With many bands and artists nowadays taking on multiple roles such as social media manager, merch designer, producer, manager etc., it is easy to become overwhelmed and feel pressured to do everything at once. In a fast paced industry in a fast paced world, many want to maximize all the hours in the day to achieve all their goals. However, this isn’t sustainable and can lead to burnout. Below are some areas to consider to help you find more sustainable ways of creating and promoting your music.
Avoid Comparing Yourself to Others
It is incredibly easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself or your band to others, especially in an age of social media that bombards us all with immaculately imagery and highly curated versions of ‘real life’. That band who just got signed to a label are celebrating in their latest TikTok video, but what you don’t see are the emails to 200 labels who previously rejected them. That band who has just released a lavish and professional looking video may give the impression they’re making a fortune, but you might not know that they have friends who helped them out on a tight budget. Ultimately social media doesn’t show all sides of the story, and it’s important to remember that other bands are most likely going through, or have gone through, similar experiences to you.
A few key points to remember here are that the mundane aspects of life and running a band are the same for everyone. You need to spend time practicing your instrument while waiting for the washing machine to finish its cycle, emails need responding to, your social media needs updating, and those merch packages left by the front door need to be shipped. This is normal, but it can also become overwhelming. For bands, it’s important to divide up tasks among members to reduce the risk of burnout. If the workload is becoming unmanageable then consider investing in additional help.
Set Goals and Create Strategies to Achieve Them
What are your goals? Most bands have goals along the lines of getting more streams, selling more merch, getting signed, going on a worldwide headline tour. The problem with these sorts of goals is that they are too vague without a clear completion date, which can contribute to feeling overwhelmed and unsure as how to proceed. Try breaking down your goals into smaller, more manageable steps with clearly defined deadlines to help focus and streamline your workload. Bear in mind, that everyone’s journey looks different and it may take time for you to find the best strategies that work for you.
Example Goals:
| Goal | Steps |
| Reach 1000 monthly listeners consistently on Spotify by Fall 2024. | Post consistently on social media, network in-person and online with other musicians, connect with fans via comments and DMs. |
| Make $200 of sales this month. | Advertise merchandise with webshop links on socials and through your mailing list, post photos modelling your own merchandise, showcase the quality of the items. |
| Release new album in January 2025 | Decide on your budget, with some contingency. Plan out a schedule for recording, mixing and mastering, artwork creation, photo and video shoots, promotion etc., with buffers in case of delays. |
Use Your Experiences as Opportunities to Learn
So, you set your goal to reach 1000 monthly listeners on Spotify but you haven’t reached it. Instead you achieved 500 consistent listeners by the deadline. This can feel disheartening not reaching your goals, however, this is also a great learning opportunity. Perhaps you found certain types of social media posts were more successful at driving traffic to Spotify than others. You now know how to direct your audience more effectively to continue towards the original goal. It is also important to remember that life happens. Unexpected changes and life events will occur and will often be out of your control. That is okay. Do not beat yourself up for an illness interrupting your posting schedule or taking time out to go on holiday.
Don’t be afraid of change. Perhaps you have found that for the past few weeks a certain format for your reels has gained good engagement, and all of a sudden the formula is no longer as successful. Social media moves incredibly fast from trend to trend with different formats gaining popularity for short periods of time. It can be off-putting now needing to revisit your strategy, however, take this as an opportunity to try something new. It can be easy to continue to push ideas that are less effective on the basis that they are more familiar, but being open to change can make these times easier to encounter in order to reframe your gameplan for success.
Check out the Heavy Business Podcast episodes below for further discussions on this topic: