A big topic that I have a lot of fun getting pretty deep with is thinking about how people consume content in 2019. This is a place where a lot of bands get confused. They don’t act thoughtfully. Remember that at the end of the day, you need to sell to your audience the way they want to be sold to, not the way that you want to sell to them. It doesn’t matter if the way that you like to create content seems cool to you. If it doesn’t seem cool to your audience, then it’s as good as wasting your time. So how do you operate with this in mind? How are people consuming content nowadays, and how does this impact how (and what) you should create? It’s really hard sometimes to figure these things out because, during the process, you’ll often discover a lot of brutal and uncomfortable truths. The main thing to remember is just that while social media is a one-to-many method of content delivery, you want to make it feel like a one-to-one method.
Our starting point is to recognize that there is a ton of stuff out there. The sheer volume beats fans over the head, often giving them much more than they can possibly consume. We are flipping through our feeds, spending an average of 0.24 seconds on an individual piece of content. We are not being told stories. That’s what people are really trying to consume by the way: stories. That’s how humans communicate. Yet so often, bands, brands, and labels don’t want to story-tell. Instead, they just want to throw out content that they want to put out. This is a stupid fucking way to live, and it’s only going to waste time and drive your audience insane. Again, we are living in a world of one-to-many, meaning people have no reason to target their focus. When you give them that one-to-one experience, then suddenly you’ll be a lot more likely to get the sort of traction that you wanted this whole time.
So think about it this way. You: reading this article right now. How many screens do you have in front of you, honestly? Are you just reading this on your PC, or do you have your phone buzzing on the side? Is the TV on? Maybe your significant other is playing a video game you’re sort of checking out? The odds are that you aren’t giving your undivided attention to reading this article. People aren’t giving their full attention to anything anymore. So why worry if your shit is perfectly cut or completely refined? I’m not saying to put out shit. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t use the difficulty of creating high-quality content as your excuse for not creating. I put out at least five pieces of content a day. Why? Because I realize that people are paying attention to a ton of different things on a ton of different platforms, subconsciously attempting to process multiple sources of information at the same time. You need to dominate people’s fractured attention spans and put out stuff at scale. The fact that it isn’t perfectly edited shouldn’t be a game changer for you.
Again – I’m not saying you can put out shit. The content needs to be quality because people appreciate quality. In particular, your foundational content (your music, your music videos, and your key visual assets) all need to be world class if you want a shot. That’s just the basics. The thing is that’s not the content you’re trying to scale. The content you’re trying to churn out on a massive level is things like social media posts, shows, and band affiliated content like podcasts and interviews — the stuff you can easily repeat and do time and time again. The thing is, while people enjoy that scalable content and it’s very, very important to have to make an impact on the zeitgeist, it also needs to be done with an awareness of how content is being consumed. There’s a reason I don’t bother to edit my podcasts, for example. Would they sound better edited? Sure. Would that REALLY impact all the people listening to it while they work out, scroll Instagram, or do whatever else? Yeah, I didn’t think so. They just wanna hear two dudes talking about music biz shit.
The final piece to this puzzle of understanding how people are consuming content is to look at the most obvious component – the analytics. You literally have the ability to check the numbers on what is and isn’t working. You have the ability to see what times of day you should be posting. You have the ability to see what types of content you should be creating. The best part is that you don’t even need to run those tests yourself. You can look all around the social media landscape and contact people. They will fucking TELL YOU. Just look at the number of likes or comments something gets. Look at the interaction it’s having. Are people talking about a certain type of content? Yeah. Some of us pay attention to that shit and use it to push our brand, to get more sales, and to win. Other people don’t, and they end up wasting their time. It’s really as simple as that. You have these options in front of you, so you’d better start acting like it or you’ll get left behind your peers.
The next time you use social media, I want you to sit there and think meaningfully about how you’re using it. Don’t change your behavior. Don’t change your approach. That would make the exercise useless. Just think about why you click on the things you click on. Think about why you enjoy the things you enjoy. Then from that, strip it back to the basics and figure out how you can apply that. Think about how you’re going to have that be the next level of your hustle and be the next part of your game. Think about the way that you’re going to use your learning to win over the long run. When you start to really think about your online consumption and then use that to give without expectation, the results are fucking insane.
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- Think about how people consume content nowadays.
- So much is out there and people don’t feel loved and they don’t feel like they are hearing stories, social lets you do that.
- We will be watching a video and texting, listening to music and working.
- This does not mean you can just put out shitty production quality stuff, but it does mean you shouldn’t freak out over it.
- Also means you need to look at analytics and figure out your optimal times etc.
- Think about how people consume content nowadays.
MATT BACON
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Matt Bacon is a consultant, A&R man, and journalist specializing in the world of heavy metal. Having worked with everyone from Glam Rock icon Phil Collen of Def Leppard, to post Black Metal titans Alcest, by way of legendary thrashers Exhorder as well as labels including Prophecy Productions and Ripple Music, he has dedicated his life to helping young bands develop. Having started his own blog at the age of 14 he views his career in artist development as ‘a hobby that got out of hand’. In 2015 he formed Dropout Media in order to better support the artists he loves. We sit here now, years later with countless tours booked, records released and deals signed, and loving every minute of it.
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