Social proof is one of the most fundamental forms of marketing around - but it's also one of the most effective, genuine, and overlooked.
I had a band reach out to me asked me “what can we do aside from the usual just posting it on Facebook and hoping that something happens?
This was an interesting question, because obviously there is a million answers and I sure don’t want to give the idea that I know which ones will magically work vs not work - but it did get me thinking: How do people find there music.
How can we flip that question on it’s head from ‘how do I get my music in front of people’ to ‘how do I discover new music?’ - and then try to learn from that analysis.
If you wanted to be really clever, you’d do a survey and ask this question of a lot of people, but for the purpose of this episode I’m going to just get anecdotal and look at how I personally discover music - because I think it’s probably pretty similar to how a lot of people find music.
And when I thought about it - it was pretty simple: there are really only two ways that I find music!
Number #1 - It comes on by chance: Meaning on the radio, Spotify’s algorithm, it’s in a movie soundtrack. In some cases this isn’y really by chance, since their’s probably a lot of money behind a song that’s hitting radio for example, but the point being that I wasn’t looking for the song, it just happened to show up and catch my attention - which is key here. I wasn’t looking for it. It was just good and when I heard it I decided I wanted to know what it was so I could hear it again, or look for more songs from that artist to see if I could find more of it.
That’s very different than a Facebook ad showing up saying to check out a song. My expecations and mindset would be in a totally different place.
The main take away from this method of music discovery is that recurring hard truth: your music has to be truly exceptional. If it’s not great then I won’t look to see what it is when I hear it, and despite it making it’s way into my attention, it won’t gain a new fan.
The 2nd way I find music, and this ones more controllable and thus maybe more valuable to the Your Band Sucks (At Business) audience, is through what we call a referral network - for most people this is just a fancy way of saying that they discover their music from friends and family.
But this is extremely important - because it’s an advertising method that literally every major brand in the world is using these days. We call it ‘Social Proof’, and it’s been around for ages.
Think about what you do when you want to find a good breakfast spot; you google it and start checking out the reviews. Those reviews ARE social proof. “if other people like it, so will I’.
Or think about when you towns sports team has a good year, suddenly everyone else starts jumping on the teams bandwagon: Suddenly a tribe effect is taking place. “People from here support this team, because we are winners.”
This is something that can happen by chance, but make no mistake, it’s encouraged by marketing teams worldwide.
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Malcom started a DIY Recording Youtube Channel and you should go subscribe and check out the videos! You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/@malcomowenflood
And Marcus is killing it on the road with multiple bands! Keep up to date with him via his website, here: https://www.marcusmanhas.com
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