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Gifts Artists Should Give Their Fans This Holiday Season

Gifts for Fans

You don’t need to believe in Santa to shower the people who support you with love and music this holiday season. The latest Music Biz can help.

The holiday season is upon us. Even if the snow has yet to fall in your area, there are signs of Christmas and Thanksgiving in every department store in North America. Other holidays are present as well, of course, and the marketing machine promoting the impending arrival of those special days is already in full effect. There may be two months left in 2019 as we post this, but we might as well be preparing for the start of 2020.

You may not believe in Santa Claus. You may not celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving at all, but we can all agree the reason for the holiday season is good. Holidays exist to remind us what matters most in life. They are special days where we set aside the grind of work to focus on the people who love and support us, as well as those we love and support.

Fans love and support you, so why wouldn’t you include them in your holiday plans? You don’t have to spend a bunch of money remind your audience that you appreciate their work, but you do need to lift them up. Here are some ideas:

1. Free Music

There is an old adage about the best course in life often being the most obvious one, and that is very much the case with this suggestion. Your fans support you all year long in hopes that you will both come to their town and continue to release music that touches their lives. Though you are unable to be everywhere at once on Christmas, you can make your music available for anyone who has yet to add it to their personal collection. Whether you choose to make a song, album, or even your entire catalog available as a free download, you should see a rise in engagement as a result. People who have been waiting to buy your album when they see you live won’t be able to resist the free download, and there is a high likelihood they will recommend your friends take advantage of the offer as well.

2. Record and release a holiday cover (maybe give it away as well)

The world has heard countless covers of holiday classics, but the world has yet to listen to your take on great seasonal staples, and that is why you can still use them to give back to fans this Christmas. I know my favorite Christmas covers are those performed by my favorite bands, and I’m willing to bet the same can be said for most music fans. Record a holiday cover, be it in a studio or in your own home, and share it with fans in the days leading up to December 25. You can even take things one step further and ask fans about their favorite holiday songs in advance, that way your cover will have an even higher likelihood of being shared by your followers.

3. Surprise your fans with free stuff (no contest necessary)

Everyone is thinking of others during the holiday season, or at least they should be, so many fans may not have money to buy the limited edition winter merch items you have available in your online store. To show fans you understand their dilemma, consider offering a give away where you send a prize pack including numerous merch items, as well as items not available in your store (handwritten lyrics, drum head, etc.) to one lucky fan. Don’t make it a contest and don’t ask for contact information in exchange for consideration. Simply pick a fan, or four, and send them a present. With any luck, the fan(s) will share their surprise with the world, and you will earn brownie points for being one of the more thoughtful artists in music today.

4. Stream an acoustic performance from your home/studio/van/bus/basement

There are few things music fans love more than seeing their favorite artists playing bare-boned versions of their favorite songs. Since there is no way everyone who follows you could attend a single performance, especially one planned close to Christmas, make the event special by broadcasting your set on one or more of the popular live streaming services that have risen to prominence over the last year. If those services require you to charge consumers, like with StageIt, then you should also consider giving all the money earned to charity. This way, fans feel like they are giving back by tuning in, and you walk away having established yourself as an artist who hasn’t lost sight of the problems that exist outside your immediate surroundings. Win-Win.

5. Holiday scavenger hunt

This idea has become increasingly popular in the age of IG and Snapchat stories. The setup is relatively straightforward: In the hours before an event or while traveling to a new city, musicians leave merchandise/gifts for fans in public spaces. Clues on where the items can be found are then posted to feeds, which fans can then respond to as they begin their hunt. These activities encourage engagement and help bring fans together in the real world. As people converge on the location of whatever you’ve hidden they encounter others who follow your music. This can lead to community building, which in turn helps you.

6. Give the gift of other artists’ music via playlists

Mixtapes are dead. The once popular way to share your favorite music with others has gone the way of the dinosaurs, and in its play we have playlists. Many artists already maintain playlists on services such as Spotify and Apple Music, but the holiday season presents a unique opportunity to further connect with your audience through a well-curated playlist that takes the holidays or end of the year roundups. Select one song from all your favorite albums from the last 12 months. Gather your holiday favorites. Heck, put together a compilation of songs from artists who you wish to tour with after the new year. Create something that is personal to you and fans will feel more connected to your efforts as a result.

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News

Maintaining your sanity during the holiday break

If you are reading this post then there is a fairly good chance you are feeling more than a little bored. Maybe you’re a blogger with no new stories to publish, or perhaps you run an indie label where business has slowed in the days since Christmas. Whatever the case, you still have several days until the industry is back in full swing, if not longer. Some industry businesses do not return to a regular work schedule until the week after New Year’s Day, which for 2018 means January 8.

