Artist will get private and scores insane engagement! 

Are you sick of constructing “content material” whenever you’re purported to be sharing songs? 

Uninterested in chasing social developments when try to be mining inspiration? 

Have you ever virtually forgotten you’re a songwriter, as a result of the world retains insisting you’ll want to be a “creator” first?  

Properly I’ve some excellent news for you:

Songwriter Katie Dahl’s two best-performing posts defy a lot of the standard knowledge round social media and music advertising. She noticed the very 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 for those who’re bored with grinding on the social-media hamster wheel, I feel you’ll discover Katie’s story encouraging as effectively.

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 number of latest 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 tons of of likes per submit, one thing is working noticeably effectively whenever you all of a sudden see tens of hundreds of likes and hundreds of feedback. 

So, what precisely WERE these two posts? 

The social content material that works effectively 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 photographs. Filled with emotion for those who care to stay round lengthy sufficient to search out out why. 
• The accompanying textual content just isn’t 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, weak essays. 
• Lastly, these posts should not a few music. Properly, 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 manner, it IS advertising. 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 he or she discusses a few of that viewers journey within the interview under.

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 whole 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 primarily based. 

I’m a musical playwright. I’ve had two musicals produced and am at present engaged on 4 extra. 

I stay in Door County, a really rural vacationer neighborhood in northeast Wisconsin. My city is about 250 folks within the winter however swells to many occasions that in the summertime. 

I’m a queer individual. Being public about my queerness in my artwork and on social media has turn out to be actually vital to me lately. 

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 per 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 folks have been listening and most of the people weren’t. I constructed my efficiency chops that manner, and I at all times had a mailing record signup out on the merch desk, so I constructed my viewers that manner too. 

I constructed my out-of-town touring progressively primarily based 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 at all times wished to discover in my music however was fearful 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 principally solely use Fb and Instagram—and really feel a little bit responsible about how a lot I take pleasure in them. Work provides me an excuse to interact in these platforms that I feel I’d take pleasure in 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 speak for thus lengthy onstage earlier than you must 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 wished to be witnessed extra actually. Social media generally is a veil or mirage, for certain, however in my case it feels prefer it truly provides me an opportunity to tug *again* the curtain.

Greatest struggles or disappointments about social?

The largest wrestle is certainly controlling my habits round social media. The extra profitable a submit of mine is, the extra I are inclined to test 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 foremost frustration I’ve with social media is folks 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 submit with weak 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 totally 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 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 regarded—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 should 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 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 often come into them with a way of inspiration and work on them for 1-3 hours. 

I do usually proceed making modifications after I submit. On this case (as has been the case for a few of my posts about being queer) having 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 special animal than songwriting. I like the liberty of a plain previous sentence! 

What did that submit accomplish?

Metrics-wise, the submit received 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 onerous 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 weak 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 will be SO MEAN on social media that true vulnerability is uncommon. 

So what that submit engendered was an entire lot of very deep, weak “me too.” It was so therapeutic for me to learn folks’s feedback. I feel no matter our actually onerous “stuff” is, we are inclined to really feel alone in it. To listen to folks say, “I’ve at all times felt dangerous concerning 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 taking place 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 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 huge 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 together with it. And actually rapidly it grew to become obvious that that submit 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 submit received 56K likes and a ton of shares and feedback, and people translated into me virtually doubling the likes/follows of my web page generally. 

My Spotify listens spiked. And most extremely, I received 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 consider that that submit, which was not about my music in any respect, engendered that sort of engagement with my music, but it surely 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? 

Properly, I’m not very cool, so I by no means trended very a lot towards TikTok-y content material anyway. I’ve at all times 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 desirous about that form of factor, and the cycle continues. 

Since they’re the posts that do greatest for me and likewise the posts I take pleasure in probably the most, I’m certain I’ll maintain them up.

What classes are there for OTHER artists in these examples?

I feel artists have actually totally different emotions about how a lot they need to reveal about themselves to their followers. I’ve at all times felt desirous 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 feel my little essays are actually not that totally different than branding. I don’t speak about myself as a result of I’m making an attempt to “model,” but it surely does have that impact nonetheless. 

How did you join the dots from a submit about shared humanity to a car in 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 achieve this effectively. 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 music in my feedback, together with just a few hyperlinks to my Patreon, Spotify, and web site. 

But it surely turned out that the most effective technique have been issues I had finished prior 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 received a whole lot of new consideration. 

And likewise, as a really fortunate happenstance, that submit 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 folks discovered in the event that they received sufficient within the submit to go to my web page. Because of this, I received a bunch of latest Patreon members, together with one individual on the highest stage of assist I provide.

Lastly, I after all invited everybody who had preferred/commented on the submit to love my web page, so my followers have virtually doubled that manner. However since you possibly can solely invite 1,000 folks a day and the submit received 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 strategy to social media and music advertising. Freedom to be weak. To discover extra of your self, and to search out deeper connection factors together with your viewers. 

Freedom to be weak in all probability seems 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 at the least gives proof that the chance 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