, that's that. I really don't think there's anything to add to that. Now, just aside whether you're going to run a campaign or not during Christmas, if you're going to release or not during Christmas. And we get that question all the time. Yes, you can do it, but you got to consider everything else that we just said. So we'll leave it at that. And I want to have some fun with something that you sent over. Oh, yeah, we'll do it.