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Enjoying this? Forward it to a music friend you’d like to be closer to and start a discussion!

Last week in part 1/2, we went over why announcements flop and how Honey Revenge flips them into formats that actually work.

This week is part 2/2—where we get into the darker tricks, curiosity gaps, and repeat tactics that really juice the algorithm.

But before we dive into the sauce, let’s look at a few more smart TikTok examples of how you can make your announcements:

Example #9 [continued]: (Soundcheck→Show Transitions)

Let’s watch this one.

@honeyrevengeca

Philly tonight! The last show of an 8 day stretch! #transition #concerts #band #livemusic #guitarist #singer #performance

So, yet again, super easy format to do if you are playing a show and there's gonna be people there: You perform the soundcheck, you figure out how to hit your marks and have somebody videotape at the same mark of the stage, and you do before and after at the soundcheck and during the show. And it's a great format for keeping engagement.

And then you can remind people of the next shows you have coming up.

Example #10: (“I Have Some Cool Music to Recommend You”)

This one's great.

@honeyrevengeca

First one of these in a while. What are you listening to? #newmusic #musicsuggestions #altrock #metal #poprock #spotify #algorithm

So the hook of this video is really smart—it's basically presenting as like, "Hey, I'm your friend." Doesn't really matter if you know or not that she's in the third band that plays in this sequence, because it's basically just like, "Hey, I love music and I'm just trying to put you on some shit."

Another thing is that this is really easy to make and do on a repeatable, regular basis. Particularly, too, this format can also work well when you're trying to promote your artist playlist—it's super easy. All they're doing is showing a compilation of just Spotify canvases (This also shows why it's important to have a good Spotify canvas, but that's a different story).

Then the question in the description is, "What are you listening to?"—I should say this, Honey Revenge has done this a lot over time. I've probably seen a dozen of them.

But truly, this is a perfect format for people who don't want to go through all the effort of doing outside influence ads.

Example #11: (Repetition and Reminding)

Okay, this is our last one.

@honeyrevengeca

2 days of music video shooting, a full day of photoshoot-ing and risk is finally yours! Come see it live in: 6/1 Salt Lake City, UT 6/3 ... See more

So as you can see, this one didn't get as many views as a lot of the other ones, but what I think is interesting, though, is that this goes to the last step of what we're gonna talk about next: repetition and reminding are important—And it's something that I think a lot of you neglect in your promotions, because what I see is just like "I told them the music video was out once." It's like, "Well, that's not enough."

I mean, even if you look through Honey Revenge's full feed, you could see that numerous times they make videos for all the numerous stops on the tour of them recapping the shows, they are doing those things where they remind you of the show or of what's coming up, they're recontextualizing what they're presently promoting constantly—which is one of the things that makes them really good at it.

JUICING THE ALGORITHM

The next thing I wanna talk about is juicing the algorithm. "Juicing the algorithm" is not just asking a question in the description of your videos; we're talking about your announcements.

This could be a very big deal. If this announcement is gonna be the difference between you getting your record to sell enough to be able to fund things, your tour actually going well, sometimes we have to engage in the dark arts.

The Dark Arts: Engineering Controversy

So, what are the dark arts? Engineering controversy.

1. So let's say your best friend, Dale, really loves you and your music. And Dale really doesn't care about going viral in the algorithm. Dale is happy to make a burner account called “@daletalkshit”—whatever it is.

2. And so Dale will make a new TikTok account or Reels account, and he will go on and Dale will say, “I can't believe you put Silly Goose in this playlist. Silly Goose is just bad Limp Bizkit. I can't believe you like them.” (Silly Goose would never care if this comment was made). Let's say it was even Honey revenge— I'm sure they get a very common comment about something about people saying things like “this is just Paramore” and things like that. Essentially, Dale is just gonna post and say that controversial thing that the audience is gonna defend.

3. And then you go over into your own realm — It could be Discord, an Instagram broadcast channel, or whatever, and say, “I can't believe this asshole said this.” — Something like that. You could also make a TikTok reply video to it, which will then draw attention to their own video.

4. And then you get your audience to defend you in the comments of that video.

It is literally what is happening every day and what your favorite artists are doing to juice themselves. They are going in—even if they're not astroturfing: some groups are gonna get it every video—and calling attention to it.

And frankly, like in your Discord, your own subreddit, your own message board, your own group chat in a private chat on Instagram or in a broadcast channel—whatever it is: You get your five most allegiant fans who love to talk shit, to go react to Dale's post, they look at Dale's haircut, they make fun of him, etc.

