The ten things you have to do as an artist to brand yourself
1. Start with a good name
Take a piece of paper and write everything what comes up in your mind, think about what makes you you, play with your own name, write some random things. Than take a dictionary, open a page and poke any word. Check if there is a link with any of your words on the piece of paper. Now again write down everything that comes to mind. Try to translate your words into other languages. Perhaps this will yield new interesting names.
2. A Logo
Get those pieces of paper for you again, because we are going to write again first. Color is an important thing, DJ’s and Producers keep their logo’s very minimalistic, the most commonly used colors are white and black. The next step is, which font suits you? Immerse yourself in your target audience and the style of music you play or produce. Make sure it’s make clearly legible! Beside that you also can create a logo where you only make a symbol that refers to your artist name, a kind of recognition symbol. To keep it timeless it is important to keep it simple, 1 color, 1 front and to keep it short and sweet. After write or drawing this all down the hard work will start, to design it. If you have Photoshop you can use that, there are a lot who don’t have this so Canva is a great alternative or ask someone for help.
3. Professional press photos
A DJ press shot is a portrait photograph of yourself that represents your style and you. People connect and respond more to images of people than they do to graphics and branded logos, because a face is also more memorable and so your photo will help you stand out from the crowd. The first step is think about your style and looks, you could do some research by looking at other artist, but don’t try to copy them! Now you can go to a photographer and the photographer can help you with poses.
4. A Well Written Biography
Before you actually start writing your autobiography, think about how it all started and how you got to the place where you are now. Ask yourself these questions:
1. Why are you writing an autobiography?
2. What do you stand for and who you are?
3. Where does your story begin?
4. How did you start making music?
5. What makes your act better than all other artists?
6. Why is your sound the sound that the applicant should have?
7. Write down all your experiences and stories and highlight the most important parts.
Once you have described this, it is important that you briefly process this information into a beautiful and creative running story.
5. A website
As an artist you first have to define your goal, what do you want to achieve with the website? What is my corporate identity? What should one be able to find on the website? Write this for your website clearly on paper. Now these have to be on your website:
1. Booking agenda
2. Social media
3. Merchandise
4. Music
5. Photo’s and video’s
6. Your autobiography and other information about you
7. Contact form
Make sure your domain name is correct and findable and your website has a secure https environment. You can create a website for free via WordPress.
6. A Facebook and Instagram page
It’s important to make a business page on Facebook, because it’s possible to have unlimited number of fans, information tab with company information, page is visible in the search engine, page is accessible to everyone even if they are not yet a fan. Now it’s time to make the page:
1. Change the language from Facebook to English
2. Go to Pages Migrate: Choose a type of page
3. Choose a name
The same is for instagram:
1. Make an normal page
2. Convert your account to an Instagram business profile: Then complete your company profile with your business telephone number, e-mail address and location. Link your Facebook page and your Instagram Business account is ready to use.
3. Keep your Bio organized, use emoticons to stand out a bit more, post a link tree in your bio with important links.
8. A Soundcloud and Spotify artist page
Create a page on Soundcloud and fill in everything calmly, it is clearly indicated. You can choose to take a Pro account. For $ 6 a month, you can double your upload time and access basic analytics data for your listeners. For $ 15 per month you can upload an unlimited length of tracks while accessing the advanced analytics offered by SoundCloud.
On spotify you can create an artist page, to get your music on Spotify, you need to work with a distributor, or with a record label who already has a distributor. They handle all the licensing and distribution, and pay your streaming royalties. Spotify for Artists lets artists and their team manage their artist profile. Once you get access, you can update your images, write your bio, feature an artist playlist, and make an Artist Pick.
9. A Youtube Channel
It’s is important to make an Youtube channel, make sure to have a banner with your logo and fill your profile photo with a nice press photo and fill in your biography. On youtube you can post your music, live performances and other content about you.
10. Content!
Everything starts with good music. Besides your tracks you can share so much more. You can share photo’s and video’s about performances you did, do an Q&A, do announcements for upcoming music or performances. It’s important to be very active, post a photo or video at least once a week.
