Are you sick of creating “content material” once you’re purported to be sharing songs?
Bored with chasing social tendencies when you ought to be mining inspiration?
Have you ever nearly forgotten you’re a songwriter, as a result of the world retains insisting you must be a “creator” first?
Nicely 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. She noticed the very best engagement when she determined to easily… be herself!
Vulnerability as a superpower in songwriting AND music advertising
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 effectively.
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 latest Patreon supporters.
To set some expectations although, these posts didn’t go craaaaaaaazy viral. They didn’t attain billions of viewers and translate to thousands and thousands of streams or something like that.
However for a touring DIY songwriter who usually will get dozens or a whole lot of likes per put up, one thing is working noticeably effectively once you all of the sudden see tens of 1000’s of likes and 1000’s of feedback.
So, what precisely WERE these two posts?
The social content material that works effectively for singer-songwriter Katie Dahl
Right here’s what’s so shocking to me about Katie’s highest-performing posts:
- They aren’t movies. They aren’t flashy. They aren’t immediately eye-catching.
- They’re easy pictures. Full of emotion if you happen to care to stay round lengthy sufficient to search out out why.
- The accompanying textual content shouldn’t be 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 should not a few tune. Nicely, not at first. They’re not attempting to “hook” you. The content material, at its core, is about life and dwelling. It’s about feeling, so it doesn’t FEEL like advertising.
In fact, in a means, it IS advertising. Each the posts relate again to Katie’s songs and artistry. And that’s what directs folks 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 beneath.
However I feel what makes this “content material” work is that it permits different folks an area to really feel seen and understood. These essay+picture posts are connective. Which endears whole strangers by the 1000’s 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’re — 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 based mostly.
I’m a musical playwright. I’ve had two musicals produced and am at present engaged on 4 extra.
I reside in Door County, a really rural vacationer neighborhood in northeast Wisconsin. My city is about 250 folks within the winter however swells to many occasions that in the summertime.
I’m a queer individual. Being public about my queerness in my artwork and on social media has grow to be actually necessary to me lately.
I’m a mother. Navigating the steadiness of labor and parenting is an ever-evolving artwork. I reside subsequent to a cherry orchard with my companion, 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 dwelling off my music and performs for about 15 years.
Within the 2010s my work construction was centered round taking part in 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 folks have been listening and most of the people weren’t. I constructed my efficiency chops that means, and I at all times had a mailing checklist signup out on the merch desk, so I constructed my viewers that means too.
I constructed my out-of-town touring regularly based mostly on connections I made at conferences like People Alliance and at my gigs (which drew largely out-of-town vacationer audiences) right here in Door County.
I beloved these hometown gigs for plenty of causes however finally began to understand that writing for a happy-go-lucky, vacationing, not-always-listening viewers was inhibiting the songs I wrote. Throughout the pandemic I began a Patreon web page, and that gave me the cushion I wanted to stop these bar/restaurant gigs.
I now play non-listening gigs provided that they pay me some huge cash—in any other case I’m taking part in all listening rooms, which implies much more journey. And it additionally signifies that my songwriting has deepened to deal with topics I at all times needed to discover in my music however was fearful my tourist-heavy viewers wouldn’t reply to.
What’s your perspective 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 take pleasure in them. Work offers me an excuse to interact in these platforms that I feel I might take pleasure in regardless.
One factor I really like about being a musician is that I’ve a platform to speak about issues I care about—however you possibly can solely discuss for thus lengthy onstage earlier than you must 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 actually. Social media generally is a veil or mirage, for certain, however in my case it feels prefer it truly offers me an opportunity to drag *again* the curtain.
Largest 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 verify 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 cellphone.
The opposite essential frustration I’ve with social media is folks whose feedback make me mad or damage—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 keep 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 right picture to put it on the market, however this one did:
How a lot effort or revision did you must 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 often 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 really like the liberty of a plain outdated sentence!
What did that put up accomplish?
Metrics-wise, the put up received extra engagement—likes, feedback, shares—than any put up I had made thus far. However the extra necessary 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 exhausting 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 may be 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 might be SO MEAN on social media that true vulnerability is uncommon.
So what that put up engendered was an entire lot of very deep, susceptible “me too.” It was so therapeutic for me to learn folks’s feedback. I feel no matter our actually exhausting “stuff” is, we are inclined to really feel alone in it. To listen to folks say, “I’ve at all times felt dangerous in regards to the form of my legs” or “my dad began criticizing my weight after I was 5” actually introduced me into neighborhood with different folks 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 huge 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 turned 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 received 56K likes and a ton of shares and feedback, and people translated into me nearly doubling the likes/follows of my web page on the whole.
My Spotify listens spiked. And most extremely, I received 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 imagine that that put up, which was not about my music in any respect, engendered that sort of engagement with my music, nevertheless it did.
Provided that two of your best-performing posts are NOT “tiktok-y”, has that altered your sense of what you ought to be doing on social?
Nicely, 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 with that kind of factor, and the cycle continues.
Since they’re the posts that do finest for me and in addition the posts I take pleasure in essentially the most, I’m certain I’ll maintain 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 with sharing fairly a little bit of myself when it comes to my ideas and emotions—and, these days, vulnerabilities.
In my case, as a result of there may be not a lot of a spot 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,” nevertheless it does have that impact nonetheless.
How did you join the dots from a put up about shared humanity to a car in 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 effectively. My fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants “technique” was that I posted a brief one-minute video of myself taking part in a Joni Mitchell tune in my feedback, together with just a few hyperlinks to my Patreon, Spotify, and web site.
However it turned out that the perfect technique have been issues I had achieved 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 received loads of new consideration.
And in addition, 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 folks discovered in the event that they received sufficient within the put up to go to my web page. In consequence, I received a bunch of latest Patreon members, together with one individual on the highest degree of assist I supply.
Lastly, I in fact invited everybody who had appreciated/commented on the put up to love my web page, so my followers have nearly doubled that means. However since you possibly can solely invite 1,000 folks a day and the put up received 56,000 likes, I’m nonetheless having to ask 1,000 folks a day!
Conclusion
Hopefully Katie’s instance offers you a way of freedom in your method to social media and music advertising. Freedom to be susceptible. To discover extra of your self, and to search out deeper connection factors together with your viewers.
Freedom to be susceptible most likely appears like an oxymoron. Since vulnerability includes 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 not less than supplies proof that the chance of vulnerability can repay.
And because of to her for taking the time to share her story!
Go HERE to study extra about Katie Dahl’s music, playwriting, and travels