About 2 years ago, I got to meet the AMAZINGLY talented Damien Horne through my family's continued work with Samaritan's feet. Damien is a singer who literally went from being homeless on the street with his guitar and a dream, to making a living off of his music. Damien works under Big Kenny and Rich in Nashville and his manager, Bill Moore, gave me a little tid bit about "the industry":
Basically he said: Someone [manager, record company,etc.] can think you are great...but they won't take you on if they don't know that others also think you are great. Part of one's want to work with you as an artist is knowing that others appreciate your art. With this being said, numbers matter. According to him... 500 fans- is easy. That is your friends, your family, people who know people who know you.... everyone from your uncle peter and that boy you kissed in truth or dare in 7th grade...thats easy.. Your first 5,000- that's your hardest. these are the people who do not know you, do not know people who know you, and like you even though you are not famous yet. ( i love these people) Once you get those people... "people of the business" can take you more seriously, seeing as how your draw is more credible. They can put your album in stores and make that 5,000 -50,000.This can be quite awkward especially if you are in the 12-25 year old range, as I am, because you are constantly judged, etc. and having to convert your friends into fans is, well....not a comfortable process.
For me, I also had friends suggest the different internet sites used for networking- so I went for it...where all of my peers could see... Facebook First. I started with a group page, as opposed to a fan page. For one, I don't see the people in it as fans, but rather, supporters, people on "my team"...and i like it that way. (...I really do love and appreciate every single person in this group, and they are so much more than numbers)The other benefits to a group, is that you can message your members, which for me was a great way of keeping people updated very rarely, but on big things going on in my music career, without them having to come back and check all of the time... So this is my page:
You can click here to re-direct yourself to the page, and Join if you haven't!lastly through a group, i am able to invite my members to different " events" . This is great for spreading the word for local shows and collaborations! Here is an example of an invite i was able to do for a show I did with my great friends Justin Kredible, Terrence Cunningham and The MakePeace Brothers this past summer at BloomBars
Next, was You-Tube. You-Tube is incredible, and i hardly remember life without it. following singers like Julia Nunes and Kina Grannis on You-Tube is a huge reason why i learned guitar, pursued song writing, and got active in internet networking. This is my page now:
I love my you-tube subscribers, I do my best to thank every single one of them. I am up to 200 and something... which may not seem like a lot but the cool thing is very few people I know have you-tube so these are primarily strangers who have somehow found me through the ever bizarre internet, many of them are international - this is something I appreciate SO much.the list goes on...
Twitter... Myspace.... more to post later on the process of spreading all of this!
