What You Can Expect To Learn In This Lesson

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From the course by Berklee College of Music

Building Your Career in Music: Developing A Brand and Funding Your Music

109 ratings

Berklee College of Music

Building Your Career in Music: Developing A Brand and Funding Your Music

109 ratings

Course 2 of 4 in the Specialization Music Business

This course shares practical tips and strategies to help you take your first step into launching your career as a musical artist. We’ll cover everything from developing your unique identity as an artist and how to lead a band all the way to planning and recording your first independent record with the help of crowdfunding. The course curriculum is modeled from the real-world experience of Leah Waldo (also known as the emerging country artist, Elisa Smith) and features interviews with industry executives, artists, producers, and engineers — all designed to help you navigate the music industry.

From the lesson

Your Brand

Now that you have a strong foundation (your IVI), we'll discuss building your brand and your fanbase. We'll go over tips for building a presence on social media and how to connect to your fans and potential business partners on a personal level by learning how to network effectively. Finally, we'll discuss the trend of artist-brand partnerships and why a brand partnership might be a smart move for independent artists.

What You Can Expect To Learn In This Lesson2:05

Meet the Instructors

Leah Waldo
Course Author
Berklee Online

[MUSIC]

Welcome to lesson two.

So as we work through this week,

I would like you to have your IVI handy from last week.

Your identity, your vision, and your intention.

This week we're going to be talking about building your brand and

those three things are going to be key to helping you build your brand.

One of my favorite documentaries of all time is No Direction Home with Bob Dylan.

And about halfway through the documentary, they're interviewing an artist,

and they're talking about kind of the 60s and

the scene that was happening in Greenwich Village.

And he asked this question that I find so fascinating, and

I'm going to paraphrase it, but essentially, he says,

whenever I think about a new artist kind of of entering in the scene,

I always ask myself, well, have they got anything to say?

And when I think about building a brand that's kind of my framework for

thinking about it, what have you got to say, who are you?

That's what your brand is going to show.

Who are you and what have you got to say?

So this week, we're going to talk about developing email lists,

working with your social media, starting to identify who your niche market is.

We're also going to talk about skills and strategies for networking effectively.

And last but not least, we're also going to think about kind of how you

proactively set yourself up to be able to partner with other brands in the future

to make your brand all the stronger.

So I'd like to preface this lesson by saying that the things I'm going to

be sharing are relatively basic and I"m not going to go super in depth.

So if you want kind of a deeper understanding of marketing, social media,

email lists, websites, all that kind of stuff, I would recommend going to

the Berklee Online website and checking out any of the marketing courses and

music business courses that they have there.

By the end of this lesson, it's my hope that you'll be able to use your IVI when

developing your brand and image.

That you'll be able to begin to build your fanbase in your email list,

that you'll build and leverage your network of industry professionals, discuss

the potential benefits of partnering with other brands, and that you'll also be able

to identify brands that inspire you and that you feel an infinity for.

So let's dig in.

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