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Are you sick of constructing “content material” whenever you’re presupposed to be sharing songs?
Bored with chasing social traits when you have to be mining inspiration?
Have you ever virtually forgotten you’re a songwriter, as a result of the world retains insisting that you must be a “creator” first?
Effectively I’ve some excellent news for you:
Songwriter Katie Dahl’s two best-performing posts defy many of the standard knowledge round social media and music advertising and marketing. She noticed the 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 for those who’re uninterested in grinding on the social-media hamster wheel, I feel you’ll discover Katie’s story encouraging as nicely.
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 tens of millions of streams or something like that.
However for a touring DIY songwriter who usually will get dozens or a whole lot of likes per submit, one thing is working noticeably nicely whenever 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 nicely 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 pictures. Full of emotion for those who care to stay round lengthy sufficient to search out out why.
- The accompanying textual content will not be rapidly digestible. It’s not punchy copy. It’s not a battle-tested caption stuffed with “energy phrases” and guarantees. The phrases are affected person and plentiful. These are lengthy, susceptible essays.
- Lastly, these posts should not a couple of music. Effectively, 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 and marketing.
After all, in a approach, it IS advertising and marketing. 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 she or he 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 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’re — as an individual and as a songwriter?
I’m a touring songwriter. I play about 125 reveals a 12 months 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 the moment 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 instances that in the summertime.
I’m a queer particular person. Being public about my queerness in my artwork and on social media has turn into actually vital 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 associate, 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 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 had been in wine bars or eating places, so some folks had been listening and most of the people weren’t. I constructed my efficiency chops that approach, and I all the time had a mailing record signup out on the merch desk, so I constructed my viewers that approach too.
I constructed my out-of-town touring steadily based mostly on connections I made at conferences like Folks Alliance and at my gigs (which drew principally out-of-town vacationer audiences) right here in Door County.
I beloved these hometown gigs for many causes however ultimately began to understand that writing for a happy-go-lucky, vacationing, not-always-listening viewers was inhibiting the songs I wrote. Through 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 enjoying all listening rooms, which implies much more journey. And it additionally implies that my songwriting has deepened to deal with topics I all the time needed to discover in my music however was anxious my tourist-heavy viewers wouldn’t reply to.
What’s your angle in the 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 provides me an excuse to have interaction in these platforms that I feel I’d get pleasure from 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’ll be able to solely speak for therefore lengthy onstage earlier than it’s a must to play one other music! 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 really provides me an opportunity to tug *again* the curtain.
Greatest struggles or disappointments about social?
The most important battle is certainly controlling my habits round social media. The extra profitable a submit of mine is, the extra I are likely to examine 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 major 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 submit with susceptible content material as a cue to reward or reassure me. I hate feeling condescended to by commenters on social media.
Your two greatest performing posts labored in shocking methods? What’s completely different about these posts?
My two best-performing posts had been:
(a) a mini-essay about my lifelong struggles with physique picture, paired with an image of myself as slightly lady; 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 submit about physique picture?
This was a submit increasing on a music 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 appeared—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 music can have the right picture to advertise, however this one did:
How a lot effort or revision did it’s a must 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 submit. On this case (as has been the case for a few of my posts about being queer) with the ability to share the visible picture—together with a hyperlink to the music—gave me a possibility to discover ideas that I’ve been harboring for a very long time.
The submit and the music 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 distinct animal than songwriting. I really like the liberty of a plain previous sentence!
What did that submit accomplish?
Metrics-wise, the submit bought extra engagement—likes, feedback, shares—than any submit I had made up to now. However the extra vital impact was deeper. The music 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 could be SO MEAN on social media that true vulnerability is uncommon.
So what that submit 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 likely to really feel alone in it. To listen to folks say, “I’ve all the time felt unhealthy 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 occurring in your Grammys submit?
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 rapidly it grew to become obvious that that submit had some precise virality to it.
If I’d recognized it was going to go viral, I’d have modified out of my exercise garments earlier than I began crying about Joni Mitchell!
How’d it do?
The submit bought 56K likes and a ton of shares and feedback, and people translated into me virtually doubling the likes/follows of my web page usually.
My Spotify listens spiked. And most extremely, I bought a bunch of Patreon subscriptions and merch gross sales within the aftermath of the submit—individuals who had no different relationship with my music.
I couldn’t imagine that that submit, which was not about my music in any respect, engendered that type 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 all the time 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 excited about that form of factor, and the cycle continues.
Since they’re the posts that do greatest for me and in addition the posts I get pleasure from essentially the most, I’m certain I’ll preserve them up.
What classes are there for OTHER artists in these examples?
I feel artists have actually completely different emotions about how a lot they need to reveal about themselves to their followers. I’ve all the time felt excited about sharing fairly a little bit of myself by way of 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 completely different than branding. I don’t speak about 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 submit about shared humanity to a automobile 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—particularly the Grammys submit—would accomplish that nicely. My fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants “technique” was that I posted a brief one-minute video of myself enjoying a Joni Mitchell music in my feedback, together with just a few hyperlinks to my Patreon, Spotify, and web site.
But it surely turned out that the very best technique had been issues I had finished up to now: first, within the case of the Grammy submit, that I had the dock submit already pinned to the highest of my web page—so it bought a whole lot of new consideration.
And in addition, as a really fortunate happenstance, that submit occurred simply after I completed an enormous one-week “membership drive” for my Patreon—so my posts pushing Patreon had been the primary content material folks discovered in the event that they bought sufficient within the submit to go to my web page. Consequently, I bought a bunch of recent Patreon members, together with one particular person on the highest stage of assist I supply.
Lastly, I in fact invited everybody who had preferred/commented on the submit to love my web page, so my followers have virtually doubled that approach. However since you’ll be able to solely invite 1,000 folks a day and the submit bought 56,000 likes, I’m nonetheless having to ask 1,000 folks a day!
Conclusion
Hopefully Katie’s instance provides you a way of freedom in your method 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 most likely feels like an oxymoron. Since vulnerability includes danger. However as nice author’s (and gamblers) usually remind us, if there’s no danger, there’s no reward.
So hopefully Katie’s instance a minimum of 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 study extra about Katie Dahl’s music, playwriting, and travels
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