 Wow, what's up everybody, once again it's Brand Man, Sean and I'm back with another episode of Ask Brand Man where every Wednesday I answer your questions from the comments section below. So keep them questions coming. It's the network. Today, I wanna answer a question from Plan at T, Boo Boo, I don't know if I said that right, correct me if I'm wrong. But he said, yo, Brand Man, what's the best way to market yourself when you're a young artist who isn't yet making money? You say if you can't use money, then use time. So where do you feel is the best place to direct one's time? That's an excellent question. Thanks in advance. You guys are young marketing goats. Appreciate that man. And once again, the quality of this question is through the roof. So nope, I don't even need to bore just for first. Let's do it like this. There's five things that we can go through in terms of how you can build your audience or how you can just gain any type of traction as an artist without spending any money. I'm talking about no money spent whatsoever. So let's do it. Number one, Discord, forums, chats, whatever you want to call them, whether it's on Discord, whether it's on Reddit, spending time in those particular places where people already gather, who like your type of brand or have similar interests, to you, great places to build up an audience. I know a lot of artists who did that. Moxess, if you don't know who Moxess is, he's done that and really built out a great audience where he was able to be at the point where he was an admin in the group and a moderator. So he built a lot of brand name and clout with that particular audience. If you go to DJ academics, he obviously is more of a reporter. Well, I guess we could call him like a reporter or something like that, but he talks about a lot of different types of artists and his fan base, they gather and they talk in their Discord. Discord is popping. And if you get in that group, there's a lot of building with people where you already know what type of music they make. So this doesn't make any sense for people who don't have DJ academics type music, right? That you wouldn't be on his platform, but for those artists, it's a great space to start building relationships, start learning how people respond to music early on and discuss around music, go building that particular space. As a matter of fact, there's another guy and this actually takes me into number four. So number five, get on a Discord, group chat forum, any one of those places, Reddit, whatever. Number four, what you can do is build in a community and get influencer friends in particular communities. So why I say that the draft I want right now is actually a combination number five and four is this, right? I know an artist where, and actually more of his manager more than anything, he built a lot of clout within the HypeBeast community, right? And some of that was some forums, some of that was real life people and influencers within the HypeBeast community, he did both. And because of that, when his artist launched, they had a lot of connections to a lot of different platforms, right? They got on literally HypeBeast, right? The magazine and there was a lot of other sources that they were able to leverage and friendships that they were able to leverage because not only, right, did I build a clout within a community that I did it online so I can use those online resources, but now I have some other friends who have their own platforms as individual influencers. So this is what the key and the source of number four is. Lil Yachty, all right? He just blew up by making friends who are popular on social media and then they pushed his music, all right? That's the core. Initially, that's how he got his music going. If you build influencer friends, you will be able to use them and leverage them in some sense one day. And this is a long-term strategy because if you are a fresh new artist and you don't have anything to value to a influencer who already has a massive fan base, that's cool, but you gotta start and believe in other people in the same way you want other people to believe in you. So this might be a guy who only has 500, 1,000 subscribers right now, right? But he's gonna build up to have a 500K one day. You might get multiple influencer friends. I'm not saying turn every single friendship into a monetization effort, right? In a fan-based building effort, but it's also understanding when you have time, right? Time is your primary asset. You need to be spending your time to build other assets, all right? Not just work, work, work, and I stop working and putting my time and then there's nothing left. So about putting my effort into a friendship over years and that friendship is already now solid and now that friend has a base or some resources of their own, they are now an asset to me, right? That I can then leverage and tap into whenever I need to and see fit. Same thing, might give you a building, let's say a skill set, right? You're spending your time on becoming better at performing and then you have that skill now and now you can use that skill as a utility in your tool belt, all right? So spend most of your time towards building assets, whether that's through other people, building out platforms. You can literally build your own forum type platform, which I'm not gonna make that a primary recommendation because it's a whole nother like video, but number five was getting on forums and things like that. You could have built your own platform, all right? And now that's an asset that you can always leverage. So number five, hopping forums, groups, great exploit ways to network and build a little clout. Number four, make influencer friends. It's a great way to just have these resources that can constantly be a part of your rollout effort, but now let's go ahead and get into number three. Make a song that means something to people. And this is gonna take a little bit of a context, right? Because a lot of artists feel like their music means something inherently, right? You feel like my music means something, it means something to me, or how can my music not mean anything? I'm not talking about in the abstract sense. I'm