Social Media Lessons from a Musician

Today’s guest post is from my friend, Deni Gauthier. I love how Deni uses Social Media as a way of engaging with his fans online, above and beyond traditional platforms like Facebook or Twitter. I love how he lets us drop in on rehearsals or writing sessions, both to watch him and hear his music, and to get to know him better. He even does a great job with posting videos on his YouTube channel. In fact, Deni will be doing a live, online concert tomorrow, December 6, and you can join in and even request songs.Also Deni previously posted here and gave us his thoughts on Spotify, and I featured Deni earlier this year when he recorded a song to raise money to help those displaced by the earthquake in Japan.  Here’s what Deni has to say about how he uses the Internet as a musician, and make sure you check out his latest Christmas video at the end of the post!

I’m Deni Gauthier, a full time musician, independent artist and owner of Second Records, the anti Label. That means I make my living by playing and selling my music to people full time. You may not have heard of me, and that’s OK, I’m at the stage in my career where just enough people can identify with my music and what I’m about to allow me to comfortably do what I do to allow me to plug on and meet more people.

My real job is all social networking and developing connections. And that’s a good thing because that’s what I’m all about anyway. I want to make people feel good, think more, and choose to be a positive force in this world, because after all, it’s a choice we can make daily.

When I started into the full time music business it was much different. Much. I was on tour constantly sometimes playing shows as many as four or five nights a week, playing everywhere in Southern Ontario and as far beyond as I could get. We had e-mail addresses, but there was no Facebook, or YouTube. In fact, cell phones were not that common. I remember when a friend of mine told me there was a website for bands that you could stream music on called MySpace. I looked at it and saw that he had 300 “friends” on there, and thought it looked cool! But when I couldn’t figure out how to upload a picture off my old school camera that still had film I forgot about it.

I toured and played and sold thousands and thousands of CD’s in my duo, and only took breaks from my touring to record another album I eventually burnt out a bit and slowed down. I only played the gigs that came to me (which was just enough) but I had turned off the fire.

This was music before social media. About a year ago I decided to re-brand and fire out some solo albums and see what could happen.

Something amazing happened.

I discovered how effective I could be by using social media to interact with people. I learned that people want to be connected and feel appreciated. Once upon a time when someone bought your CD you had just sold a CD; now you get an email address, and they can link in to your Twitter, Facebook and whatever other avenues you choose to utilize. You have a very real chance to make a second connection, and if you are smart keep the conversation open with them.

Websites used to be there to relay information to people so they could go to a show, or buy an album. I use my website now to move people to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube so I can communicate. For me it’s all about keeping the conversation open. It’s also about being as real, authentic and engaging as possible.

Let me tell you something interesting I do that not many have utilized yet. I’m building a worldwide fan base, and not everyone can come to a show, but everyone can buy an album, so I use Ustream regularly to broadcast my band practices to the world to create a buzz about the music. I’m using time that I have to consume anyway in a double duty fashion: to create more fans and connections. Occasionally I will broadcast on a whim while I work in the studio or write songs. That has been one of the best ways I’ve found to use the Internet to reach out to people on a real, genuine level. It turns in to real people that like ME, and are willing to support me by purchasing an album.

I still play lots of live shows, but not as many as before, and in this amazing time of super convenient ways to BUY music, I’m selling more albums than ever. I attribute that directly to the connections I’ve made using social media. You see… in the end, people will only buy something from you if they buy in to you. They have choices, lots of them. You have to make it easy for them to justify spending their hard earned money on YOU.

The bottom line for me as a musician is to create excellent content, fantastic product (music and live shows) and make deep connections with real people all around the world. Think you can do the same on your end of the computer?

Don’t forget Deni’s live online Christmas show tomorrow, you won’t regret it. And, as promised, here is Deni’s Christmas video, a cover of Sting’s “Gabriel’s Message”. And check out some of his other videos on YouTube.

Related articles

• Spotify: An Indie Musician’s Perspective (inklingmedia.net)
• The Truth About Social Media: Five Facts for Your Business (marijeanjaggers.com)
• Video and YouTube: Heck Yeah, it’s Important (inklingmedia.net)
• Putting Klout Perks and Online Influence to the Test (inklingmedia.net)
• Owned vs. Earned Media: Measuring the ROI (spinsucks.com)

Tagged as: Deni Gauthier, facebook, guest post, Spotify, Twitter, UStream, YouTube