While we admire and applaud your dedication to the craft we also feel it is our duty to tell you that no one person has to be on top of everything all the time. In fact, sometimes it makes no sense to try and do so. The music business is a demanding place where most professionals, meaning those paid and those working for free alike, put in long hours to help those they believe in getting ahead. The daily grind can be killer on even the most dedicated souls, but for two to three weeks every year, there is a lull that almost everyone has agreed to maintain. It is a safe place where people can exhale and stretch and return calls to the family that they have been putting off since before the leaves began to change. That period is the one we are in right now, and it stretches from the days before Christmas until after the start of the new year.

You can work as much as you want during this time, but unless someone is telling you to complete a certain task (or tasks) we encourage you to disconnect. Yes, the company that exists entirely online and relies on clicks to keep the doors open is encouraging you to disconnect from the very thing that keeps its lights on. Some may say such comments are an exercise in self-destruction, but we tend to disagree. We see how much time people put into their work, both on the label side and on that odd the media, which means we also appreciate how much (most) people need a break. They deserve one, in fact.

Those who find the most success in life often cite their breaks or vacations as one of the reasons they perform so well. These people subscribe to the law of diminishing returns, which states that there is a point at which the level of profits or benefits gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested. In simpler terms, just because you work nonstop does not mean your success is also unending. You may succeed for a while, but at some point, you will no longer be able to do whatever it is you do as well as you did when you first started. The reason for this is fairly simple: You are a not a machine. You are not programmed to do one task over and over until you break down and/or are replaced by a superior machine. You are a human in need of food, exercise, and – above all else – rest.

So as you stare at this post and continue clicking over to the tabs containing your various social media feeds we encourage you to consider taking a step back, even if just for one day. Turn off your notifications, leave your inbox unread, and instead spend time doing something solely because it sounds good to you. It can be anything, from time with family and friends, to reading a book, binging a new series on Netflix, or finally learning how to make that pineapple upside down cake you’ve been talking about for months. Choose anything that interests you, just as long as you cannot turn it into work. You want to get music business as far from your mind as possible. Not music, mind you, but the music business. Don’t write content. Don’t draft content. Don’t even think of things as potentially becoming content. Just focus on being present in your individual life and reconnect with the person you are away from the internet. After all, that person – the one you are when existing outside the grind of the industry – is the one who started you on this journey in this business. If you lose that part of you there is no getting it back. As Against Me once sang, “Don’t lose touch.”

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News

A tip for surviving the industry holiday slowdown

The holiday season is upon us, and in no time at all businesses across the industry will go dark so employees can celebrate this time of year with their loved ones. It’s a beautiful thing, especially in an industry notorious for long hours, but for a few professionals it’s also maddening. Allow me to explain…

While many music professionals are able to setup out of office replies for the holidays there are still bloggers, podcasters, and a wide variety of media people in between with audiences who demand a constant feed of fresh content. When the industry goes dark for the holiday these poor souls (including yours truly) find themselves clicking through every pitch they receive in hopes of discovering something worth writing about. More often than not they settle on additional editorial content, generally in the form of telling you the best stuff you might have missed, and they pray it’s enough to keep clicks rolling in while the snow falls.

There is a saying in journalism that you should seek to tell stories you would want to read. If you should find yourself writing something you have no interest in reading it is highly likely those who find that article will feel the same. As much as fresh stories in a feed can be good for business is it really worth whatever investment of time they require if next to no one cares to read them?

People care less about entertainment news around the holidays than they do practically any other time of year. Don’t take this personally though, as it is true for virtually every publication. Entertainment and entertainment news is the distraction we fill our days with when doing things we would otherwise avoid if we could, like work. Holidays are communal escapes, offerings friends and family the chance to do things they want to do, therefore lowering the need for distractions.

To put it another way, the demand does not exist because the need for something that brings joy is met through other (arguably far more important) means.

This year, I want to challenge all music writers out there to try something different. Rather than beat your head against your keyboard in between clicking refresh on your RSS feeds just try and take a little time to experience what the rest of the world does this time of year. Schedule tweets and make whatever necessary posts you feel you must make to maintain appearances, but as soon as that is done shutdown your computer and experience this thing call life. Talk to the people who support you and tell them of your vision for the new year. Ask people what they have been up to with their time, and make it a point to really listen to their words. Be present, and remember you will never have two holiday seasons that work the same way. The people around you now may not be there next year, so don’t take a minute for granted.

This won’t be easy, but I have good news: The music industry will still be here when you get back. I know you will feel like you are slipping behind, but there is rarely a single headline in the last ten to fourteen days of the new year that drastically impacts the music landscape. You know this as well as I do, so quit lying to yourself and accept that it is okay to spend a little time offline. Who knows? It might even do you good to unplug.

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News

5 Ways to give back to your fans this holiday season

The holiday season is upon us. We can ignore that fact as much as we like, but every time you turn on the television or visit a website with advertising there is a glaring reminder that the time for giving has returned. 

You don’t have to enjoy or even celebrate Christmas to appreciate its importance in culture. As much as we have become a global community connected through devices Christmas is still viewed as a time for people to come together in a shared physical space. Christmas, as well as Thanksgiving and all other holidays in between, convinces people to put forth the effort in caring for others that they should be showing all year round. 