talking about direct value, where it's very clear and specific. Oftentimes there's a narrative around it. For example, have an artist in Brandman Network, he has a song that's about domestic violence, right? Because of that, he was able to do some efforts partnering with domestic violence organizations, right? Clear value, easy to sell to just reach out to them, and it makes sense because it's on vision with what they're doing, right? There's another artist in Brandman Network that has a song that has a deep connection to men and the value of men. It's entire message, it's a very unique message. So, and that artist is Biddle. And having those messages make very key and clear ways because now it's valuable to me as an organization because it's helping me promote my cause in an easier way. Now, let me switch that because it doesn't have to be that deep, right? So, and when I say deep, I have a client over at Contra Brand. He has a song called Happy Twerk Anthem and it's going up right now. We're pushing it, we're pushing it, it's rolling. It's about 25K videos on TikTok. This client though, right? His song isn't deep at all, it's about twerking. The reality is that's part of the value of that culture and that space in TikTok though, right? He made it specifically, not only the theme, but sonically the whole vibe of it, the chorus, it's for TikTok. And there's nothing wrong with that, right? And that's value because on TikTok, what do they wanna do? There's a big key, TikTok? They just wanna have fun, right? I just wanna have fun. I'm a post, right? And then my friend sees it, oh, it looks like you're having fun. Let's do that too. They look like they wanna, they're having fun. Oh man, somebody else wants to do it with their friends cause they look like they're having fun and it just keeps happening and happening. And that's how viral effect happens on TikTok. So I say we have 25,000 views from videos created on TikTok to that sound right now and that's gonna grow a lot. But understanding at the same time, the reason that we've got it there so fast is because the song is potent for the TikTok environment. It started to move when he had no followers. Well, like 1,500 followers on TikTok and it had 3,000 videos, right? Before we even got a chance to fully get into working it, all organic because it just made sense for people on TikTok. And you look at the comments on TikTok, they're like, yo, this is my song or I can't wait to see this blow up on TikTok cause it's obvious that it was done to be valuable for that community. So don't be afraid, especially when you don't have an audience, you don't have resources to hack an environment, build something out for a community and leverage those other platforms because a lot of artists that I talk to, they get caught up in what really is artistry or I wanna make this for myself and this is my way of doing things. That's cool. That's my way that you can work that out for yourself. However, there is another route for people who are willing to take it where you can make something catered for an environment, right? And cater towards a certain type of audience, whether it's something about a serious cause, whether it's something that people can have fun to, cause it's not just a general theme. It has to be completely thought out and done for that platform. TikTok is the same as Instagram. Instagram is the same as YouTube made for that particular audience. If you do that, you increase your chance of increased engagement because what you can do when you have these audiences, right? Again, I talked about making the song. The next step is, hey, I can directly reach out like the artists and brand men that were did in terms of reaching out to the domestic violence organizations, right? You can also, I mean, you can dim people who now show that they have that same cause even if it isn't something that serious like the happy twerk anthem, you can show, hey, yo, I made this song, would love if you post it to me and it is made for that environment. People are inspired when they see it, then they will be far more likely to just post to it for free, right? And when the song is really built out for a particular audience, remember I said organic. There's an increase of organic growth that you'll see from it, hands down. And when that happens, just because you got two or three people to post, it's gonna be so much easier to get the ball rolling and ask more people to do it for free, more people to do it for free. And every time they post, you'll get two people that also post it for free and that's snowballs, the snowballs from there, all right? So we can go deeper on now on another day but making music specific, right? For a cause, for a purpose, it works wonders in terms of organic growth and it makes it so much easier to do the work that doesn't involve money. Last thing on that, all this stuff, right? And no matter what platform, what time period, it's all a formula. TikTok is a formula, right? That works well in there. If you remember the SoundCloud area error, that was a formula. If you think about what type of movies win Oscars, there's a formula, right? When people say, oh, they're going for an Oscar, well, it's obvious it's not the action movie, the big blow up box office movie. The Oscar movies are a little bit more specific in artsy, right? If you think about what hit in the 90s, it was a formula. That's why music sounds like that error. The 80s, the music sounds like that error. There's always a formula to all of this, no matter what platform, radio, CDs. Like, there's a formula. I can maybe, I'll probably make a complete video about that because that's besides the point for this video. Let's get into number two. The number two way, if you do not have money, right? Two, start to build as an artist is actually make money. And I know that sounds like, nah, man, that's not what you're asking for, but I want you to hear me out and why this is so important. Cause there's three ways I'm gonna talk about going about this. One, you can get a job, right? Just a job, regular job, not even thinking about it. I'm trying to get some money and then I'm gonna use that extra money whenever I have some to