Toby Bloomberg, of Diva Marketing is a social media and branding expert. In this interview Toby is going to teach you how to discover your uniqueness as a singer and then market that unique quality to make you famous!
Here we go…
Toby runs a blog called “Diva Marketing” which besides being completely unique in name and flavor delivers extremely valuable marketing tips and insights. She started blogging before blogging was cool and noticed that the amount of positive feedback that she started getting from comments that were left on her blogs.
You see blog comments create social proof. If I am a manager looking to work with an artist and I go to there website and notice that with every blog post they have 4 or 5 comments then that is going to tell me that this person has a following. This is what Toby of Diva Marketing found out.
Toby launched the Diva Marketing blog as an experiment. She had been writing for a column before called Diva Marketing and when that well dried up so to speak she then decided to launch into this blog thing that is now so wildly popular.
What Toby found out is that through a blog you can establish the “Corner Grocery Store Relationships”. The type of relationship that when you walk in, they know your name, your mother’s name and what your order is. Starbucks does a great job at this…but your blog can do an even better job at developing an intimate relationship with more people thanks to technology. This is a critical step in building a fan base.
Through “Diva Marketing” Toby has done a great job at finding a unique brand and approach to marketing. Inspired by this I posed this question:
How to Find Your Uniqueness?
“So much of the time aspiring singers will see a star whom they admire and will try to emulate their person. How can singers find their uniqueness as an entertainer?”
Toby first complimented me on my question (I was flattered LOL) then she responded:
“I was a theatre major and went to Emerson College in Boston (something that I did not know). I found out that initially, it’s not uncommon for younger entertainers to emulate major artists in their genre. It takes time to develop your voice, image and style. You need time to find out what works for you and what doesn’t. But, while you are progressing towards your ultimate goal you will find that little pieces of different artists whom you admired begin to come together to find you and create your brand.
It takes courage and knowledge of self to come out of self to find self. Does that make sense?”
Oddly enough I completely understood what she was saying. It was like she was telling my personal journey. I betrayed my excitement by answering nonchalantly, “Sure.”
“Furthermore,” she continued, “ The brand artists project on stage has to be authentically them but that might at the same time that might not be who they are off stage. It takes life experience to figure this out so be patient.”
How do you discover who your audience is?
But, we all know that the singing business is not a one-dimensional. So discovering your brand is one facet of becoming famous but once your brand is discovered how do you know where to market? How do you discover who your market truly is?
The simple truth is that you have to find out who resonates with your message and image. The music business is a little different from business in that you are creating the brand first and then the audience finds you and your brand instead of creating a brand for a specific demographic of people (though this has been done with the boy band craze back in the day).
Where is your audience hiding?
So then my question was naturally, “Once a singer’s demographic is found, how do you find out where the demographic is hiding?”
Toby responded, “Listen to online conversation. Sign up for Twitter Alerts and Google Alerts and track the keywords that your demographic talks about. Those keywords could be other bands in your genre, your band name or just general subjects that your demographic also likes. Then reach out and connect with these people, capture their email address and then connect with them on a consistent basis.”
In conclusion Bloomberg gave this advice, “Another great tool to find out what your demographic wants is to leverage survey tools for Twitter and FaceBook. By taking polls to discover what your fans want you can then create a product that your demographic will love ensuring their support, your sales and ultimately…your fame.*
Toby has written the first ever book on the business of Twitter. This isn’t a book on how to use Twitter with tips and strategies but more on the business backend of Twitter. This is a great resource for you to read and make reference to…and the best part is that she is given this away for free to you!
Click, “Social Media Marketing GPS” to get your copy.
Related posts:
Steven – It was great fun talking to you about how singers and performing artists can use social media to create community with their audiences.
One big take away: your fans what to get to know you as person behind the music. Think of ways you give them a “back stage pass.” It might be a series of special tweets about how you feel before you step on stage. It could be a blog post describing the back-story of how you determine your set. Or maybe a status update of what made your concert extra special that night.
Break a leg!
Toby
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the eBook! Thank you Toby
I like the backstage pass mentality. I think that is what our fans truly want. A sneak peak inside of what the celebrity life is like. Be sure to include that in your Tweets
@rockstar .. thanks for your virtual ‘applause’ much appreciated
@sam .. you’re right. the backstage pass was an idea that i suggested for the alliance theatre in atlanta. they ran with it — blogged the rehearsal process and even the set design. very cool. when you’re planning your social media strategy remember the ‘retro blog.’