But what this is really doing is it is driving up the algorithm. It is driving up views and pushing you more and more to more people because the algorithm loves outrage. And that helps juice these things that need help juicing, because usually they are not all that great.

This is not a thing you need to do permanently. If you have fan accounts for astroturfing, those can help out. Whatever it is, you go in and do it.

Creating Curiosity Gap

Now the other thing: so when you do the initial announcement—let's say you've done one of these Honey Revenge-type announcements, where you've made a video that contextualizes it, you make it entertaining, it feels good, it seems like you've nailed it, it's doing kind of well—You could then hit your text message or your email chain, or your broadcast channel, and say something that induces what we call a "curiosity gap".

A curiosity gap basically makes people curious enough to click something. For years, I worked at places like The Daily Beast and The Rolling Stone, where we are the all-time GOAT of trying to get people to wonder what is in our articles. This stuff gets people curious.

So for musicians, what gets people curious? Something like this: "You asked for this and we made it happen".

There are so many different contexts and things like that. "We did what? Oh my God. We finally have vinyl." Things like that. That gets people curious enough to watch the announcement.

Now you will get pushback. Some people do get annoyed by having to watch TikTok for an announcement, but when it's entertaining, there's much less pushback

And here's the other thing, algorithms love inbound links. So any of that annoyance that you do, it rewards you in that people see it, they hear your song playing in it, and they hopefully get converted to new fans who are aware of the newest thing you're doing. And this hopefully converts better.

ENGAGE FOR CHRIST’S SAKE

So then, after that, we have what I like to call "Engage for Christ's Sake".

Let me put a disclaimer: This will also serve as a lesson as to how bad some of the artists and bands at the top are actually bad at marketing themselves. Like I always tell you guys: not every group that is getting ahead and getting lots of listens is doing it because they are some freak genius. A lot of the time, they're just good with music, and people heard them through a few smart moves, and they are doing tons of dumb things. There are so many times when we do the dissections of groups on here that are just doing tons of dumb things

I will tell you the dumbest thing that I see — Let's say I've had 60 consults (I've had well over 60) with groups with over 300,000 monthly listeners, where they have said, “Why do my announcements perform so badly?” I go in and I look, and the first thing I see is that they hadn’t replied — not even with a heart— to any of the comments. The easiest way to get more engagement on your videos that are big announcements is engaging with your comments. I talk about this so much in my videos, too: release day is basically an announcement day, and you should be in the comments, engaging and asking questions, doing anything you can to keep the conversation going because that will keep the video growing. And for as long as you can sustain that with your life, that is one of the best practices you can do. Period. That will help juice out.

Now, some people say, “Jesse, all these gurus have said that comments don't matter.” What those people are actually saying is that the sheer number of comments is not what matters, but when you do all of these things, it is so much more likely that it will spread more than if you just did none of them.

We're trying to accumulate subtleties here. We're trying to do things that get it so that you go as far as possible. Commenting back questions and engaging people in the comments all work really well.

ManyChat Strategy

Now, the other thing I will tell you is that we're seeing a little bit of interesting mixed results, which is that ManyChat can really help with this because ManyChat inspires a comment.

For those of you who don't know, ManyChat—if you go to my profile right now, on my Instagram carousel posts, on the last slides, it says "Comment 'News' and I will DM you a link." ManyChat makes it so that when these people comment "news," it then automatically DMs them a link to get the thing I'm talking about.

You can be doing the same thing if you set up ManyChat and pay for it monthly. It's not for everybody, but it is a thing that works. The point being, all of that will help juice the algorithm and get these announcements to go further.

Repeat & Recontextualize

Now, there is one last ingredient here. Which is that announcing once isn't enough.

Honey Revenge is always changing the game; they're repeatedly announcing and promoting the thing they're promoting over and over and over again, and just doing it in a new different way and recontextualizing it. While they may be following some similar themes at times and repeating some things, they're always figuring out small, new spins and always getting better at it—things like that tour interview with staff they've done before, things like that, and that keeps getting them so that people see what they're doing.

RECAP

So to recap,

1. Contextualize the announcement in a way that is helpful or entertaining for the viewer so that they will actually hear the announcement.

2. Then, when you blast it out to fans, you create a curiosity gap.

3. Then you engineer controversy. You do that in whatever astroturfing way you would like. Or if you have regular haters, you get your defenders to go against them, or you engage them yourself. Whatever you would like to do there,

4. You answer every comment, you heart comments, you ask questions of the people commenting, and think about it and try to drive up engagement as much as you can.

5. And then lastly, you keep doing it again and again.