How To Make A Sh*t Load of Content to Promote Your Music ft. Patrick Stafford

If you're an artist and I go to your page and you only have two videos for one song that you put out, that tells me that you do not give a f about that song, song. Making content is the redheaded stepchild that approximately zero artists signed up for when they chose to pursue a career in music. You know that content is the game right now when it comes to music marketing, but the thought of posting every day, multiple times a day, it sounds cringe, it sounds expensive, it sounds time consuming. Not to mention what the f are we even supposed to be posting. Where are these ideas coming from? Today we talked with Patrick Stafford, who works professionally with artists shooting quality content in record time. And I'm not talking bullshit content, I'm talking about stuff that blends into the artist world naturally. It looks great, and oh yeah, it gets millions of views. He breaks down his entire content system that makes the whole process feel simple, repeatable, low budget, and fast. And that's three different reels that got a million views each. Just by switching the placement of the camera.

By the end of this video, you will have the knowledge and the motivation to get out there and shoot as many as 50 reels in around two hours time. You read that right. Because if you're not putting up a lot of shots, you're not gonna be scoring that many points. That's basic sports math. There's an idea in marketing, somebody needs to see something about seven times. I think that number is closer, like 12 to 15 now. We cover how much content you should be aiming for for each release, which metrics to keep an eye on, how to use alt accounts to unlock brand new audiences, and he dropped a major gem around testing which part of your song works best in content and then leaning into that for insane results. I'll try. And as soon as she did that, the song blew up. Making content might feel annoying, but the world simply cannot support a song that it hasn't heard. It is the difference between a great song that no one's heard and a great song that everybody loves. It is the bridge between you and your biggest fans. All you need to do is understand the game, understand yourself, stop overthinking s.

Put a couple simple but effective systems in place, and then put in that good old fashioned work. Most people are not actually going to put in the work. So it leaves a very wide open door for people who do. He might have driven the farthest of any guests just to be on the OMT podcast, Henry. We got Stafford on the podcast. Brother to Matthew. Welcome, bro. Let's go. All right, I want to kick things off. I know you've posted a video about this to your page, but I need it on the I need it on wax on the OMT podcast. Sure, sure. So what do you say to an artist who's got you know two videos on the feed, bro? Dang. Promoting their last song. They only got two videos, Stafford. What do you say to an artist like that? I don't know. I feel like if you're not actually treating your music like a business and doing some of the business things that you need to do, like posting a lot of content, then like it just shows me and it shows a lot of other people that you just don't care that much about what you're putting out. That was way more politically correct than the video on his page.

Let's link that video right here. If you're an artist, you only have two videos for one song that you put out, that tells me that you do not give a fuck about that song. But yeah, man, I I I kind of feel the same way. That's why I'm so excited about this episode. It's gonna be all about content. Oh, I'm so sorry in advance. We say content in every single episode, no matter if we're talking to a fucking producer or a music marketing, you know, guru or a music tech CEO. Um, but this episode's all about content. Um, and I think it's gonna debunk a lot of the the myths that our community has around the content creation process um hopefully erase some insecurities perhaps hopefully it'll inspire because I think anytime I watch one of your videos I get really you know hopeful honestly like oh we can make a fuck ton of content in a short amount of time and we can build worlds around our music to find the right fans and and bring them into our universe right so that's what I hope this episode does. So really appreciate you making the drive up bro to be on the podcast seriously blessings.

So you know something we've asked a lot of other people on the podcast I don't want to get your take how many pieces of content should an artist be posting per release I think that's like one of the most common questions that we get. For sure I mean I'd like to have a typical rule of thumb of like at least 20 to 30 I feel like if you're posting less than that that's cool. If you if you're like doing it the right way you can get away with less but I feel like most artists are still in that phase of like trying to figure out what works for them. And if you're in that process of figuring it out, which you basically are unless you're getting like 500,000 views every single video, then you should be doing more than quote unquote what's expected. Because it again it just shows that you care more. It is allowing you more opportunities to get your song discovered and it really does not take that much time especially when you apply a lot of strategies that I'm sure we're gonna talk about as far as like how to actually get all that content done, how to get a lot done in a short amount of time and not like stress yourself out over it too much. Yeah, for sure.

So I mean, you know, you've worked with a ton of artists, and you know, you've posted content about like how many different reels or you know, shorts or TikToks, whatever you want to call them that you've been able to shoot in a certain amount of time. So you've worked with an artist that we love, KELS. Shout out KELS. And, you know, basically you had a you know, a framework of we shot 50 reels in under two hours, right? So let's just let's kind of walk through the whole process, right? Leading up to the day of shooting, the actual shoot itself, and then kind of post-shoot rolling out the content. Let's like walk through the whole start to finish. Because you guys can do it too. You guys can make 50 reels in under two hours It's possible. You're gonna find out right now. on the One More Time Podcast. Yeah, so so what do we do before we even show up at the shoot? What what happens prior to? I feel like the parts leading up to deciding like how the content is actually gonna look and like leading up to the shoot date, it's really important to think about like what what your song is actually about.

Like sometimes it's easy to say, but like if you can really dial in like the universal theme of your song, which is basically like if you can in one or two words describe the emotion of the song, then like you can think of ideas and the world around it, so to speak, and like what that might look like based on what's relatable to people who are interested in that topic. So, like a dumbed-down version of that is like, okay, let's say you have a heartbreak song, right? If you search hashtag heartbreak on TikTok, you're gonna see a million different videos. If you sort it by the most liked, you're gonna see, and as well as uh what's like most relevant in the last like three months, you can you can filter that on TikTok as well. Using those two, you can see like what people are actually relating to right now in real time, and you can take keywords from that, you can take environments, you can take lighting setups, and you can kind of pick apart all of the things that are relevant culturally and put them into a plan that's like, okay, let's let's shoot a bunch of reels that have like some fog in it and a bright red light that's on the side of my face, because there's a lot of videos like that that are doing well right now. I can just hear the the artists and like even me partially just being like, Yeah, it's working for other people, but I want to be original.

Like that's not me, you know. That's like a trend, it doesn't represent who I am, you know. Like it where's the like is there a balance between you know being like inspired by someone else, maybe taking some of the sauce and applying it to yourself versus just you know, ripping versus just people that want to be a hundred percent original because that's the artist mentality, I think, typically. Yeah, for sure. I I feel like if you are this is a discussion I have a lot with artists because everybody wants to be original and everybody wants to be perceived as as their own individual unique thing, which inherently you are just because of your story. Um but learning content and getting good at content is no different than like getting good at music, for example. If you want to learn the guitar, study the greats, yeah. You're gonna you're gonna study what other people have done, and you're probably gonna learn how to play a lot of your favorite songs before you can actually create your own, because you kind of understand like the fundamentals and what goes into it and like all of the elements that make it sound good. So, in that same sense, you copy videos because that's what most people are doing, anyways.

You start with that, and then it gets to a point where you understand what's going on. You're like, oh yeah, I've done this style of video a hundred times and I've paid attention and I've analyzed what's actually working for me, which is an important step. And then now I'm able to apply it to future videos, which will become more original. I love that analogy. I love it too. And I just think, guys, most of you admit that content isn't your strong suit. So like let's let the music be the original thing, and let's not fucking beat ourselves over the head trying to figure out how to market and promote it and present it via content. Let's just do the research on what's working. That's like one less thing you gotta worry about so that you can focus on continuing to be so original and so you with the music. Like I almost think it it should be like a relief to be like, oh wait, and it I can just go research what's working and maybe pick things from it? It's you and your song in the video. It's already different than everything else.

It's different, it's great. Oh, my God. Framework. It's working. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I know I know Sarah Beth, uh, you know, is an artist that she's great. you know that you worked with. Yeah, love her. Um, and I know most of the content that you guys shot is already out, correct? Um, for the first song that we were pushing in. Okay, sure. Okay, so let's drink liquor like it's water because I'm my father's daughter. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna go. Dude, it's it's a banger. It's fine. So good. Um, you mentioned kind of like the, you know, describing the songs, emotions in a couple words. So, like with her, what you know, what did that look like? And then how did you then move on to the next step in this whole like 50 reels in under two hours, whole journey? For sure. I mean, with Sarah, it was pretty like straightforward just because of kind of where she's at professionally right now. So I think there was a little bit less thought that had to go into the branding side with her. Um because she is a red-headed Californian that uh just got this uh this trailer next to her house that she's turning into a studio. It's like super retro and it's like everything that she is.

So with that, we we took like a very, very simple version of what I was explaining earlier. Basically, like, okay, we want you to be very animated, and we're just gonna hit a bunch of performance reels because she doesn't really like doing content either. So we're not gonna make it complex. We're just gonna, you know, sit here and perform the song, sit here and perform the song. And matter of fact, you can say sitting there, I'm gonna move the camera angle three different times, and that's three different reels that got a million views each. Wow. Just by switching the placement of the camera. This is the this is the overthinking that we do, bro. This is it. If you guys haven't found value already, I don't know what to tell you, but if you have, please uh like this video, leave a comment, subscribe to the channel. He's getting we're bringing you. He's getting so insane value with guys like Stafford. You know what the fuck they're talking about, y'all. Oh man, I'm so glad that you're like really dialing in the like, comment, and subscribe. I'm gonna tattoo like and subscribe on my face.