Musicians find themselves in a unique position during the holiday season. There are many opportunities to profit from this time of year, be it at holiday shows or through gift-related merchandise sales, but those who focus solely on how they can get ahead during this time of year are missing the reason for the season (and fans will notice). Those who stand to benefit the most during the holidays are those who give as much, if not more, than they get. Here are 5 ways to show your fans how much you appreciate their support in the coming weeks:

1. Free Music

There is an old adage about the easiest course in life often being the most obvious one, and that is very much the case with this suggestion. Your fans support you all year long in hopes that you will both come to their town and continue to release music that touches their lives. Though you are unable to be everywhere at once on Christmas, you can make your music available for anyone who has yet to add it to their personal collection. Whether you choose to make a song, album, or even your entire catalog available as a free download, you should see a rise in engagement as a result. People who have been waiting to buy your album when they see you live won’t be able to resist the free download, and there is a high likelihood they will recommend your friends take advantage of the offer as well.

2. Record and release a holiday cover (maybe give it away as well)

The world has heard countless covers of holiday classics, but the world has yet to hear your take on famous seasonal staples, and that is why you can still use them to give back to fans this Christmas. I know my favorite Christmas covers are those performed by my favorite bands, and I’m willing to bet the same can be said for most music fans. Record a holiday cover, be it in a studio or in your own home, and share it with fans in the days leading up to December 25. You can even take things one step further and ask fans about their favorite holiday songs in advance, that way your cover will have an even higher likelihood of being shared by your followers.

3. Surprise your fans with free stuff (no contest necessary)

Everyone is thinking of others during the holiday season, or at least they should be, so many fans may not have money to buy the limited edition winter merch items you have available in your online store. To show fans you understand their dilemma, consider offering a give away where you send a prize pack including numerous merch items, as well as items not available in your store (handwritten lyrics, drum head, etc) to one lucky fan. Don’t make it a contest and don’t ask for contact information in exchange for consideration. Simply pick a fan, or four, and send them a present. With any luck, the fan(s) will share their surprise with the world, and you will earn brownie points for being one of the more thoughtful artists in music today.

4. Stream an acoustic performance from your home/studio/van/bus/basement

There are few things music fans love more than seeing their favorite artists playing bare-boned versions of their favorite songs. Since there is no way everyone who follows you could attend a single performance, especially one planned close to Christmas, make the event special by broadcasting your set on one or more of the popular live streaming services that have risen to prominence over the last year. If those services require you to charge consumers, like with StageIt, then you should also consider giving all the money earned to charity. This way, fans feel like they are giving back by tuning in, and you walk away having established yourself as an artists who hasn’t lost sight of the problems that exist outside your immediate surroundings. Win-Win.

5. Holiday scavenger hunt

This idea has become increasingly popular in the age of IG and Snapchat stories. The setup is fairly straightforward: In the hours before an event or while traveling to a new city musicians leave merchandise/gifts for fans in public spaces. Clues on where the items can be found are then posted to feeds, which fans can then respond to as they begin their hunt. These activities encourage engagement and help bring fans together in the real world. As people converge on the location of whatever you’ve hidden they encounter others who follow your music. This can lead to community building, which in turn helps you.

Categories
News

Making the most of working on a holiday

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day in the United States. Unlike Christmas, when the vast majority of citizens are given the day off work in order to be with family and friends, this day is a bit trickier. Schools are closed. The postal service and all other government offices are closed. Banks are closed, too.

Everything else, for the most part, is business as usual.

Unless your job falls into one of those categories mentioned at the very top of this post you are probably stuck at work right now just like us. Your social feeds will be filled with contacts who managed to get away for the day, but you, like us, have not. You need to work.

The problem with working on holidays like today is that you never really know who else is going to be working. The likelihood of your emails being read or your calls being taken today is lower than it will be on any other Monday in 2017, but still – you have things you need to accomplish.

With all this in mind, here are a few suggestions we have on how to make the most of your day at the office (while everyone else is busy having fun):

Review your progress on current goals

Most Mondays are so busy you barely have time to get situated before you’re pulled into a day of conversation, phone calls, and email, but today is different. Today is moving at a much slower pace, which means you should be able to step back and assess precisely what it is you are doing with your life. Are you still on track to achieve your professional goals? How about personal ones?

Get caught up

This can pertain any task big or small. If there is something you have been putting off because it’s too hard or boring or some combination of the two then today is the day you make a change. Do that thing you don’t want to do and get it out of the way.

Plan ahead

While things are quiet, pull out your personal calendar and begin outlining the next several weeks/months of your life. What do you need to do, and when will you make time to do it? Should you be doing more? Less? Figure it out.

Educate yourself

The world is changing much faster than we realize. Your field of expertise is likely undergoing a major evolution right now and you need to stay atop the latest trends, as well as any new developments. Consume editorials. Look up reports on consumer behavior. Check news feeds. Get caught up on your business before your business passes you by.

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