work towards my music career. That's all well, fine and dandy, but getting a job at McDonald's, getting a job at some insurance agency or getting a job, I don't know, as a nurse, practitioner, whatever, that's not the same as what I'm about to go through right here. Let me find a marker. There we go. So here's one scenario that can work wonders. If you're an artist, why don't you learn artist marketing and get you some clients, all right? The reason this works so well is something that I use in almost anything I do, which is a flywheel strategy, right? You have your clients, with those clients, that's gonna increase your knowledge, right? Because you're gonna be running campaigns for these clients, you're gonna see more scenarios, you're gonna be running Spotify ads, or you're gonna be doing some play listing for them, you're gonna be doing Facebook, IG ads, TikTok, whatever you're doing, right? And with that knowledge, you're gonna get more money, all right? And with that money, you're gonna be able to put back into your client base in the form of you, because now you're a client, all right? Now this is the flywheel effect. I get some clients working for these people, gives me more knowledge of this scenario, the more knowledge I have, the more money I'm gonna be able to demand, because I'm already making money from these clients, and that money I'm gonna be able to put back into myself, and when I put that money back into myself, I'm telling the client, so it's also increasing my knowledge yet again, which I can continue to grow my money, and I can continue to grow the impact on my own individual artist career. You're not gonna get that if you're doing something outside of music, right? Now you could be working one of those jobs where yo, I'm making so, so much money that I can have a big amount of money on the side, and I can just start paying people and things like that, that's a whole other scenario, but a lot of people aren't in that scenario, all right? So a huge thing that you can do for yourself is just teaching yourself, and then getting clients and doing it for other people, and over time you will get this flywheel effect where you might be making so much money where this could be your main job, and you're just in music full time, because you'll be able to take in more clients, and you'll be able to get more knowledge and make more money, and then bam, put more stuff towards your music career, let alone the possible clients and connections that you'll be able to get from working for these clients, right? That's what a beautiful flywheel effect works like. That's something to consider when we talk about, hey, I don't have any money, but let me go get some money. Don't be afraid for getting money to be an actual option. People get too, they get too creative trying to avoid making money and spending money when, no, this is a part of the game, regardless. Now, here's another thing you can do. You can create an event, and it has its own similar flywheel effect, right? Cause an event, right? Donewell should give you some visibility, right? And the way you do it, it depends on your brand and what makes sense in your town. It could just be a really big party for people to have fun at. It could be more of a festival-sized style where you bring other artists out. For instance, I had my festival, right? Big event, brought a lot of visibility to that particular brand, which ultimately, whenever I needed it to, brought visibility to me because I was able to use that brand equity from the brand of the company to then say, yo, I'm this person and how do I use this as a resume builder? Use it for jobs, use it for opening certain doors, all that good stuff, right? Now, this is also from this event. If you're doing it well, which maybe we'll have to break that down at some point, that's also going to connect you with more money. You'll get some more money and you'll find out more ways to be connected to money because the people that you'll get from this event, right, is the big part and it doesn't even have to necessarily be exactly in this order, the people that come from this, right, are all going to come back at the end of the day and bring more money to you because you're going to have more people that benefit from your event that's going to be on the consumer side and the business side, whether it's sponsors, all right, bars, promoters, other artists that are trying to get access to this audience, right, which is going to ultimately bring out more people to your event, which is going to continue to create your personal visibility and brand and going to give you more money, right? So we're talking about making money, but being in that flywheel and yo, put you in position, more people, bigger event, more visibility and it's building up that brand name and, all right, now you're getting access to these other business people that might end up being your sponsors as an artist, all right, you're getting your marketing skills that as an artist built up, right? You're getting more of a brand that you can leverage for whatever you want to do as an artist, right? And all these different resources you now have access to likely music videos done for far cheaper or free and bartering because you give access to your event or X-Mex to the email list. There's so many things, but it's about building what again? Assets, right? How can you build an asset for yourself that you can then leverage because this whole game is leveraged. We focus too much again about, yo, how can we do this without spending money? This and all these things that are free without acknowledging the reality that, yo, this is an entrepreneurial game at the end of the day if you wanna be successful and this is all about money, right? This is about assets, resources and if you want to win that game, you need to build assets for yourself that you can leverage. Bam, I built that and then I use that to get me here and now I have this other thing and I use that to get me to the next step and you're constantly building and building, all right? We can get into that in a whole another video. So those are three types of money-making that you can talk about. Hey, I can just go