Are you sick of creating “content material” once you’re purported to be sharing songs?
Bored with chasing social traits when try to be mining inspiration?
Have you ever nearly forgotten you’re a songwriter, as a result of the world retains insisting you could 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 typical knowledge round social media and music advertising. She noticed the 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 in case you’re uninterested in grinding on the social-media hamster wheel, I believe 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 greatest content material successes. Each of which result in real curiosity in her music, a lift in Instagram followers, and a number 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 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 publish, one thing is working noticeably nicely once you all of a 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 nicely for singer-songwriter Katie Dahl
Right here’s what’s so stunning 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. Filled with emotion in case you care to stay round lengthy sufficient to seek 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 will not be a couple of tune. Nicely, not at first. They’re not making an attempt to “hook” you. The content material, at its core, is about life and residing. It’s about feeling, so it doesn’t FEEL like advertising.
After all, in a means, it IS advertising. Each the posts relate again to Katie’s songs and artistry. And that’s what directs individuals 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 under.
However I believe what makes this “content material” work is that it permits different individuals an area to really feel seen and understood. These essay+picture posts are connective. Which endears complete 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 might be — as an individual and as a songwriter?
I’m a touring songwriter. I play about 125 reveals 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 presently engaged on 4 extra.
I stay in Door County, a really rural vacationer neighborhood in northeast Wisconsin. My city is about 250 individuals within the winter however swells to many instances 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 in recent times.
I’m a mother. Navigating the stability of labor and parenting is an ever-evolving artwork. I stay 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 residing 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 individuals have been listening and most of the people weren’t. I constructed my efficiency chops that means, and I all the time 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 Folks Alliance and at my gigs (which drew principally out-of-town vacationer audiences) right here in Door County.
I cherished these hometown gigs for plenty of causes however finally began to comprehend that writing for a happy-go-lucky, vacationing, not-always-listening viewers was inhibiting the songs I wrote. In the course of 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 implies that my songwriting has deepened to deal with topics I all the time wished to discover in my music however was anxious my tourist-heavy viewers wouldn’t reply to.
What’s your perspective 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 a little bit responsible about how a lot I get pleasure from them. Work offers me an excuse to interact in these platforms that I believe I’d get pleasure from regardless.
One factor I 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 therefore lengthy onstage earlier than you must play one other tune! I worth the chance to discover points extra deeply on social media.
I believe I went into music partly as a result of I wished to be witnessed extra actually. Social media generally is a veil or mirage, for certain, however in my case it feels prefer it really offers me an opportunity to drag *again* the curtain.
Largest struggles or disappointments about social?
The most important battle is certainly controlling my habits round social media. The extra profitable a publish of mine is, the extra I are inclined to verify the feedback and likes. Who doesn’t love a little bit dopamine rush each couple minutes? I fear about how a lot that behavior ties me to my telephone.
The opposite essential frustration I’ve with social media is individuals whose feedback make me mad or harm—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 publish 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 stunning methods? What’s completely 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 a little bit 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 publish about physique picture?
This was a publish increasing on a tune I wrote known 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 keep in mind throwing away, however my mother will need to have printed doubles) is definitely a stunning 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 proper picture to put it up for sale, 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 normally come into them with a way of inspiration and work on them for 1-3 hours.
I do typically proceed making modifications after I publish. 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 tune—gave me a possibility to discover ideas that I’ve been harboring for a very long time.
The publish 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 special animal than songwriting. I like the liberty of a plain outdated sentence!
What did that publish accomplish?
Metrics-wise, the publish obtained extra engagement—likes, feedback, shares—than any publish I had made up to now. 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 believe 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 folks could be SO MEAN on social media that true vulnerability is uncommon.
So what that publish engendered was a complete lot of very deep, susceptible “me too.” It was so therapeutic for me to learn individuals’s feedback. I believe no matter our actually exhausting “stuff” is, we are inclined to really feel alone in it. To listen to individuals say, “I’ve all the time felt dangerous in regards to the form of my legs” or “my dad began criticizing my weight once I was 5” actually introduced me into neighborhood with different individuals about this factor that had beforehand felt very isolating for me.
Are you able to describe what’s occurring in your Grammys publish?
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 wonderful 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 massive emotions and actually wished to share them with somebody. So I took a selfie of myself crying and wrote a little bit paragraph about my emotions to go along with it. And actually shortly it turned obvious that that publish had some precise virality to it.
If I’d identified 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 publish obtained 56K likes and a ton of shares and feedback, and people translated into me nearly doubling the likes/follows of my web page usually.
My Spotify listens spiked. And most extremely, I obtained a bunch of Patreon subscriptions and merch gross sales within the aftermath of the publish—individuals who had no different relationship with my music.
I couldn’t consider that that publish, which was not about my music in any respect, engendered that form 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 try 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 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 curious about that type of factor, and the cycle continues.
Since they’re the posts that do greatest for me and likewise the posts I get pleasure from essentially the most, I’m certain I’ll hold them up.
What classes are there for OTHER artists in these examples?
I believe 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 curious about sharing fairly a little bit of myself when it comes to my ideas and emotions—and, recently, vulnerabilities.
In my case, as a result of there may be not a lot of a niche between my public persona and my true self, I believe my little essays are actually not that completely different than branding. I don’t speak about myself as a result of I’m making an attempt to “model,” nevertheless it does have that impact nonetheless.
How did you join the dots from a publish about shared humanity to a car to 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 publish—would achieve this nicely. 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 a couple of hyperlinks to my Patreon, Spotify, and web site.
Nevertheless it turned out that the most effective technique have been issues I had achieved up to now: first, within the case of the Grammy publish, that I had the dock publish already pinned to the highest of my web page—so it obtained a number of new consideration.
And likewise, as a really fortunate happenstance, that publish 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 individuals discovered in the event that they obtained sufficient within the publish to go to my web page. Because of this, I obtained a bunch of recent Patreon members, together with one individual on the highest degree of assist I provide.
Lastly, I in fact invited everybody who had appreciated/commented on the publish to love my web page, so my followers have nearly doubled that means. However since you possibly can solely invite 1,000 individuals a day and the publish obtained 56,000 likes, I’m nonetheless having to ask 1,000 individuals 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 seek out deeper connection factors along with your viewers.
Freedom to be susceptible in all probability seems like an oxymoron. Since vulnerability includes threat. However as nice author’s (and gamblers) typically remind us, if there’s no threat, there’s no reward.
So hopefully Katie’s instance no less than offers proof that the danger of vulnerability can repay.
And due to to her for taking the time to share her story!
Go HERE to study extra about Katie Dahl’s music, playwriting, and travels
