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Are you sick of constructing “content material” once you’re imagined to be sharing songs?
Bored with chasing social traits when you have to be mining inspiration?
Have you ever nearly forgotten you’re a songwriter, as a result of the world retains insisting you should be a “creator” first?
Effectively I’ve some excellent news for you:
Songwriter Katie Dahl’s two best-performing posts defy a lot of the standard knowledge round social media and music advertising and marketing. She noticed the very best engagement when she determined to easily… be herself!
Vulnerability as a superpower in songwriting AND music advertising and marketing
As a marketer, I discovered this story fascinating. As a songwriter, I discovered it liberating. And if you happen to’re bored with grinding on the social-media hamster wheel, I feel you’ll discover Katie’s story encouraging as properly.
Which is why for this installment of Why It Labored, I requested Katie Dahl to inform us extra about her two largest content material successes. Each of which result in real curiosity in her music, a lift in Instagram followers, and a bunch of recent Patreon supporters.
To set some expectations although, these posts didn’t go craaaaaaaazy viral. They didn’t attain billions of viewers and translate to hundreds of thousands of streams or something like that.
However for a touring DIY songwriter who usually will get dozens or lots of of likes per put up, one thing is working noticeably properly once you out of the blue see tens of hundreds of likes and hundreds of feedback.
So, what precisely WERE these two posts?
The social content material that works properly for singer-songwriter Katie Dahl
Right here’s what’s so shocking to me about Katie’s highest-performing posts:
- They don’t seem to be movies. They don’t seem to be flashy. They don’t seem to be immediately eye-catching.
- They’re easy photographs. Filled with emotion if you happen to care to stay round lengthy sufficient to search out out why.
- The accompanying textual content is just not shortly digestible. It’s not punchy copy. It’s not a battle-tested caption full of “energy phrases” and guarantees. The phrases are affected person and plentiful. These are lengthy, susceptible essays.
- Lastly, these posts usually are not a few tune. Effectively, not at first. They’re not attempting to “hook” you. The content material, at its core, is about life and residing. It’s about feeling, so it doesn’t FEEL like advertising and marketing.
In fact, in a approach, it IS advertising and marketing. Each the posts relate again to Katie’s songs and artistry. And that’s what directs individuals from the social platforms to her music on Spotify, or to her Patreon, or to a gig. And he or she discusses a few of that viewers journey within the interview under.
However I feel what makes this “content material” work is that it permits different individuals an area to really feel seen and understood. These essay+picture posts are connective. Which endears complete strangers by the hundreds to Katie’s story and music.
So let’s have Katie inform the story…
An interview with Katie Dahl
Are you able to inform us who you might be — as an individual and as a songwriter?
I’m a touring songwriter. I play about 125 exhibits a yr across the nation and particularly within the Midwest, the place I’m primarily based.
I’m a musical playwright. I’ve had two musicals produced and am at the moment engaged on 4 extra.
I stay in Door County, a really rural vacationer group in northeast Wisconsin. My city is about 250 individuals within the winter however swells to many instances that in the summertime.
I’m a queer individual. Being public about my queerness in my artwork and on social media has change into actually essential to me lately.
I’m a mother. Navigating the steadiness of labor and parenting is an ever-evolving artwork. I stay subsequent to a cherry orchard with my accomplice, our eight-year-old son, and a black lab/golden retriever combine named Rosie.
Are you able to describe your trajectory as a performing songwriter?
I’ve made a residing off my music and performs for about 15 years.
Within the 2010s my work construction was centered round enjoying 4-6 gigs every week right here in Door County in the summertime and fall, touring a bit within the winter and spring. Most of these gigs have been in wine bars or eating places, so some individuals have been listening and most of the people weren’t. I constructed my efficiency chops that approach, and I at all times had a mailing checklist signup out on the merch desk, so I constructed my viewers that approach too.
I constructed my out-of-town touring step by step primarily based on connections I made at conferences like Folks Alliance and at my gigs (which drew largely out-of-town vacationer audiences) right here in Door County.