Fire. Okay, okay. So, yeah, all right. So, so then I mean, so performance content, the lip syncing performance content can just be the thing. But can that it can it can it be everything though? Like, don't we want to see some personality these days? Can that be one bucket? It it really depends. So, like, I I think performance reels are a great way to start getting more comfortable with content, and because they they allow for so much variation, right? You can have just a basic performance reel by itself. You could have one that's chopped up a bunch, you could have one with a bunch of VFX, or you could do something. Uh, I don't know if you guys have seen Elmjack, but like what they do at the start of everyone is they have a phone clip where they say something that's a little bit corny, a little bit funny, um, and then it goes into the performance clip. So I think there's there's so much versatility that if it's between analysis paralysis, thinking about all the million different ways you can make content, or just making performance reels for now, I'd err on on the side of the performance reels. Um and I mean with Sarah, it was like that that's all I recorded for her.

Uh we directed her to do some iPhone clips as well, as far as like storytelling, talking about her manager and like kind of creating this um this like narrative, but that was like a really small part of the content that just serves her closest audience. Um, so I I feel like we would have similar results if it was just the performance clips because the song is so undeniable, which is a huge part that I cannot stress enough. The music has to be good, yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, a bad reel with a good song still has the potential to do good, but if you don't have the song to back it, the reel could be amazing, but it's not gonna convert, like it might get views, but it's not actually gonna get you fans because people don't care about the music, they just care about the cool video that you're doing. Yeah, for me, man, that that's where it is. I mean, I just had a conversation with an artist about this on our office hours live stream.

Uh, and it was just like, Look, yes, he's also not a huge content guy. So I was like, let's just do performance, you know, you know, lip syncing content, right? Multiple different locations, you know, multiple different angles, right? And then just try a fuck ton of different like on-screen, you know, title text, hook, uh, you know, type of shit. Um, if none of that works, there's maybe something wrong. The music maybe isn't there. I mean, right again, like if you're trying a lot of different variety on locations, and those all are kind of like tying into the the brand that you're trying to portray, and just nothing's hitting. We gotta maybe go back to the drawing boards. How many though, until you kind of, you know, you gotta put up shots too. This is somewhat of a volume game as well. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think part of it is like sometimes it's not even that the song is bad per se. It could just be the wrong part of the song. I think KELS is one of the best examples of that, actually. Um, because she released Gone several months before it blew up, yep, which is her her biggest song for people that don't know.

And there's one specific part that she always posts now. You'll notice she, she posts the same like one or two parts every time because she knows those are the parts. Before she figured that out, she was posting a bunch of different parts of it. She she had this one that she was like really focused on, and it just was not working. So she's getting ready to release some more music, she's doing her thing, and then this content creator makes a reaction video kind of thing, reacting to her song, and he used a part that she hadn't used before, and that that clip blew up. So she's like, Okay, well, if people like that, then maybe like I'll try some more reels to this part of the song. And as soon as she did that, the song blew up. You guys have your notebooks out? Oh my god, that's a huge one to write down. That is a gem. You need to have videos starting with every part of this like beginning of verse, middle of verse, hook, bridge, second half of hook. Like we gotta figure out, you know, maybe and it's usually not the part people expect. Well, that's that's what I hear.

I just heard I just heard pertinence basically in a different like version. He basically talked about how like his magnum opuses, right? The songs he labored over for days and weeks and months, right? Or some of his worst performing. Were the worst performing songs. And the ones that he put as little thought into it as possible and just kind of like they came out very naturally and organically and and quickly, right? Were the ones that blew up. Well, you also you also have to think about it like in context as well. Like as the artist, as the creative, you know the full scope of the thing that you're putting out. Like it that that's why so many creatives run into that. Like I was a producer before I ever got into this, and that's a really common thing with music producers too. They'll have this 10-pack of beats that they send to whatever label for whatever artist, they'll be like, oh yeah, I I love this one, but I'm also gonna put these in that I don't like as much because they know that a lot of times it's gonna be the ones that they like the least, oftentimes because they're the most simple or they're the most digestible, but that's that's kind of the same way. Like, if the part that you put out of the song is not immediately digestible, the viewer doesn't have context to the rest of it.

Like if Chapel Roan puts out, you know, a different part of Pink Pony Club or something, it's still gonna work because everybody knows a song, everybody knows the context. But when she first first puts it out, there's a high chance that there's gonna be one or two specific parts that convert way better because it's it's like the easiest hook in. And it's kind of like if you think of an artist um and you and you have no context, like I tell you, okay, I know this rapper from Atlanta, he's super fire, you should listen to him. That's cool. That doesn't tell you anything about him. But if I if I say this kid sounds like G Herbo, um he five years ago worked with I don't know, Playboi Carti and did this thing, all of a sudden you're more eager to watch them because you have more context and you you like understand more. So the easier you are able to introduce yourself and and show more of the context of the song, the more people are gonna immediately resonate with it. See, I I think the idea that the audience gets to decide what they like and don't like, I love that.

It's probably gotta be frustrating. You almost have to flip your mindset completely. You don't know, you gotta find out what the sauce is by putting it all out there. Yeah, I mean, you talk about you know, ego deflation, yeah. That's a big one right there. It's just like not being so particular to the point that like you think you know it all when it comes to what the rest of the world is gonna latch on to. Be humble. I I think it's beautiful. It's Just like with us, man, we've had a lot of episodes that we you I know, I know it from my perspective, but also you have been like that one wasn't that one wasn't the one, and then like some of them have performed really well, and vice versa. Exactly. I'm saying I know the ones I'm thinking of, yeah, and I know the ones that you thought of too. Um I think this one's fire. Yeah, so far. Um, but so with the KELS thing, as far as like um the part of the song, you know, being kind of like surprising or like one that she didn't try yet. Um, how do we navigate that then?

Like, what should we do with that information as artists, right? Is it I mean, is it as extreme as post a video with starting with every pieces and points of the song? Totally, right? To what length do we go to like solve for that not happening, right? Yeah, I mean, it it's honestly whatever length you're willing to go to is the length that you should. I mean, if you It's true. How how how bad do you want it. Yeah, I I mean that there's a hundred words, you might want to start with every word. Yeah, like I I would definitely not limit it to like one post per segment either, because there's a million variables in content, and that's one of the things that makes it tricky. Um, but if you do like three posts of five different parts of your song, even that alone will put you so much further ahead than the person who's just like, oh, this might work, and they just put out one part of the song over and over again, and it either works or it doesn't. Um, but I I think the really cool thing about it is that you have this opportunity, and you now have the knowledge to put this out there.

It'll go as far as you're willing to take it. And we're in this era all over the world where attention has become the currency, right? So with that, it's harder for people to stay focused. And the point that I'm getting to is that most people are not actually going to put in the work. So it it leaves a very wide open door for people who do. And I I think that's one of the I was just having a conversation with somebody actually right before this about about this exact topic. Yeah, it's it's a weird thing. But the more the more you can work, the better is basically the point. Yeah, so I want to see three reels starting every four bars of your song, three reels, and then if all of those flop, maybe the song's not great. And and it's not hard to do it either. Like sometimes it it can seem overwhelming, but think about it like this. Instead of picking up the camera and recording a 15 second segment, just record like two angles. If you got like two iPhones, or even if you want to do it two separate shots, record two angles even of the full song, do the lyrics on all of them, and then when you go into your video editor, do a cut here and render that part out, and then render this part out and render this part out and render this part out, and then make like three TikTok accounts and just post one section on each of those accounts for like five days, and you'll know the part.

That's kind of interesting. And it's not gonna take time. New accounts for like testing and stuff. Oh, yeah. Is that's a bit are you big on that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alt accounts and and like building up the sound page for your song, those are like sometimes more impactful than than like the content itself. Are these alt accounts like pretending to be people? Are they like theme pages? What do they are they just doing? Literally anything. So so the way I like to think about it is is you may have heard that we're in interest media now, right? Yes. Yeah, so instead of social media, we've got interest media, and and basically what that means, because it's kind of become a buzzword and and people forget what it means. But uh essentially think of social media like a TV, right? You've got all these different channels. When you're on a channel, you know the general vibe, you know, you know generally what to expect, right? Like if I'm watching Comedy Central, I'm expecting something funny. Yeah.

If I'm watching the history channel, I'm expecting to learn something. Social media not anymore, but back in the day. Okay. Sorry, history channel. Jesus. Keep going. So social media is basically like that, right? The interest that you show the algorithm are gonna be the main things that it shows to you, right? So if you typically just like comedy content, that's gonna be 99% of what Instagram and TikTok show you because they're so hyper fixated on getting you to stay on the platform for as long as possible. So if you're an artist that that person who watches comedy might like, but your music and branding is not comedic, that's okay. But with your main page, you're probably never gonna reach that person because it's interest media and because they're on comedy central of Instagram, so your content just doesn't get to them. And that's that's the barrier that a lot of artists don't realize that they're running into. Because their main accounts already have like a profile that the platforms are serving this type of person, fresh account.

