How Not To Network With Music Executives, Bloggers, & Musicians

I know that may trip you up for a second, but if I can be honest, most music executives aren't necessarily looking for whom they can help, their interest is in the label, not you.

They're going to do what's best for their job.

If they think that YOU can help THEM, then you've got a little traction going. Not the other way around. Think about it, the only reason you're submitting music in the first place is because you want help with your project.

What do you think the label wants too? More sales, more profit, more traffic, and more notoriety.

Labels want to sign small businesses nowadays. They want to know that you'll turn profit for them, or else they'll drop you like a bad habit. It's that simple. Let's look at the blogger next.

In many cases a blogger may be more useful than some labels now. As I've said before, you can go the label route if you want to, but I teach artists how to go independent.

Bloggers get just as many submissions as labels sometimes, and what do they see in nearly every submission? Someone WANTING something FROM them, not anyone offering anything their way.

Want to know how I got featured on a bunch of blogs? Well, I won't give away the exact script like I do in my book, but it has to do with me OFFERING help. If they'd be nice enough to feature my stuff, the least I could do was send traffic their way.

Offer THEM something. Traffic, compliment their site, tell them how much you love their blog, for goodness sake, suck up! (Not to me, you're reading this so it doesn't count)

Be specific with your email too, and keep it short (should be able to read in under a minute, 30 seconds preferably) Don't copy and paste either. Use the bloggers name if you can find it, and give specific compliments. You can even follow this format:

First compliment, then give a sentence or two worth of background information for your music. State what you want featured (specifically), tell them how it will help their site (get creative if you don't want to see my examples in the book). Link to previous features the song has had (if any).

Most musicians are so focused on the above two that they completely ignore the arena that will be able to boost them to blog status in the first place.

If you don't know how to network with people on the same level as you, what makes you think it will magically happen with busier executives and bloggers?

I know we're in an extremely self-centered music industry, and my attempt at transforming the musician's mind may be in vain because of the years of damage already done by society, but humbling yourself will get results when it comes to networking.

Go LISTEN to other independent artists' music and show love, and do it A LOT. Comment, share it, and be authentic! I've even taken the liberty of putting together the exact place you can do that over at Tunes We're Diggin'.

Be engaged, don't just sit back and act like you're too hot to take time to listen to other independents stuff and support.

In fact, this style of networking led to me placing a few songs with American Idol Contestant Erika David. All because I took the time out to network and care.