If you’re reading this, you will probably have submitted a track to a recent edition of The Real Rob Taylor podcast. Thank you once again for contributing to the show – I am genuinely grateful to everyone who takes part, because without your music there wouldn’t be a show at all.
The primary goal of the podcast is to help unsigned bands and independent musicians like you to grow your fan base, sell more stuff and, ultimately, make more money. The concept is simply that by putting together a great playlist of hot new music, each episode of the podcast is greater than the sum of its parts.
But being played in a podcast isn’t much use if nobody hears it. So here’s how you can easily help yourself and everyone else involved to achieve our goals.
What To Do
Working together, everyone wins, and the biggest wins come when everyone chips in. So for the best results, follow these five simple steps:
- Go to the episode of the podcast that your track is played in.
- Copy the link from the address bar in your browser. It will look something like this:
https://realrobtaylor.com/YYYY/MM/episode-X/ - Create a post, encouraging your followers to click and listen to the show, eg. Check out our track in the latest edition of the Real Rob Taylor podcast on realrobtaylor.com (If you need a pic, you can always use this one.)
- Paste the link into your chosen social media feed. (For Instagram, where links aren’t clickable, just use realrobtaylor.com – more on that below.)
- Repeat across all your social media channels.
A couple of things not to do.
Please don’t only Like or comment. While liking and commenting is always welcome, and it’s great to know you’re happy that I played your track, only liking or commenting doesn’t reach any new fans. So if nobody shares, nobody reaches any new fans, which defeats the object of the show.
Instead, always share the post on your feeds, or create your own.
Please don’t paste the show link into an image. Instagram posts aren’t clickable, but nobody will ever manually copy out the link to the show page with all the slashes and dashes in the right place.
Instead, if you need to post a link somewhere that it can’t be clicked, just use realrobtaylor.com – it’s easy to remember, easy to type and the first thing on the homepage is always the latest show, so your fans will have no trouble finding it.
If you’ve already done all this, thank you! But remember that because of the way social media works, most of your followers will miss your posts the first time around. So don’t be afraid to post it more than once.
Why You Should Share
Sharing isn’t obligatory, but it is strongly recommended. Here’s why:
Suppose that your episode of the Real Rob Taylor podcast has tracks from 12 different artists, including you.
And imagine that you and every other band in the show each have 100 Facebook followers. (Almost everyone has more, but let’s keep it simple for this example.)
If each of the 12 artists in a show posts the link on their feed, everyone in your episode gets exposure to 1,100 new followers. To put it another way, that’s an 1,100% increase in reach than you would otherwise have by promoting your track on your own.
And in the real world, because everyone involved has multiple social media channels, almost all of which have more than 100 followers, you’re actually looking at way more exposure than just 1200 new music lovers.
Now, I know that reach and exposure doesn’t pay the bills. But before anyone can buy your stuff, they first have to know you exist. So this is designed to be the highest-impact, lowest-cost and lowest-risk marketing channel that any band could ever wish for. It won’t cost you a penny, nor are you risking anything by doing it. In fact, showing your existing fans that you’ve been playlisted alongside eleven other great bands provides them with social proof that you deserve their attention.
Sure, you might have more social media followers than some of the other artists in your episode. (And if you’re one of the bigger, more established bands in your show, congratulations.) But it’s unlikely you’ll have more followers than the eleven other bands in the show combined. And even if you do, remember that you opened shows for bigger bands once. Don’t pull up the drawbridge behind you.
What Happens If You Don’t Share?
Literally nothing. Sharing is entirely optional and I’m not going to penalise anyone for not playing their part.
But the other side of the coin is that if nobody shares, then nothing will happen: The show will reach only the number of people that I can get it to, leaving you, me and every other band in the show to carry on clambering up the same greasy pole, individually trying to chase the same new listeners as everyone else.
It’s not a zero-sum game: For you to win, nobody else has to lose. In fact it’s a team effort, because when everyone plays their part, everyone benefits.
From years of professional experience in music and media, I’ve learned that the most successful bands are the ones that treat everyone respectfully and remember the people who supported them when they were starting out. So if you show some goodwill now, you can expect to receive some in return further down the line.
I hope you’ll agree with everything I’ve posted here and that I’ve managed to explain everything clearly. But if you have any questions at all, contact me directly and I’ll be glad to help.
Stay in touch and keep up the great work. Thank you once again for taking part.
Rob