So you make an alt account on TikTok that's comedy focused, but it's displaying your music in some kind of not The music doesn't have to be displayed in a comedic light, but it could be like skits, or it could be some kind of text that it it could it could literally be memes, right? But you have your sound in it every single time. So now you're able to reach people who like comedy. So if you understand one of the most important things that you can know as an artist, which is your target audience, then you can dive into that and say, okay, my target audience is, you know, a 30-year-old from Ohio that likes beer and football, or like something like that, right? And and when you know that, you can say, Oh, because he likes this and this, there's a good chance that he likes this, like this TV show or this reference that I could make or something like that. And when you can position your content in a way that gets in front of people with those interests that are most likely to like your music, that's when it starts converting at a really high level. Hey, Henry here.

Sorry to interrupt this podcast, but there's something I have to address. As many of you know here at one more time, we love doing live music reviews. We love hearing the music from our community and providing helpful feedback that is hopefully helping you further your career. But if there's one piece of advice that we are tired of giving, it's that your master is too quiet. We shouldn't have to turn up the volume for your song just to have to turn it back down for the next song. That's not good. But Henry, good mastering engineers are so hard to find and so expensive. Enter DistroKid's newest tool called Mixia. I master music myself. And while I don't think AI mastering will ever replace the quality you get from an experienced human mastering engineer, it's pretty damn good. And if you already distribute through DistroKid, you can now master unlimited tracks using Mixia. And if you don't, we have a link right here. You can sign up for DistroKid with 30% off, upload unlimited music yearly for an insanely cheap price. Humans perceive louder as better. It's dumb, but it's true. Use Mixia for a clean master and you won't sound weak on that playlist. Let's get back to the episode.

But so what does that look like for me, the artist? Does that mean that I'm shooting new video content with me in it that's positioned around football and beer? Or is it just again, like there's like edits and my sound is underneath it. So I'm not even sure. I mean, in the con like how does it actually look? The the cool thing is that it it could be any of those. Like all of those are very valid. It it's just about getting your sound to reach as as many people as possible. Like you could record for that fan page, or it could be something as simple as like maybe maybe you make music like T-Pain. It's like very it's very hype, something like that, right? You could take old football clips from like the 70s or 80s, or I don't know, I'm not a football guy, but like vintage football clips, right? Sure. And then put them in a compilation and put lyrics over the screen, like those boiler room edits that people do in EDM space. You know, it could literally just be that because people are like, oh yeah, I remember this game, or like, you know, this is this is something that speaks to me as somebody that likes football, you know.

Do you buy into the whole like people, you know, aren't necessarily they're not really going to social media platforms to discover new music, right? So doing something like that where the music is kind of just an element leaving the door open for them to be like, wait, I like this song. What is this song? Do you think that's like a more powerful kind of approach than being like, hey, this is my song, you know, like more cleverly including the song in maybe otherwise interesting content, you know? How do you think about like that? Right. Yeah, I've definitely heard that a lot. I'm I'm kind of 50-50 on it because I know that there are a lot of people that actually do use social media to find music. Um so again, that's that's something that kind of depends on your target audience and depends on like the types of people that your music is most likely to resonate with. Um I don't think that there's really a lot of people that are closed off to new music per se. Um, but I think we are in a realm of like, you know, there are almost 200,000 songs a day being dropped.

There's a lot of music on social media, so the whole challenge is like, what can you do to actually cut through? Because when you do, and somebody actually takes the time to listen to your song and they kind of understand the context or the meaning, then like they connect the dots on their own, and then it's just up to whether or not it resonates with them. But once you get those people in the door and to a point where they can listen, then that's like when when the conversion happens. So developing artists, you should probably be trying both. You know what I mean? Like do the performance reels, do the like you're clearly showing your song, but then probably also try to incorporate your music into other type of content that could just be interesting on its own. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of artists would balk at the idea of posting 50 reels to one song of theirs. Like they would say, Oh no, no, no, that sounds way too spammy. Yeah, it sounds way too spammy. What do you say to artists that have that mindset?

I mean, emotional recency is is a real thing. Like when you hear a song for the first time, it doesn't really matter like when it was put out or how many pieces of content have been put out about it, or how many people know about it. Like if you find it for the first time and you really like it, then cool. Um, I know LaRussell does stuff like that. You guys had him on recently, and he was he was talking about that exactly. It's like he's not spammy. He's you know, he sees a piece of content that's working really well, he sees a part of the song that's working really well. Of course I'm gonna spam it. I think I think his quote was, I got a million followers. Everybody can't see that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's so true. And and even if they can, there's a term in marketing or or an idea in marketing that somebody needs to see something about seven times for them to remember it. I think that number is closer, like twelve to fifteen now, just with our attention spans. And also because short form is like so short, you're only seeing people for like 10 to 60 seconds at a time. You're seeing hundreds of these bite-sized little nuggets a day.

Right. Yeah. But if you see the same song 15 times, even if you don't like the song at first, you're going to have a better relationship with that song, and you're probably either gonna follow or you're gonna listen to the song once or you're gonna add it to a playlist or something like that. So once once you've heard it enough times, then it's more likely to convert. And that's why I I get people to make so much content because yeah, we could have five pieces of content that really stick out. If you got a hundred thousand followers and we make five pieces of content that are killer, like DaBaby just did that recently. He he had um this like electronic drop uh electronic track that he was dropping. And I think he only did like five or six pieces of content, but they were really high effort. He doesn't normally post a lot on Instagram, so anybody who saw one of them probably saw most of them, but that's like the highest level of conversion, which is not gonna happen most of the time, no matter how big of an artist you are. I might be misspeaking, but I think it was NLE Choppa who also did a content run that was like that, but it didn't have the same kind of effect.

Uh and it just shows you that like at that high level, it it doesn't matter. So when you have volume, instead of just aiming for these five pieces of content, if you have that hundred thousand followers and we shoot like fifty reels instead, everybody's probably going to see it at least five times. So it's kind of up to you whether you want to like really go all in on these concepts because you're just so drawn to them, or you just want to put out a huge volume, which is going to help you learn faster. So for most upcoming artists, the second answer is going to be the one that's better for them. And I just want to remind people too, like you mentioned interest media. Like we're not just seeing all the content from all the people that we follow. It's just not how social media works anymore since the TikTokification of social media. If someone got served one of your posts and didn't like it and scrolled away, they're not gonna see your next one. So like you're not spamming them, they're just not getting your post. The only people that are gonna see all your posts are the people that love your posts.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, uh, but I do is there something to say for like audience fatigue? Because I do see people like I'm a nerd about this shit. So like I'm in KELS's comments, I'm in Lil Man Jay's comments. Yeah, and they're like, stop stop pushing this song, like, yes. We're over it. Yes. So how you know that I know for a fact, y'all motherfuckers out there, the second that you get a comment like that, you're gonna think it's your permission slip to stop me and fucking resist, okay? Don't do it, y'all. Um, but seriously, like how how do you how should they navigate that? Because it is yeah, on the surface, I get it I get it. On the surface, it seems like it's a bad thing, but really it's in my opinion, that's like when you know you're doing a song promo, right? Because if if spitting if people are thinking of you outside of when they're seeing your content and they're like, damn, this dude has posted this song so many times, I'm so sick of it. They got in your head when you literally see like 10,000 faces every single day, you remember them and what they're doing and what their song sounds like.

Yeah. Yeah. Would you rather people be sick of your song or just never fucking hear of you ever? Like, those are, you know what I mean? Those are the two options. Let's take them being a little. We've all had songs that we got sick of that were on radio. Do we still fucking listen to them? And those people that comment that are the minority by far. Like they'd like to do it. Also, I just don't care. I just want to point out in that scenario as well. These are these are short form content pieces that literally takes one swipe to get away from. So like if somebody is if somebody is so upset that they saw the song that they have to comment, when they comment, they're gonna see it more. So they're seeing it more than the people who are like genuinely, I don't like this song. I'm gonna scroll on to the next one. The real haters are the ones that are not commenting whatsoever. Yeah. The people that leave negative comments are the ones that have some kind of emotional gap that's missing in their life. They're secret fans.

They're secret fans. Yeah. And the people that don't comment and just swipe, those are the real haters. So like you don't even know if you have a few. That's good. That's good. Okay. All right, I want to get back to the I want to get back to the matter at hand here, okay? Okay. The 50 reels in under two hours. Okay. So I know we gotta like determine what emotional, you know, kind of words we want to associate with our song, right? But then is it a matter of like, you know, I know you know Sarah Beth was kind of a weird example. She kind of already had a set, if you will, that I think she wanted to use. You know, you mentioned kind of like having a camper or something, or yeah, yeah, like you know, something that she wanted to shoot in. Um, if we don't, is it safe to say that like finding a location then, right? Like let's let's keep walking through, and maybe Sarah Beth wasn't the best, you know, if she had an example. Let's make it a hypothetical. an artist. Yeah. So Henry's the artist. What kind of music do you make? Uh uh fucking uh think faster. This is a real answer I get from artists who have been making music for a long time.

