Don’t wait to be featured – Feature yourself!

The following post comes to us from music marketing and promotion wizard Seth Werkheiser. He’s our hero, and he should probably be yours as well. Enjoy!

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A wise man once said:

Guitarists+bassists: Forget gear magazines.  Create your own content. Playthrough vids. Gear diagrams. Pedal layouts. Twitter Q&a’s. #future

It’s true. Don’t sit around waiting for a media outlet to feature you – feature yourself! Flip through some magazines and find out what your favorite bands are doing. Watch the video interviews that the music sites are doing and do your own!

Band members are doing cooking shows. They’re talking about their pedals. They’re doing guided tours of their vans. You can do the same thing! And it’s not just for a media outlet and trying to win new fans – it’s a special treat for the people who already love what you do.

Connecting with fans is crucial, and chances are you’re not playing a show every single night, right? That doesn’t mean fill up every single day and night with social media updates, either. Just like putting your best foot foward at shows, you want to do the same with all your updates. That means; restraint.

Your music is competting with every other artist out there who is doing the exact same thing on social media. That means a constant barrage of videos and photos and tour dates and links to pre-orders. Well, you can pull it back a little. While everyone is trucking with the pedal to the metal, don’t be afraid to post less often – just make it count.

Partner with a photographer and build up a collection of photos from your live shows, or from the studio. Release a few as part of a tour diary on Tumblr. Or send out secret “from the studio” photos to your email list.

Same with video – not everyone has time to watch 15 videos a day, and even then people want to watch good videos. In a time when Vine videos are polished (and funny), your shaky, horrible lighting and crappy sounding video ain’t cutting it, so make good videos, too. Search YouTube on how to make good videos – it’s a skill that won’t go to waste.

Just as bands don’t put out an album every quarter, there’s no need to get caught up in the “be on social media all the time” schedule, either. Yes, everyone else is doing it, but you’re not everyone else.


Seth Werkheiser is the quiz master of metal trivia at Skulltoaster. He’s also the founder of some music sites you may have heard of, including Noise Creep (2009) + Buzzgrinder (2001). He’s anti-Facebook, anti-clickbait, and anti-growth hacking. You should most definitely follow him on Twitter. Yes, right now.

James Shotwell