Here in Ireland, we are currently in lockdown after the coronavirus pandemic has visited our shores. Now, at the best of times being a musician can be taxing on mental health, dealing with promoters, bookers, getting tracks written and rehearsed, and pulling the money together to live life.
There have already been 130,000 job losses in Ireland in only a couple of days, a lot of these are in the area that many musicians are employed. This is a difficult time for everyone, I want to encourage anyone that is struggling internally to reach out and talk to a friend, professional or organisation that can help. Your mind is a powerful thing but, as we all well know, it can sometimes turn against us. I am currently putting together a mindset course that will be delivered by email, this will be totally free – register your interest below.
Let’s look at what’s happening – people are being encouraged across the world to stay at home and practise social distancing. This means that they have to entertain themselves at home, that means that they will be watching Netflix, browsing Facebook etc… People are bored!!!
Here’s where the opportunity is.
Engaging with an audience that has a lot more time on their hands. The best way to do this is with live streaming and video content.
Let’s have a look at some of the content types that will work:
Cover songs of what is trending – Find what songs are currently trending on streaming platforms and put your own slant on it. If you are a heavy rock artist, probably one of the last things that your fans would think that you’d do is cover a version of Katy Perry’s track ‘Roar’, which has 3.03Bn views on YouTube, this would create some serious interest which you can leverage to more views. If you do a solid job on the cover you’ll also get some of the traffic that Katy herself has going to ‘Roar’ If you were to receive a mere 0.01% of that traffic you’d still have 303,162 views.
Original songs about current issues – this might be a more comedy angle about toilet roll or more serious, maybe about your concern for an at-risk parent or grand-parent, be genuine, this is the key to good engagement.
Ask your fans for questions that you answer on camera.
Here in Ireland, there is a hashtag #istayathomeireland. Check if there’s something in your area that you can get involved in or start yourself.
You can use the major platforms to stream your content. If you’re really worried about live streaming then there is a workaround. It’s called OBS, there’s a link to it in the description. It’ll give you a chance to record the footage, get the take that you like and then stream that file onto platforms of your choice (except Instagram to my knowledge. It’s cheating a little!
If you want me to write a post on how to use OBS to live stream, let me know in the comments.
As always, there is an action sheet – click the link below to get a download that will remind you of the possibilities, it’s easy to read a post and forget these things… but not you… you don’t do that!
