Building Audience in the Content Blizzard
The internet is a blizzard of unfiltered content. How can an artist or author build an audience in the face of it?
You hear it every day: the internet helps you reach more people than ever. And it makes sense. The affordable, powerful tools available to artists and authors now eclipse the ones available just 15 years ago.
And yet you find it isn’t really easier to build a large audience than it ever was.
Why? Well, imagine almost no one in the world has access to a piano. Despite that, some small number of composers gain popular notice. Let’s say it’s about a dozen. Now imagine everyone in the world has access to a piano. Again, some small number of composers gain popular notice. How many? Hmmm, about a dozen.
The availability of pianos, in other words, makes it easier to compose symphonies. It increases the number of good symphonies composed. But it doesn’t increase the number of composers who gain notice.
That number tends to stay about the same.
So what do artists and authors do? They try to stand out in the content blizzard on Facebook and Twitter and ReverbNation. They reach out to fans-to-be, tapping them urgently on the shoulder with little bits of information. And those words, rattling by day after day, add up to little more than “look at me.”
“Look at me. I might not be saying anything interesting, but look at me, look at me, look at me. Did I mention I would like for you to look at me?”
Don’t let that be you. It’s not just being heard that matters — it’s making a strong enough impression to be remembered. And that is a statement about the quality and depth of your work, about what you do before you market anything.
So welcome back to square one: you can’t hide a good song, you can’t hide a good story. Write one today and see where it takes you.
About Mark DoyonI run Wampus, a creative development agency and label for emerging artists and authors. I make records as Arms of Kismet (and sometimes Waterslide), and wrote the book 'Bonneville Stories.'
That’s exactly what I’ve figured out, going through all the social media hubs and yeah its that same old numbers game and for what? Numbers..its the same in competitions, the winners usually have more likes because that’s what the qualifying rules are based around.and in doing all this scattered frenzied “look at me” stuff, you lose track of what really needs to be tended to…..which in my case is “why am I doing this in the first place” just to make money and sell shirts and songs for the rest of my life ,get that dream car or house…or to create a movement and travel all over to spread some good energy and info to as many humans as possible? Sorry Mark for going dark there for a bit.but we are still at it, anyways this post of yours has relay given me a lift broth, thank you much..