I'm a Christian rapper. I'm a Christian rapper. Okay. Christian rapper from Atlanta, Georgia. He's got the Holy Spirit in him. Um he needs your help, bro. He needs your help. None of my content's hitting. He's got a new song called John 316. Okay. John 316 is the new is the new track from from uh H3, the dopest CHH uh artist on the on the market. Um he needs your help, bro. I would first look at like what the music actually sounds like. I'm imagining facts. I'm imagining if it's called John 316, it's gonna be like a very heartfelt guitar song. That's kind of what I'm imagining. But with an 808, that slaps nasty. distorted 808 under that guitar. So I'm gonna imagine that you probably know how to play guitar and you probably played the guitar for your song. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big if not, it's okay. No big guitarist over here. So the only thing that would really change if you do play the guitar in this situation, because I'm sure there's a lot of a lot of viewers who who are on either side of it.

Um let's say you do play guitar, you're really good at playing guitar and singing at the same time. Okay, we're going to look at like what kind of advantages you have over somebody else who makes music and like what kind of makes you stand out. So if if one of those things is that you can play any instrument and sing at the same time, I would probably want to capitalize on that if we're able to. Yeah. Right. I I think with the guitar, I I mean any instrument, there's a lot of flexibility. I think guitar and piano kind of have the most because you can use like a grand piano or you can use like a little piano or like a keyboard with the guitar. Obviously, it's a guitar. There's there's a million different ones. So finding finding the environment will be part of this, right? And then during that process of like actually shooting, we would incorporate that. But let's imagine either either way, even if you don't play the guitar, uh, the next step would be for us to really listen to the song and think about like what kind of characteristics it has. And and you don't honestly have to get too deep with it, but just think about like where my cheat code for it is where would I listen to this song? Right.

If you're making a song that is really great for late night drives, maybe it's maybe it's this Christian song. It's it's got a banging 808s. Uh you're you're listening to it and you're like, man, I I really want people to listen to this while they're driving fast on the highway at night. Like that's just the vibe. It's dark, it's moody. Like that's that's when they listen to it, right? Yeah. So at that point, why would you record like outside in nature in the daylight for your content if you want people to listen to it in the car at night? So the obvious solution would just be wherever they should be listening to it, shoot there, go there. Or go to something that is resembling of that. If it's if it's very like a a very religious song and it's very like gospely or something like that, we could figure out a church to shoot in, you know, or something that is representative of the culture of people who listen to your music. Okay, perfect.

So we've got that down. Then what do we do before we even head to the location? Because I'm assuming we don't just show up and be like, all right, like let's try the. I don't know. Is there a lot of like on the fly shit happening? This is the part that that labels and other creative directors and other people who have done like music videos and stuff hate. Yeah. I do very minimal prep before my shoots. Like oh no. No, No, I just thought Let him cook. The extent of what I'll do for my shoots is like a mood board, have a session with them to talk about the meaning of the song, and then maybe a few references to videos that they like or videos that I think are cool that we could do something kind of similar style to. But yeah, the the labels fucking hate me because I'll I'll go to do a shoot and they're like, oh, cool. Can you send a creative deck or like a pitch or a proposal or whatever? Like you're supposed to do with these music videos.

Like, I'm gonna send you three Peerspace locations. You're gonna pick one, we're gonna shoot there, and it's gonna do better than any other content shoot you've ever done. That's the Stafford effect, bitches. Trademark, Stafford effect. Let's go. I like it. I like knew he was gonna say that, but I was like, kinda well, I should. I think a lot of people would be happy to hear like, oh thank god, I don't have to like go through all this shit to like be able to do this, you know. I just I need a basic framework, yeah that makes sense. But so then what what do you think makes it so efficient when you do show up? So we got the location, all right. Um is it safe to say literally like just the car you think? Like in his example, if he is like you know, making a song that should be listened to while driving at night, like should we be shooting this in the car? Well, think about on the nose, or think about how many ways you can use the car for that. You could be standing outside the car at night with cool lighting. Oh, you could be in the front of your car and you have your your phone on like a tripod in the window or something, and it's super cut, so you're like bouncing around a different seats in the car.

It could be a reaction where you get somebody like a pastor or something to react to the song, and or or somebody who's like potentially able to relate deeply to that song. Like you just have to get creative and think of like what are the many, many different ways that I can use a car in this example. Um I I think overall, like just getting a lot of different types of shots in one location and just trying to make as much variety as possible is gonna be the thing. How's that actually let's talk about like the filming of it? Like, how are we getting 50 reels in this two hours? Like Yeah. So, so there'll be two different ways that that I'll typically shoot. Either the artist has already tested a part of the song, or um we need to test the parts of the song, right? Either one is super quick because if you only shoot for the part that we already know is doing really well, that's like a 15 to 60 second clip, and you just spam that over and over again with different angles. Um if you haven't tested yet, what we were talking about earlier, like doing the full length recording of each take, like it's gonna be a music video performance or something like that, and then cutting it up after is what lets lets you get so many pieces of content in such a short amount of time.

Like, if you shoot for literally 30 minutes and you're like, okay, I'm gonna sit right here and I'm gonna get you know three performance clips, one from right here, one from up here, and then one from down here, and then I'm gonna like stand up in front of the thing, and I'm gonna get a couple different angles like that. If if you did three here and three here, and you've got like a two and a half minute song, and you did the full take for each one of those, you've got a crazy ridiculous amount of clips that you can use to test out the different parts of the song, and then your next shoot can be for the part of the song that works. Yeah, that's good. I love it. What about like um any like techniques or like gear or anything that I'm just picturing a lot of people maybe watching that maybe are doing this by themselves? Yep, maybe have one friend, right? Anything you can Oh my god. No. They not total. They they will help them make content. Holy shit. relax. The way you said it was so depressing.

Well, I mean, to be fair, they make music. So they're loners. They are lone wolves. Is there any like uh yeah, like tips and tricks or you know, for people that are really DIY bootstrapping this thing that they can, you know, a piece of gear or like just uh put this here, anything like that? I I would say like the maximum requirement for like the most versatility, the bar is still very low, like tripod, iPhone, a light, and a lav mic. If you have all four of those, there's like zero pieces of content that you can't make. Wow. It's so inspiring. It is not gonna lie, it's so inspiring. If you guys just got inspired, please like this video, leave a comment, and subscribe to the channel for bringing you this insane free value, guys. What else can we do to earn your sub? I don't know. Dude, this guy's a sub whore. I love it. I just done the research, man. You gotta ask the people.

No, it's it's great, it's great. Anyway, um, so what are you seeing like work right now online? So, top five, maybe top three to five content formats that you think are working best for music artists. Because we put out a uh you know compilation of a hundred viral content ideas, go to 100 viral content ideas.com. Uh it's free. I think a ton of them are still like relevant and would still work, you know, today, even though we put it out, you know, a while ago. What are you seeing like across the board just crush right now? Um the b-roll format is always crushing it. So that's the one where you're either doing a little performance or you're like doing something completely unrelated to your music and you've got text on screen that's like, hey, what's up? I'm an artist, blah, blah, blah. I wrote the song about this, or or like the million different ways that you can format that. I think that one always works to an extent. Um, it's definitely not like super high converting, but it does it, it does its thing for how much effort you have to put in. Yeah.

Um, any performance reel, 100%, because that just puts a spotlight on the music. And if the music is good, then it's gonna do pretty good. Any any transition ones are really good, like whether doing the iPhone clip into the camera or you're doing like the Snapchat transition into the camera. I've been seeing a lot of the like music video BTS goes into actual music video Yeah. Those are cool anytime you like genuinely have something cool. I think a lot of people do it when they don't really have a cool shot. It's like I'm recording in front of this white wall with one light. What is bro doing? We know exactly what bro is doing. Yeah, it is kind of depressing when like the BTS doesn't look that different from the actual final shot. There should be like an a wow moment when it transitions. For sure. I feel like uh supercuts always do really well. What does that mean? I thought that was a haircut place. Also, also yeah, like It's one shot changing, if if I keep the camera right here and then I record like three different performance reels, and I can make it like snap to each of those areas or something. Oh, like the artist is jumping around the screen and the camera stays still

Artist moves. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, that's called a supercut. Okay, nice. Um, it's also it, I I guess this is kind of an extension of the supercut, but the one where they'll be like flickering really fast back and forth when it's like a high energy song. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, what is that for? Yeah, anything else? I feel like just straight up storytelling, I think is is a really good format. Um I I think that's less like it's less discovery, so it's not getting as many views. But as far as content that's easy to make and serving its purpose, that's definitely like on my top five. Um I I think artists run into this issue all the time of like, how do I tell the story of this song? How do I, you know, describe the song to my viewers and like let them know what it's about. So how so how do they because tell them you just sit down, what do you mean? iPhone clip It's like I made this song about this, you know, like like you just talk about like it's it's so stupidly simple, but like there are a lot of people who care about that once once you've put out a lot of content about your music and you have some that's starting to do okay or whatever, and you have a couple people in your comment section that you see every time, like not every video has to be for the masses. Sometimes the video is for Charlie and Sally who watch your videos every single day.

Shout out Charlie and Sally. I wanted to ask you about how you think about content for discovery versus content for deepening with people that are already in your world to some degree. Yeah, because we can't make every video for Charlie and Sally, even though we love them. We gotta grow. Yeah. But we should make some videos for them. Yeah. So how should they think about that? I I kind of have a hot take. Okay. It's it's a little bit against the grain from what a lot of people talk about, but I feel like sometimes some things are worth simplifying because there's too much analysis, paralysis, and information overload that gets into it once you start thinking like top middle, bottom funnel content. Reels and TikToks are discovery, period. Like that's that's how you get in the door. And then with the exception that you can make a strictly personality video that's for the super fans. I think instead of thinking of it, like I I if you really get into it and you love studying content and you genuinely love content, you can think about it in top middle, bottom bottom funnel content, and there's plenty of resources out there to talk about the differences.

But I think if you as an artist who is trying to learn content or is trying to get better at it and just wants a simple mindset for it, discovery, conversion. Like don't think too hard on it. Because I I've had and I I used to be a little bit more on the side of like think about all the levels and be intentional with what you're doing and everything. But I I had so many artists that would send me reels like every day, and they're like, is this top funnel or middle funnel? And it's like some post that got like 50,000 views. It's like you could consider it middle funnel, but because it got 50,000 views, now it's kind of discovery because this is people's first touch point with you. So I I don't like to have too much of a separation with that. I I just feel like make sure that like once or twice a week you're catering towards your super fans, and outside of that post-content that that can be discovered. Yeah.

So when it comes to conversion content, what are some examples of that though? What I was talking about, like with the storytelling, like I made the song because of this. Like that serves the people that either know some of the lore already, or it's like adding to the lore, and it kind of turns them into a fan. But honestly, a lot of actual conversions happen from the discovery content, just triggering in somebody's feed enough. Like when you see the discovery content 15 times, you stream the song. See, that's where I do agree that maybe it gets a little too deep for some of these marketing gurus, bro. Like, you know, because I I don't disagree. It's like I I just look at my own user behavior. It's like, bro, if I've seen 10 reels of the same song, I then might have the likelihood to go fucking actually listen to the song, right? And but there wasn't one of the pieces of content that would have, you know, in any order, they could have been served to me in any order, it didn't matter. Like there wasn't one piece that was like, oh, this this is why I'm now going to stream the song.

It was just the the classic, you know, seven to whatever 15 in your mind times that I needed to see it before I took the action. So yeah, it's interesting to think about it. It's kind of just like the Gary, we just outwork the problem while we're sitting here thinking about which one's gonna convert, it's just like do do more, it's so real, just keep going. Like you can solve it. You can sit here and try to plan your content out for like a month straight and try to get super deep into it, but chances are you're gonna have taken like two steps back, yes, by the time it gets to the next month, and that's you know, you could have just been posting content the whole time. Yeah. So what do you think the biggest uh you know reason that most artists struggle with content? I think there's there's a really big like negative stigma about comment what content. Well, I I think there has been. I think more artists are starting to get familiar with it, but I think it's honestly because a lot of artists don't really see it for what it is, which is just an extension of your art. Like, I don't personally see it that much different than when somebody is like selling CDs out of their trunk and then they're also making the art for it, or they're like also doing this or also doing that.

Like some artists are directing their own music videos and have been doing that well before content was ever a thing. And guess what the people did that didn't know how to direct music videos? They would find a team or partner up with people that did know how to and they would grow together, and it's that same thing. See, but I think a lot of the issues, you know, kind of centers around if we treat it as an extension of our art, we're very precious with it and we want to labor over it for you know, uh, working on this song for three months until it's done. What do you mean I gotta post every day? Yeah, well, but but I I guess just if we take the thought process on how like you know, precious the music is to artists. I think if we have that mentality with the content, we're not gonna reach a certain level of output that we need to. We're gonna overthink shit, not post it, right? So that's where I think people struggle with that mentality. Cause I think in theory, what you're saying is is great, right?

To maybe get them open to you know making content. But I I have an artist in particular that I'm thinking of right now where it's like he has that exact thought process. So he wants every piece of content to be this like artistic masterpiece because again, that's what he wants his music to be. And like shout out to you. I I do want you to like feel very strongly about your music, and then I also, of course, want you to feel strongly about the content that you're putting out. But I think that if we it's just a dangerous game to start playing. I mean start spending a lot of money and you take a lot of time and very little output if you have that approach. Yeah, there is I I could see that disconnect for sure. Um, but I kind of go back to like what is the purpose of art? And sometimes it's not necessarily to be some beautiful polished thing, because sometimes you just can't get that by yourself. Like you being able to mix a record and and put it all together and have it like perfected after years and years and years of experience is going to be a little bit different than trying to make a piece of content that has that same kind of feel to it. And and I almost feel like it's not as important to focus on like the actual like the videography side and making it look super polished and clean because I know that's what a lot of people go for.

Um, but really just taking that artistic value for what it is, which is to describe your emotions and try to create something that is relatable to people, right? A good piece of art doesn't necessarily equal a piece of art that you spent a hundred hours on. There have been very, very basic pieces of art in history, like the banana taped to the wall, whatever, whatever your take on that whole movement was, doesn't matter. The fact is somebody put a banana and a piece of tape on the wall, and it got the entire world talking about it. You know? Yeah. So sometimes sometimes you have to think about it like that. And I don't know. I I don't like to get too deep into that side, because that's you know, yet another thing that that causes a lot of artists to overthink. And I think that's really like the biggest issue with content. Like sometimes you just have to do it. Yeah.

Like I guess artistic statement rather than like artistic embodiment, if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, now that we've shot all the content at the church or in the car, on you know, near the car, you know, you and I kind of touched on this briefly when we you know chatted before this. Um, how do you um think about the releasing of the content? Because some people might just say, like, hey, it's better that you just get it all out and maybe don't overthink even what you should post when and you know, at what point in the rollout of the song itself. Um how much how much teaser before release. Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about all of it, right? Like when to post, aka before songs out, after songs out, what to post when, right? What sequence of posts, right? Like, should this type of content come before that type of content? So just give give us your whole philosophy on the like rolling out the shit, the 50 reels that we just shot. For sure.

So I am a very big believer in rolling out content in a similar context to how the song was created. Um, so when you think about how you make a song, right? You go through the actual recording process, and then you go to get it mixed, you send it into your distributor, it releases, you know, it does whatever it does first week, first month, first year, whatever, it hits its milestones, and that's kind of like the lifespan of the song. Your content can feel very similar. Like if you start the first piece of content as a piece of content from you in the studio while you have the song idea, then it starts that narrative of, oh, he's working on a new song, right? So when you start that process, then the second reel could be like a reaction reel or showing it to somebody who it might have been written for or about or something like that, right? Or somebody who could just relate to the topic that's close to you, right?

You get them to make a very dramatic reaction to your song, and then that shows okay, the song is now done. Now he's showing it to people, and then you do another one, one of these 50 performance videos that we posted or that that we created, and then when you put that out, be like, great news, uh the song is finished, it's gonna come out on this date. So now, just with those three reels alone, you've shown people the process and let them in a little bit to your storyline and like what it's actually like for you, which is I made the song and now I'm working on releasing the song, it's going to come out on this date, and then when that day comes around, as long as you're continuing to post more of that content that we recorded, then you're going to build hype for it because people can go back and they can see the story. And if you want to see this in action, Russ is one of the best examples of an artist who does this constantly, whether he realizes it or not. He posts a lot of videos like of him making the song still or working on it.

I think my favorite, my favorite example of it was when he did that recognized song with Jesse Blakemore. You guys know the one I'm talking about? The do you recognize me with your half cut? I'm not sure. Oh, yeah, that's it. So the first video that he posted of that was, yo, I found this this singer on TikTok who's super fire, so I put her into my DAW, I sped it up, I pitched it up, I added some drums, and then I did a verse, and this is what it sounds like. And that was the video. Yeah. And then the next video was some performance clip of like him in a car or something, listening to it. And then there was another video that went around of Jesse reacting to him doing that and like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be on a song with Russ. And then like that set the precedent for the story of that rollout. Yeah. And everybody was kind of following. So what I always like to tell artists is that if one of your fans knows that you're in a song rollout, you're doing the rollout right. Like if they don't know you're in the process of rolling out a song because you only posted one or two videos, it's like comes out this day, and then you just drop off the face of the earth.

Even if they see it once or twice, they'll probably forget again because they have a thousand other faces that they're gonna see that same day or that same hour. So if they if they know that you're in that process of a rollout, then it's gonna mean so much more to them when it drops, and they're more likely to pre-save, they're more likely to get on your text and email list, and they're more likely to not only stream it, but tell their friends about it and and have it be a part of their routine, whether it's putting it in a playlist and listening to it more or whatever the song has the effect on them of. So let me ask you this. Do you think that was curated on Russ's part? Like song was already done. Yeah. I feel like, oh, yeah, as far as as far as that goes, yeah, I feel like that was probably done after the song was already approved and everything. And what makes me say that is because he had another song that was really cool, but it used a sample, and he did a video just like that. And he's done this with pretty much all of his re releases recently that I'm that he really cares about.

Uh oh. Um so there was a sample that was cleared, and then the video blew up, and then the label like uncleared it or whatever, and and said he had to cancel the release or something like that. So he had to he had to make a video about it. He's like, guys, the the label canceled this release, blah blah blah. So now we're gonna move on to this one. So that makes me think that it was done after the song because he probably wouldn't have made the video on it if he didn't know he could get it cleared. He probably got it cleared first. So as an artist, if you did not record in the studio and and you're sitting there with your your role, and you're like, ah fuck, well, now I can't do this because I didn't get a moment in the suit, you can 100% stage it. And yeah, I mean, as long as you can tell like a captivating story about it and not just like, I made this beat and then I rapped on it, like you bring some kind of interest into it, that's when people start to follow along and like actually care. Yeah, I I just was hoping that you were gonna say you thought that it was curated because that's the storytelling shit that you that you mentioned before, bro. And I don't think enough artists are leaning into that.

Um, I don't know if they don't think the story's interesting enough. I don't know if they're just again not thinking this way or whatever, but I I challenge you guys to think this way because it it makes it first of all, it makes it fun. Why would you think? Why would you not want to just like come up with like yo, what narrative can I kind of like what's the story of the create around the making of the song and then the song itself, right? Like what story am I telling through the actual music and the lyrics? And then furthermore, like once it's already out, like what happens, right? Like, oh, I got this feature on it. Like, you know, let's say you release a song and then you end up wanting to get a feature on it. Like, again, create the storyline around how the feature came to be and make that a whole thing. And again, we're not saying you have to stage everything. Ideally, you're maybe just like documenting, and then that becomes what you're actually gonna put out. But if you forget to or you don't in the moment for whatever reason, don't be afraid to fucking like again use your creativity to like recreate this storyline that you're trying to. It's not like faking, not lying.

You're just yeah, you're making your own TV show. There you go. Like that that's what it is. Yeah, your artist career is a TV show. Yes. And the way that it should feel like to your audience is like, you know, I I use the office as an example. If you watch The Office and you tune into a new episode, they have a new one dropping, then you don't need to like think about what it's gonna be about. You already know the general gist. Michael's gonna do something stupid, Kevin's gonna fuck something up. Yeah, like there's gonna be this whole exchange. Like, that is what you expect going into an episode of The Office. You don't know the exact thing that's gonna happen. And sometimes there's some crazy outliers that happen that you never would have expected, but for the most part, there's like a grounded center to what to expect. It's that familiar and fresh at the same time. That's what people need. Yeah, so something that you've been, you know, building for the last, I don't know, several years, underground retreats. Yeah, since uh 2021.

Okay, okay, cool. So for those that aren't familiar, just like quick summary of like what it is that you're doing with underground retreats, and then I want to kind of talk about how artists can apply some of the things that you've been doing uh with underground retreats to their own uh artist career. For sure. Yeah, so underground retreats is this thing that I started uh in 2021, and it's like a different take on a music camp. So a lot of writing camps are something where like Rihanna Rihanna's team will put it together, and she's like, All right, we're gonna get these top producers and these top producers and these songwriters, and everybody's gonna work together and make an album for Rihanna, and that's gonna be the camp. And I wanted to do something that is like more open to the public and more of just like a let's see what happens when we put a bunch of cool people in the room. Uh so I'll get like anywhere from 30 to 50 music. Well, I I guess more like 15 to 15 to 40 musicians is typically the average range, and they will all live in one house for a week.

And throughout the week, I'll be making a bunch of content and we have a bunch of studio setups, but it's like a very big DIY project. So, like all the artists are bringing their own setups, um, all their own recording equipment, and I'm just kind of like facilitating. And my whole idea is you know, if I put a bunch of really cool talented artists together, then by the end of it, we get something pretty cool. And instead of working towards like a specific project or anything like that, like everybody comes and works on what feels natural in that moment. So it could be singles, it could be stuff for their project they're working on. Uh, sometimes we'll do co-releases and all of that. Um, but yeah, it's it's been a lot of fun, and we actually have our last one coming up in March because we are going to go through a little bit of a rebrand phase. It's not going to be called underground retreats anymore. Okay. I hate that name. He's coming out, he's coming out of the underground. But same idea. Into the mainstream. Same idea. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be called Mainstream Vacations. Yeah. But, you know, so it's it's been an incredible to watch because I have been kind of watching it develop though over the years.

Um, and it's a really amazing community of of music makers, right? Um, I think it's just to your point, who knows what's going to be made? Who knows what friendships and like collaborations are going to come out of it, uh, the content you're gonna make, etc. How can, you know, what lessons have you learned that you think artists can be because we hear about community building. I mean, we we did an episode with Kayvon uh from Distro at uh Genius and WorldStar. Put a card to his video right up here. He's built an incredible community of of you know, musicians and artists at Kayvon's house. I think this is also again, you know, kind of equally special as far as like just the tight knit, like supportive, you know, creative collaborations that exist within like the retreats and the camps that you do. Um, but artists need to be doing this for themselves and their own fan bases and their own communities. So, what are some things that you've learned that again could apply to what artists are like faced with in today's age of community, which we just hear, you know, all the time. For sure.

I feel like the essence of a community is that everybody kind of believes in the same thing. Um, and I think as an artist, there's a lot of ways that you can approach it. Like obviously everybody talks about community, um, but I I think that's another thing that's kind of turned into a buzzword that's lost its meaning. Yeah. Um, and side note, I challenge you, if you have buzzwords that you find yourself talking about a lot between like content, personal brand, community, all of that, like remove the buzzword from it and it all starts to make a lot more sense. You know, like if you think of community, it's really just a group of people that stand for something, right? So as an artist, there's there's two main directions you can go. You can go uh more on the creative side where you're trying to build and and you should do both. You're trying to build a creative community of people who are inspiring to work with, and they're not really like the fans or like that that side of the community, but it's more of people who you can bounce ideas off of. So whether it's like a paid group setting or whether it's just some kind of collaboration camp, or whether it's just like 10 dudes that all make cool shit and they just like get together once a month at a coffee shop and talk about stuff, like that that side, and then also there's the side of like actually building an online community space for your fans and having something to offer them.

Um, but I think where a lot of people fall flat is they forget that it's about people standing for something. And I think that if you're trying to build a community and you don't know what you want the people in that community to stand for per se, then you probably just don't understand your own artist brand enough yet, which is fine. And I think you just need to handle that first so you can understand what your community wants and needs, and then you can provide that to them. I love the idea of kind of like the separation of the two versions of communities because I think sometimes artists are maybe just focused on one, right? Where like maybe they are really kind of pouring into the idea of like a fan community and trying to, you know, build that up, but they maybe don't have that support and like you know, they don't have those relationships with other creatives who are kind of on the same journey as them, where it can provide a lot, right? It can provide new, fresh ideas, it can provide like a mental health support borderline through these like hard times of being an artist.

Um, and then it can just, you know, who knows what kind of partnerships can come out of that, right? Whether it's again making songs together, you know, you get introduced to a manager, you get introduced to a record label through these types of people, like the the opportunities are endless. Um, so it's cool to kind of hear the idea of both and acknowledging that like again, we know you have a lot on your plate, but these should both probably be in the mix, right? And it doesn't need to take a lot of work at all either. Like I think they're very I don't know, with with the retreats for me, when I when I started them, it was not like a thing where I'm like, I'm building this out to be the craziest thing ever. I'm just like every couple months I'm just gonna see who wants to come. I'm building this thing. If people want to come, then that's cool. And it started as like 10 people and then 20 people and 30 people, and then we even had one as big as like a hundred people with three side by side mansions. Whoa!

So it's like that's dope. It it doesn't, it doesn't take a lot of time and effort to put it together, but it just serves you so well. And even if you have a group of like 10 people that are not necessarily like collaborating, but they're just bouncing ideas off each other, even that is insanely valuable. And I think that it's so easy, especially now to get lost in like all the different information and all the you know music marketers telling you to do this and do that and do this. But like most of the biggest success stories come from an artist who has like a videographer friend and this other friend that like draws or something, and they like randomly came up with this idea and they all held each other accountable and just kept going. Yeah. Like that in itself is so valuable. So when you compound it with also like taking the best pieces of information that you pick up on the internet, then like you've got the roadmap to success. Yeah.

No, that's definitely what we're trying to build with, you know, our Patreon community is facilitating the you know, version of the community that like again is kind of inspiring, where you're hearing from other creatives that are going through the same shit that maybe you either have already gone through and you can lend some expertise to them, or vice versa, right? Like because there's always someone who's either dealt with the exact same thing as you and already kind of solved for it in a way, or like you've done that and you can kind of pay it back or pay it forward to them, you know what I mean? Um so yeah, that that's really cool. Just a few more examples of like ways that artists can be building like the fan community. Have you seen any cool ways that artists are are doing that side of it? Yeah, for sure. Um I I feel like Discords are always pretty solid. Um like Marino, one of the artists that I've I've worked with, he's got a pretty pop in Discord because it's it's very clear like what his demographic is and the Discord makes the most sense for that. Um they do a lot of like art challenges and like lyric video challenges and animation challenges and stuff like that.

Um so that's kind of cool. Um honestly any any community that like has a ritual I think rituals are one of the most underrated parts about communities. Um if you have a thing that you show up to weekly it's a much bigger chance that whatever that is is going to play a bigger role in your life than it if you're only thinking about it like one prompted. Um so like if you have I I I know one of my buddies from the UK, Tom Cooper, he has a Discord channel and I I don't know if it's like a weekly thing or like a biweekly thing, but he'll do like a movie night with his fans where they'll all get on Discord and they'll just like watch a random movie together or they'll like play some Discord games or something like that. But they meet up at the same time every week or every other week or whatever it is. So it kind of creates that habit and has the people in your community like continuously show up and he's not asking anything for it. You know like it's it's free to join in you could be part of the community um and then like the monetization side comes from like merch and and tickets and stuff like that.

Damn movie night bro's a good one. Like y'all motherfuckers be watching movies. If you're a movie guy just do it with your gal. why not the technology is here. It literally is I I think it really just comes down to like understanding your fan base and it's it's very unfortunate how many artists don't take the time to actually like care for or like care to look into who's actually listening to their music. I was I was talking to this artist kind of recently about potentially making them a fan page for their um their music and we're thinking of like different aesthetics to do because we want to do lyric videos and we just want to like rip different aesthetics that make sense and I was like okay well you know you've got I I think he has like 800,000 monthly listeners and like a million followers on Instagram or something like that. And like okay, what kinds of things are your fans into? He's like, I don't know, me. It's like dude, give him a want, want, want. it was like it was crazy to me.

It's like, how do you not know what your own fan base like? So it it really made me think about like how important that is, and and it's it's really just that. Like if if you know that most of your fans are like, I don't know, 20 to the 30, and they like a lot of classic movies like from the from the 80s or something like that, then it's so much easier to set something up like a movie night or something that like feels valuable to them. Because if you're if you're Teddy swims and the majority of your audience is like 40-ish, you're not gonna do a how to train your dragon movie night. Like maybe maybe if it's somewhere they like bring their kids because you know they're all parents or something like that, then that's one thing. You know, it could be like, oh yeah, bring your kids, we're all gonna watch a movie, we'll hang out, there's gonna be some drinks for the adults, like whatever, like that that could be a thing, yeah, right. Um so yeah, it really just comes down to like if you take the time to like, you know, you see, shout out Charlie and Sally in your comment section. You see Charlie in every single post They're like, man, this is so far, this is so far.

And if you don't recognize that out of them, they're probably gonna find another artist to be like that with. And and sometimes, sometimes they'll still like stay and stuff, but like if you are able to like send them a message, get on a call with them. One of the one of the easiest ways you can jump your your fan building and community building is if once a week you post on your Instagram story like hey I'm gonna call three of you today like DM me if you want to just like hang out and and call about something or whatever right you get a bunch of people to slide up you pick three of them to call you screen record the calls and then you post a couple moments of them afterwards on the Instagram stories to show one that you really did it and two what interacting with you is like and then all of a sudden you've got a bunch of people who want to call you and a bunch of people who like feel more connected to you and all it takes is paying attention and caring which is base level so good so good Stafford we've entered a final segment of the podcast oh let's go oh shit oh shit keep the sound effects going while I pull it up oh shit is that to me should I keep going actually stop now so I can say okay if you've found value from this episode and you haven't liked the video and you haven't left a comment you haven't subscribed to the channel yet that's okay because the best segment is yet to come and you're guaranteed to do those things at the end of this is the rapid fire rampage with Stafford let's go it's a three part rampage I will explain them as we go we're just gonna start with some short answer questions. Starting with give us your top three quick rapid fire tips for someone to improve their camera presence.

They look better, you know, on camera. Oh, dang. Okay, sorry, not very rapid. Sure, sure, sure. Um, um, be be like very emotive. One of the things I always tell people when directing them is any movement you make is gonna be like 10 times less on camera. So you have to be like 10 times as exaggerated in whatever you're doing. Um, that helps a lot. Uh if you are recording yourself um more times than not, it's better to use the back camera on your iPhone if you're trying to get like a cool performance reel. Uh, and if you want it to make if you want it to look a little bit closer to like what the human eye actually sees, you can set it to 50 millimeters on your iPhone. And then probably like watch what you actually look like on camera and don't be afraid to do the shot a couple more times if it means giving it the right type of energy. I I think that energy is a very, very important part to making sure that the content converts well.

Yeah, diagnose yourself. We've talked about this recently, even with us. Yeah, because if you have a super energetic song and you're just sitting there like you know, you gotta sell it. You are For sure. if you don't believe in your own shit, nobody else is going to. Love it. That's a good one. Stafford, what is your most controversial music industry opinion? Most controversial music. We're going for the clicks on this one. Oh man. This is I I feel like this take is only controversial because the other side of it became the normal take. And I feel like as an artist, it is okay. This is me giving you permission to prioritize the artistic side over what people tell you is the most marketable thing. I think that there is a balance to trading your music career like a business and doing the business things that you need to do. But don't be afraid to go against the grain if it is for artistic expression and not because you're lazy.

I love the last part. Because some people will be like, oh, this is just artistic when really they didn't give a fuck and they're not willing to take the extra steps. So love it. That's that's that. Yep. What would you say is the most important metric, let's say on Instagram, when evaluating an artist's content strategy? Comments. Comments. Every time. Comments, comments are by far the most important metric. Wow. Always. If Not a share, not a save. I mean, those those things help you algorithmically, but comments are people's real reactions to your thing. And comments are so versatile, I could literally do an hour-long episode just about comments. Let's do it. But the TLDR is that the comments section is literally a gold mine for everything content related. If you don't know what to put on a text hook, look in your own comment section for what people have said and what gets the most likes. If there's not a lot of likes there because you don't have a lot of traction yet, find another artist that's similar to you and look in their comment section about songs that have a similar topic to the one you're talking about.

You can rip that for a text hook. You can reply to the comments with a video and other people will read it. You can screenshot it to give people more context. You can find out what artist people associate you with. It is literally like gold that's just sitting right there, untapped. Damn, I asked that question. Me too, bro. Sometimes you do something, man. Because it's like you, you know, you can see the number of saves, number of shares, number of comments, but then you actually get the comment, like what the comment actually says. It's a whole other thing. You don't think about it. You don't know who they send it to and why. No idea. You just see a number. The shares could be misleading. The comment is A whole extra layer. Sometimes if they send it to a group, it'll count as like 20 or something like that. Really? Sometimes, yeah. I don't know if that's like how it's supposed to work. But also, I agree. Uh answer me this. If you see a comment section and the average comment is like, this is a great vibe, fire emoji. Uh-huh.

Or like, send me this post. Oh, it's oh yeah. That's info. Yeah. Spammers, bots. But if there's a lot of really heartfelt, thoughtful, deep comments, or like real sounding comments, that's the number one way to tell like fake engagement versus real engagement. So, like the comment section is literally the most powerful thing on the entire internet. That's also a way to borderline convince other people. That's like word of mouth happening right there on the internet. Someone might read their comment and be like, I kind of feel like that too. Exactly. I got some secret sauce. Let's go. Any artist can use this. It is the funniest trick that I've ever seen. And I saw I saw a label using it. Fake comments. And I started kind of. kind of a label started doing this, and I caught on so fast, and I started doing it, and it literally makes such a big difference in what the overall narrative of the comment section is gonna be, like whether it's positive or negative or about a certain topic or whatever. You make like three, and this mainly works on Instagram.

I haven't done it a lot on TikTok, but um, you make like three alt accounts, you get a picture of any girl off of Pinterest, and you put in some very realistic bio, like fucking whatever high school, whatever college, Melbourne, Australia, like something like that. And you just leave a couple comments that are like not reaching, but they're just like, oh, this reminds me of this, or it reminds me, you're like, okay, welcome back, whatever artist you're similar to. And so many people will will see that. And you don't follow yourself. You don't you follow like a couple random influencers? Like one of the ones I did that that I have that I run regularly is this one called Julia Wolf's biggest fan. And I comment on everybody but Julia Wolf. And I just use it for everything. And every time I'm doing reels for somebody, I'll comment with that account, and it shapes the direction of the comments. It's crazy.