I beloved these hometown gigs for many causes however finally began to appreciate that writing for a happy-go-lucky, vacationing, not-always-listening viewers was inhibiting the songs I wrote. In the course of the pandemic I began a Patreon web page, and that gave me the cushion I wanted to give up these bar/restaurant gigs.
I now play non-listening gigs provided that they pay me some huge cash—in any other case I’m enjoying all listening rooms, which implies much more journey. And it additionally implies that my songwriting has deepened to deal with topics I at all times needed to discover in my music however was nervous my tourist-heavy viewers wouldn’t reply to.
What’s your angle in direction of “social” and its place in a musician’s toolkit?
For my work, I mainly solely use Fb and Instagram—and really feel slightly responsible about how a lot I get pleasure from them. Work offers me an excuse to have interaction in these platforms that I feel I might get pleasure from regardless.
One factor I like about being a musician is that I’ve a platform to speak about issues I care about—however you may solely speak for thus lengthy onstage earlier than it’s important to play one other tune! I worth the chance to discover points extra deeply on social media.
I feel I went into music partly as a result of I needed to be witnessed extra really. Social media is usually a veil or mirage, for positive, however in my case it feels prefer it truly offers me an opportunity to drag *again* the curtain.
Greatest struggles or disappointments about social?
The largest battle is certainly controlling my habits round social media. The extra profitable a put up of mine is, the extra I are inclined to test the feedback and likes. Who doesn’t love slightly dopamine rush each couple minutes? I fear about how a lot that behavior ties me to my telephone.
The opposite primary frustration I’ve with social media is individuals whose feedback make me mad or harm—both as a result of they’re imply about my look or sexual orientation or no matter, or as a result of they mistook a put up with susceptible content material as a cue to reward or reassure me. I hate feeling condescended to by commenters on social media.
Your two finest performing posts labored in shocking methods? What’s totally different about these posts?
My two best-performing posts have been:
(a) a mini-essay about my lifelong struggles with physique picture, paired with an image of myself as slightly woman; and
(b) a selfie of me crying—with an accompanying paragraph of ideas — after listening to Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman’s Grammy performances in February.
Are you able to describe the specifics of the put up about physique picture?
This was a put up increasing on a tune I wrote referred to as “Since I Was Eight,” which is about being eight and seeing an image of myself and being sad with how my physique regarded—and the way in which that burden of self-loathing has adopted me all through my life.
The image that upset me a lot (which I bear in mind throwing away, however my mother will need to have printed doubles) is definitely a beautiful picture, me in silhouette on a dock at sundown with another person diving into the water subsequent to me.
Not each tune can have the proper picture to advertise, however this one did:
How a lot effort or revision did it’s important to put into the essay that appeared within the “caption?”
I’ve by no means spent greater than half a day on a social media caption essay, and that was true of this one. I normally come into them with a way of inspiration and work on them for 1-3 hours.
I do usually proceed making adjustments after I put up. On this case (as has been the case for a few of my posts about being queer) having the ability to share the visible picture—together with a hyperlink to the tune—gave me a possibility to discover ideas that I’ve been harboring for a very long time.
The put up and the tune are “about” the identical factor (how a lot time I’ve wasted on the ache of hating my very own physique) however prose writing is such a unique animal than songwriting. I like the liberty of a plain outdated sentence!
What did that put up accomplish?
Metrics-wise, the put up bought extra engagement—likes, feedback, shares—than any put up I had made to this point. However the extra essential impact was deeper. The tune I used to be speaking about was a part of an album whose de facto tagline was “issues Katie Dahl finds laborious to speak about,” and I’d been bandying that phrase about for some time. I feel we as a society have a tough time being actually susceptible about how we really feel about our our bodies as a result of there’s a lot judgment concerned—we’re so deeply steeped in a body-shaming tradition that the stakes for speaking about how we really feel appear actually excessive. And other people could be SO MEAN on social media that true vulnerability is uncommon.
