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BIG NEWS!!!!

I have a brand new podcast with Andrew Southworth, Dustin Boyer & Matt Bacon where we discuss how to get your music heard and the music business as well as inviting some of the smartest people in music on each week. You should subscribe!

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Part 2 Recap

Last week, we built your target list using the community research spreadsheet. We covered following the breadcrumb trail through Spotify's "Fans Also Like" sections and using Every Noise at Once to discover microgenre tags.

The key was being a detective: clicking on genre names to find artists, then checking their "Fans Also Like" sections. We also covered the playlist shortcut: adding playlists from artists' Spotify pages to your spreadsheet for later research.

This spreadsheet becomes a living document since playlists and "Fans Also Like" lists change constantly. If you want to start at Part 1 then click here.

Now for Part 3

How Big Should This List Be?

You asked how big this list should be at the end of last week's newsletter. At first, hundreds of artists could be helpful. If you do this work each day, eventually you'll find what helps and what doesn't, and we can retire a bunch of artists to the bottom of the list and unfollow them.

But lean into this. Having a hundred or so artists on this list is more helpful than 10. Casting a wide net at first and continually whittling it down is crucial, making this approach effective.

Local Targets

There's something else I like to target aside from those who sound musically similar to you: local targets. I have a separate sheet for targets that aren't as similar to you musically but are from your area. We do this because they may show you leads that only apply to your local area. This could be a venue to play, a place that will do an article about you. Hell, you may follow them and see a new music store or rehearsal space you could use. Anything's possible.

I'd put any artist of any size locally as long as they have something similar to you by location. Local targets can be helpful because they can teach you so much. You can find local acts by searching your local area on Bandcamp or SoundCloud, even if it's a small town.

Who knows, you may find your new best friend. True story, I found one of my best friends by searching “AOL IM” profiles for the small town I grew up in and the word “punk”. It's shocking what you can find in these searches.

Daily Research Process

After you have a bunch of targets in this spreadsheet, it's time to do some research. Each day, pick one of the artists and poke around. Go to their socials and start observing. Are they friends with other artists you see them collaborating with? Add those artists to your targets.

Check their Instagram bio, website, contact page, YouTube About page, and Facebook About section. Do they have a publicist, lawyer, or manager listed? Add them to your spreadsheet in the fields I made you.

In Bandcamp and SoundCloud descriptions, you can often find producer, mixing, and mastering engineer credits, as well as where they recorded. You can also find credits on Spotify by clicking the credits section. On Spotify, you can see if they're on a label at the bottom of their album page.

Do a YouTube search for these targets and find people who do reaction videos, video essays, reviews, or video channel curators who may premiere your video to their audience.

Observe What's Smart

But do more than just take in their contacts: observe what they're doing that's smart and you like. Look at their Spotify bio and see if there's something smart they do that you should do something similar to. This is what's going to make you a better version of yourself. With every bit of it you do, you'll get more inspired and become a more authentic artist. This is also why you can't hire someone else to do it.

Finding Your Community Spaces

You can also enter all these targets into Reddit and see the subreddits where they're discussed. Same with Facebook groups and Discord. So many of you think this is all about posting your music in the group when it's really about learning the community and talking to people, and what happens in your community.

Why It Matters

Here's a good example: let's say you're great at flipping samples and you hear about Kenny Beats doing beat battles on Twitch. The story Kenny told on Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton podcast about what happened to one of the participants could be you.

Kenny Beats told this story on Rick Rubin's podcast:

That could be you.

Follow Your Targets

While you're doing this research, follow all these targets on social as you find them. If you're like me and don't want to read desperate musicians begging for pre-saves all day (I know, I got into the wrong business…), make a separate account just to follow people and flick over there once a day to do a little homework. I have burner accounts on every social media app where I just follow smart and savvy musicians and observe them. I flick over there every day or so, take a look around, and try to get inspired.

On Twitter, you can make lists. I love doing this on TweetDeck because I can make multiple lanes for different types of artists I follow.

By doing this, you can observe where your targets play, who they're friends with, what they do to market themselves, and how often they post. It's great research, and this is where we'll populate the other sheets for venues, playlists, press, and communities.

Finding Hidden Connections

In time you'll find tons of cool shit. Here's an example: I really like @MusicAtMidnite, who runs a small but influential playlist I listen to all the time. I originally found them on TikTok since they promote artists, but through their posts, I found out they have a playlist I follow and check constantly since it brings me into the hyperpop anti-pop world.

If you find a playlist like that where you belong, I'd be sliding in the TikTok or IG DMs saying "What's up big dawg, I love artists you post like Ryan Hall and Aries. If you're on that vibe you should really get on the Incel Hypebeast train, cuz choo-choo, this train’s going off the rails!" Maybe not exactly that, but you get the point.

What To Look For While Following Targets

As you follow your targets, you'll find these opportunities. If you see an artist your size playing a venue, enter it for future touring possibilities. If they tweet a playlist, enter it and later look for the curator. Follow them on socials and see if they do anything else like write a blog.

If you see a target, share an article about them, and put the writer's name on your press list.

Get Out Of Algorithmic Jail

When you're on TikTok, look at the hashtags artists are using, which often contain genre or community terms, and log them under the tab I made for that.

If you need to get out of algorithmic jail, follow and interact with the artists in this community spreadsheet by doing video reply comments, commenting on their videos, and being a person who belongs in the community.

You'll find the right hashtags, prompts, and inspiration for what to post on TikTok as well as who you should interact with there. If you follow and note this in your spreadsheet, you'll zoom past all the people who are phoning it in by asking ChatGPT what to do.

“Chance Favors The Connected Mind”

This also goes for Instagram. When you're observing these things you'll see opportunities like Danny Rakow, the manager of Brakence, doing livestreams where he listens to unsigned artists on TikTok Live. With one of my consulting clients, Danny wasn't personally feeling the music but another manager was watching and my client is now set up to take a big next step with that manager who was watching the stream.

All of this can work in unexpected ways. So many of you think it's all luck, but the genius Arthur Schopenhauer once said, "Chance favors the connected mind," meaning what people see as luck is really that you can see more than others. These opportunities aren't luck, they're a connected mind making good moves. 

Deep Research is Necessary

However, you need to delve deeper into this research, which we'll cover next week in the final part of this four-part series. Stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading.

[To be continued]