This is the short form clip, how to hack your comments actually. No, it was literally like Holy shit. Let's put that at the beginning of the episode. This is why we do the rapid fire rampage, right? Are you not entertained? I am. Next question comes from one of our Patreon members. This is Jordan P. He says, How can an independent artist take the first steps toward building their own world on their own without getting in that overanalyzing, overthinking trap? Shout out our Patreon. One time. I didn't even know you were sourcing questions. Good job, Henry. Bring your Patreon value. Good job, Henry. That's super fire. Um, yeah, I'm glad I'm glad we get to touch on world building a little bit. I I would say, as an artist, the simplest way to think about your world is just your general interests, your aesthetic, and your sound kind of all packaged into one thing. And the worst way to approach it is by trying to be smart about it. It's so hard to like quote unquote build a world when you don't even know what exists in that world yet.

Like the world of the office, once again, you you get introduced to the the main characters in like the pilot episode, but there's so many things that they would have never predicted that they can't just showcase in episode one. And even if they did, that's putting all their cards out on the table, and it doesn't leave anything else to be discovered. Um so there's there's two types of world building that you can use as an artist. Sorry, this is also not rapid. This is great. He's cooking. But it this trust, this is this is full trust. So trust. There's two types of world building, and this is this is kind of common knowledge in like movies and books and stuff, because that's where world building comes from. It comes from the idea that you're like world building this landscape and these characters and and this whole world around the story, right? So there's hard world building and there's soft world building. Okay. Hard world building is basically you define every single element of it, right? And that's like the Hobbit.

If you take a book like The Hobbit, you every single element of like why everything works the way it does is clearly defined within the book. You take something like Harry Potter, and it's it's the opposite. That is the epitome of soft world building. It's one of the best soft world building examples ever because there are so many details that are intentionally left out because it's for you to discover and for you to imagine what it might be. And this is the side that I honestly have never seen artists really approach, other than you know, some of the artists that I've worked with. Um, and it it's it's introducing different elements and talking about some of the key points, but like that's kind of what you know about them. And the the author of Harry Potter actually ruined a lot of that because she keeps trying to do all of these follow-up clarifications about the characters. I don't know if you guys have seen that, but like since the books have come come out, she'll like make a tweet or an X post or whatever, talking about like, oh, Ron actually has insomnia or like something like that, right?

But the issue is she's defining too many things now when she's done one of the best jobs ever done at soft world building where you have so many questions that are intentionally left unanswered so that you can kind of envision what it is. So understanding both of those sides kind of gives artists a sense of relief because it's like, okay, I don't have to clearly define every single thing that's going on in my world. It's like Connor Price has his spin the globe. That's part of his world. The globe is part of his world, right? What what do you have? And if you can think of something that and it's not gonna be something like, okay, I'm gonna think about this thing and I'm gonna add it in, and that's gonna be my thing now. Instead, it's like, oh, I just realized I've used this in three of my videos. Like, for example, with Sarah Beth, she had a foot tambourine that we thought was hilarious in one of the videos, and we just rolled with it and we used it in like every single video. And she also had fruit in one of the videos, and this is mid shoot. This is happening.

I'm like, oh, we should just have the fruit in every shot, and you can start every shot by like taking a bite of a piece of fruit or something. Like now, a banana and an orange is part of the Sarah Beth world, even if it's not like Sarah Beth, orange banana, it's like in that realm. Yeah, you know, people might expect that that is something that that comes with that. Like this rapid fire section of the interview is a part of the one more time world. Ooh, you know. So a lot of times it's it's really just being intentional about repetition of things that you like from different parts of what you've done. So that's you're bullish on repeatable formats, right? Yeah, yeah. I think definitely repeatable formats are great. Um, and really just having like some kind of consistencies in your world, like that's that's a thing that so many artists do unintentionally, that are like big artists, or maybe they have like a really good creative team behind it or something. But like with Eminem, you know about like Stan and stuff, and and like with the Eminem Stan thing, that is hard world building. He's defining every aspect of it.

He has a whole song explaining the nuances of Stan and why he is the way that he is. Damn. It's fire. Fucking cooked. Yeah. What do you see as one of the most toxic trends in music culture right now? One of the most toxic trends. Um, I absolutely hate when people are giving music marketing advice and they're approaching it from the uh like the mean standpoint because that gets more clicks. Like it's very easy to be discouraging to somebody, and you get more clicks for it because people think it's a hot take because a lot of times it is, because most music industry marketing tips are hot takes because nobody knows what the fuck they're doing. They just have experience based on what's worked for them. So I I I just really hate when people are negative about something that's supposed to be educational and inspiring, and that's why I format my videos the way that I do, and I love that at the start of the episode, you talked about uh that my content gave you hope because that's literally like what I strive for. Like my main brand pillar is giving hope to artists.

I was literally you know What's so funny? It translated, you know. You know what's so funny? Is is literally like right before this. I was sitting in the parking lot of the the wing spot and I was like debating on my Instagram, adding a line that says hope dealer. Oh. Or like you should. I sell hope or something like that. Because that's that's what it is for me. Like slang and hopium more than anything, yes. Hope not dope. Oh, yeah. No, more than anything. I care that like people feel inspired and that they don't feel like crushed by the weight of information that's going on. Because realistically, you don't have to follow any of this music marketing advice. Yeah, you could completely do your own thing, take a shot. If you follow all these things, it's going to be a lot more likely that you make it. And it's good that studying this is a part of your routine, but more than anything, you have to be proactive, and you just have to put your nose to the grindstone. Oh, dang so fucking good. I sell hope. I still like hopium sling slang and hopium. Slang and hopium.

Last one, short answer. Stafford, what is your favorite curse word? Dang. Is it dang? It's not dang. That was adorable. No, man. Fiddlesticks. I feel like that was good. Thank you. Man, I don't know why this is hard. Never thought about it before. That's why. Yeah. What's what comes to your your heart? I feel like fuck is so basic. Sure, but you know, if it if it's a good thing. Don't overthink it, bro. Yeah. No, let's just by press. We'll just go with that for now. We'll go with it. Part one. That's part one. Moving on to part two. We don't even need the other parts, bro. That it's not gonna be these parts aren't gonna be as good as that part. No. Don't click away. Still. Anyway. Retention is huge on YouTube. Please stick around. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Yeah, like, comment, subscribe. You guys get the gist. This is the this or that. I'm gonna give you two choices. You just need to pick one. Super simple. Starting with scripted content or improvised.

Improvised. Batch film or film as you live. I'm I'm 50-50 on that one. I think you should do both. If you had to gently lean one way. If you hate making content, batch. There it is. Waffles or pancakes. Waffles, for sure. 15-second post or 45-second post. But first, I think anybody that answers pancakes, you should just not post the episode. I'm completely with you. I fucking Not post the whole episode. Whole thing is void. It's like, all right, man, you gotta go. It's just, they just have butter and syrup traps. I love, Why would you know? I love both. You're teetering. You're about to anyway. Sorry, I'm a big big breakfast guy around. here. All of his questions. 15 second post or 45-second post. That's too broad. I know. If it's if it's a performance clip, 15 seconds. Okay. Okay. That's it. Can I elaborate? Nope.

I'll give you 15 seconds. Great. So damn it. If you it's going to be more beneficial for you to find a smaller part of your song. Because a lot of artists try to post too long of a clip. And I see that way more than I see too short of a clip. It is very, very rare that I see an artist that posts a clip that's like, dang, that was way too short. That didn't give anybody anything. There it is. I'm glad we allowed it. No, that was worth it. Yep. Proven trends or original series? Proven trends. Hot take. Nike or Adidas? Nike. I just did a shoot with Nike. I feel like I have to say Nike. You do. And it's and it's the obvious choice. And I'm wearing this tracksuit guy over here is insane. Oh yeah. Socks, slides, pants. Oh, hell no. Fucking just disgusting. Sponsor me.

Free Strike Blade life. Sponsoring the performative series. Yeah, yeah, totally. Showcase skill or showcase personality. Um if you're skilled. You're actually skilled. So he wanted to say it. The clarification here is that if you are like you you gotta understand that you are competing with the entire rest of the world, and there's a lot of talented people in the world. So personality? Yeah. There it is. Local scene or internet? Internet. Book or podcast? Podcast. I was about to kick him out if he got the wrong answer on that one. Clean up your socials or leave the history. Oh. Leave the history. 99% of the time. 99. Fair. Data driven or gut driven?

For content. No further information. There's no further information provided. But this whole episode has been about content. Data. And finally, become a full-time country singer or leave the music industry forever. Me? That's tough. I'll probably leave. Oh no. We lost him, Henry. We lost him. I feel like Patrick Stafford's kind of a Dope artist name. Sounds like you sound like a celebrity already. Fire. New Stafford album comes soon. Comes in. Anyway, the last part is the word association. I'm gonna say one word. I just need you to say the first word that you think of off the top of your head. Doesn't matter what it is, you're not judged on the word, you're only judged on speed. Rampers. Starting with hook. Bait. Camera. Action. Monday.

Tuesday. Algorithm. Content. Spam. Posts. Spicy. Pictures. Burnout. Reality. Reality. TikTok. Instagram. Banger. Fire. Nostalgia. Vintage. Label. Sometimes. Viral. Content. World. Building. Let's go!