iSing Issue 1 | Page 49

The Biz BUSiNESS & MARKETiNG brief for this piece of  writing; to explain the main differences between how singers should market  themselves in the US and the UK.! ! I was  thinking of all of the stories I could retell; of subtle business and cultural difference, of places you s h o u l d g o ,  o f t h i n g s you  should do, and people you should talk to in  your  area.    But then it became apparent to me that this localised knowledge is far less relevant to  today’s musician than the musicians of the  past, for thanks to the internet, the  land and sea borders we once held so important for the purposes Shirley Bassey of  differentiation do not exist in the way that they used to. Consumers certainly  didn’t want to leave the  comfort of their own homes in order to discover new music now that they didn’t have to, so neither did the A&R reps. These new technologies, shifts in behaviour  and changes in values  created a whole new way of marketing one’s music; one where location d i d n ’ t  r e a l l y m a t t e r a t a l l . W h e t h e r Smalltown,  Alabama or New York, New York,  everybody had the same chance. Hoorah, I hear you cry.  But is this really a benefit in the grand scheme of things?With the original brief now left to languish in the doldrums (along with my Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey collections, may I add), I turn my  thoughts to today, and to tomorrow.  If marketing is less about location than it was before, what  does  really matter when it comes to getting you and your voice  noticed?    How do you rise above not only  the noise of a city, but  the entire creative output of the internet?    That can’t be an easy task.! Over the forthcoming issues of iSing, together we’ll discover  exactly what is and isn’t working for content creators all over the world.  Notice the terminology c h a n g e , t h e r e ?    F o r whether  you are a singer or a  story-teller, the important thing is that you create.  We’ll consider quality vs quantity a s w e l l a s  ‘ t h e g r o w t h s t a g e ’ .    W i t h b l o g g e r s such  as charlieissocoollike and jacksgap having learnt by doing it for real, with  that growth period available (even now) for people to scrutinise, we’ll ask  ourselves whether our own industry would be so  forgiving when it comes to  accepting that a product does n o t  arrive, but grows. We’ll also question whether singers around  the globe should be looking to those bloggers for inspiration.    He might not have been made famous by a corporate entity, but Charlie IMAGE IMAGE IMAGE Swipe to read more! iSing | issue 1 isingmag.com »