So what that put up engendered was a complete lot of very deep, susceptible “me too.” It was so therapeutic for me to learn individuals’s feedback. I feel no matter our actually laborious “stuff” is, we are inclined to really feel alone in it. To listen to individuals say, “I’ve at all times felt dangerous concerning the form of my legs” or “my dad began criticizing my weight after I was 5” actually introduced me into group with different individuals about this factor that had beforehand felt very isolating for me.
Are you able to describe what’s taking place in your Grammys put up?
The morning after the Grammys, I used to be watching Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman’s performances and located myself actually overcome by them. Such superb moments that made me really feel so proud to be a songwriter.
I used to be simply alone in my workplace in my exercise garments and feeling these massive emotions and actually needed to share them with somebody. So I took a selfie of myself crying and wrote slightly paragraph about my emotions to go together with it. And actually shortly it grew to become obvious that that put up had some precise virality to it.
If I’d identified it was going to go viral, I might have modified out of my exercise garments earlier than I began crying about Joni Mitchell!
How’d it do?
The put up bought 56K likes and a ton of shares and feedback, and people translated into me nearly doubling the likes/follows of my web page typically.
My Spotify listens spiked. And most extremely, I bought a bunch of Patreon subscriptions and merch gross sales within the aftermath of the put up—individuals who had no different relationship with my music.
I couldn’t consider that that put up, which was not about my music in any respect, engendered that sort of engagement with my music, however it did.
Provided that two of your best-performing posts are NOT “tiktok-y”, has that altered your sense of what you have to be doing on social?
Effectively, I’m not very cool, so I by no means trended very a lot towards TikTok-y content material anyway. I’ve at all times leaned towards essay-type posts.
There’s a little bit of round chicken-or-egg stuff occurring right here; my essay posts appear to be what my viewers responds most to, so the algorithm rewards them, so I develop a following that’s fascinated by that form of factor, and the cycle continues.
Since they’re the posts that do finest for me and in addition the posts I get pleasure from essentially the most, I’m positive I’ll preserve them up.
What classes are there for OTHER artists in these examples?
I feel artists have actually totally different emotions about how a lot they need to reveal about themselves to their followers. I’ve at all times felt fascinated by sharing fairly a little bit of myself by way of my ideas and emotions—and, recently, vulnerabilities.
In my case, as a result of there’s not a lot of a niche between my public persona and my true self, I feel my little essays are actually not that totally different than branding. I don’t discuss myself as a result of I’m attempting to “model,” however it does have that impact nonetheless.
How did you join the dots from a put up about shared humanity to a car on your particular music?
I needed to develop the technique in a short time, as a result of I had no concept that these posts—specifically the Grammys put up—would accomplish that properly. My fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants “technique” was that I posted a brief one-minute video of myself enjoying a Joni Mitchell tune in my feedback, together with just a few hyperlinks to my Patreon, Spotify, and web site.
But it surely turned out that the most effective technique have been issues I had finished prior to now: first, within the case of the Grammy put up, that I had the dock put up already pinned to the highest of my web page—so it bought quite a lot of new consideration.
And likewise, as a really fortunate happenstance, that put up occurred simply after I completed a giant one-week “membership drive” for my Patreon—so my posts pushing Patreon have been the primary content material individuals discovered in the event that they bought sufficient within the put up to go to my web page. Consequently, I bought a bunch of recent Patreon members, together with one individual on the highest stage of assist I provide.
Lastly, I after all invited everybody who had favored/commented on the put up to love my web page, so my followers have nearly doubled that approach. However since you may solely invite 1,000 individuals a day and the put up bought 56,000 likes, I’m nonetheless having to ask 1,000 individuals a day!
Conclusion
Hopefully Katie’s instance offers you a way of freedom in your strategy to social media and music advertising and marketing. Freedom to be susceptible. To discover extra of your self, and to search out deeper connection factors along with your viewers.
Freedom to be susceptible in all probability appears like an oxymoron. Since vulnerability entails threat. However as nice author’s (and gamblers) usually remind us, if there’s no threat, there’s no reward.
So hopefully Katie’s instance at the least supplies proof that the danger of vulnerability can repay.
And because of to her for taking the time to share her story!
Go HERE to be taught extra about Katie Dahl’s music, playwriting, and travels
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