get a job. I got money on the side. Two, I can actually become a marketer. Three, I can do events. Now, I know COVID is different for everybody when they're able to do that to what extent, but that's something to note and to keep in mind. Now, last but not least, what is the number one way for an artist who is young in the game, try to figure it out. Doesn't have any money to build their audience, to get traction as an artist. TikTok, nothing close to it, right? TikTok, TikTok, TikTok. You can be on TikTok and gain an audience of 100,000 followers in a shorter time than any other platform. You can be on TikTok and not have 100,000 followers and your song take off in no time without doing influencer campaigns. I just mentioned one of my clients with, when he posted, yes, we had some advising behind it, but before we even really got into the campaign, there were 3,000 videos and that's not an abnormal thing. We've seen that in position with multiple people and clients where, yo, I got 10 followers on IG, but this video took off. It's no different than the fact that we know on TikTok, someone can have no followers and get a million views on your very first video or you only got 10,000 followers and you get a million views, you go viral out of nowhere and now it's all good, right? TikTok, that opportunity is not there, right? There's so many different ways. So yes, you can build yourself as an influencer on TikTok. Easy, there's so many niches and places you can do it. I actually advise doing it with your strength, whatever works best for you, like in terms of an actual talent and working in the real marketplace, not what I wanna do that's best. We gotta get beside ourselves and stop focusing on the short-term ego driven decisions where, yo, I don't wanna be doing this or representing this. Life is long, there's an arc where, yo, I used to work at Pizza Hut, right? Pete Diddy used to work at, he used to be a newspaper boy, right? Used to be in high school or middle school. That's a part of your life, a part of your process. So building out as an influencer that's not fully related to music is not a bad thing and trust me, you know, hit me up. You know, there's plenty of ways that we convert people's audiences over into supporters of the music. Once you have the audience, it can be done. It can be done, don't overthink it. I hope more and more artists these days are realizing that whole idea. I don't wanna be known as an influencer. I don't wanna be known as a YouTuber and all that stuff is a lie that people have been telling themselves just to really validate their lack of action to be real, right? Or to cover up an insecurity of just really going out there and committing to it. Build yourself as an influencer on TikTok. Also, marketing your stuff using number four, building influencer friends and then using TikTok, amazing. And actually just posting your music organically just as a sound has the potential still is ridiculous without even paying anybody, without even trying to do anything special to market it because if the song is right and if it's made for people, like I said, number three, there's some kind of meaning and it's built out for the audience, then the chance of organic is ridiculous. TikTok is the space to be. We can talk about TikTok success and different tactics around that. I might do a video on that sometime. We have an entire space and conversations dedicated to that on brandmannetwork.com. So if you wanna take that seriously, we got that advising, a lot of advice from people who are actually successful on that platform, but check this out. Do not forget this part. I'm gonna draw it out. All right, when you got time, what you have to do is spend that time, all right? To build something. So now you're on a new platform. You have that asset. Next, you use that asset to get you to the next level and build another asset, all right? Next, you get yourself to another level and build another asset. And by the way, you still have these, all right? Because now they might combine as something, all right? That now gets you to the next level. It really takes you through the roof. Spend time building things that have a lasting true value versus trying to finesse, trying to finesse, trying to finesse, hustle, and you don't have anything to actually hold you, right? And support you long-term. Friendships are something that can be our legitimate support. Business partners, that's legitimate support. Not scamming people puts you in a position to have legitimate supporters and doing people right by people long-term. It works, right? That becomes an asset, right? Building out a forum page or becoming a moderator, right? In a space becomes an asset, which means you've been an asset to somebody who runs that, who's the owner of that page, right? So now you have that relationship, all right? Building relationships is one of the most key ways, all right? At the end of the day, when it comes to not having money but getting value, all right? And being able to have a platform to build yourself from. And you even heard me talk about, hey, build a TikTok following. That is now an asset, that whenever I have a song, I can just post it, I don't have to pay anybody and then it gets tested, all right? And I know it's worth pushing beyond that. This list, trust me, if you apply this, you'll see some results. Just any one of these, and if you take them seriously, I know people all down the line who are doing one of these and now they're beyond that on the next step. Last but not least, I'll leave it at this. There's a video that I did about two years ago and it's on how to build a fan base, basically, if you're in high school. That video is extremely important beyond people who are just in high school, but I made it specifically with high schoolers in mind. It actually expands on some of these because if you could imagine, right? A high schooler wouldn't have any money. So it expands on the concepts that some of these, that I touch on some of them here and talks about some ones that I don't touch on here. So check out that video. I'll link it at the top and other than that, keep asking questions, looking forward to the next one. Peace.