Personal Branding | Solveig Whittle

Visual Branding Basics For Indie Musicians

August 13, 2013 1 Comment

I am in the process of creating a new visual brand for my music. I am not including links just yet, because it’s not quite done. Read on as to why.

This new “band brand” is for my duo, Solveig & Stevie, and it’s separate from my blogging and marketing online brand (Solveig Whittle). It hasn’t been a particularly fast or easy process. I’m certain much of this is due to my personal combination of obsessive perfectionism and lack of graphic arts skills. However, I suspect, fellow musicians, that I am not alone.

Perhaps you can relate: I’ve tried seven different WordPress themes for my band website. I have agonized over which band pictures to use. I created a band logo myself, after trying crowd sourcing one with two different websites. I started with one album cover, and then changed it.

Because this has been a difficult process for me, I thought perhaps it would be useful to share some of what I learned during this process and some of the online resources I used.

Conferences, Marketing, Social Media

Basics of Musician Vlogging and Seattle’s First VloggerFair

June 11, 2013 2 Comments

Vlogging is an increasingly popular communication medium, and I think it’s a largely underutilized way for indie musicians to communicate with fans, perform live, do interviews, build their YouTube subscribers, and share information about themselves and their lives. Musicians might even find it an unexpected source of additional income.

What is vlogging, you may ask? Vlogging is a contraction of the phrase “video blogging.” Vlogging is what happens when you publish regular, serialized video episodes on YouTube and people “tune in,” or subscribe, to your YouTube channel to watch. Vloggers, some of them quite young, but many of every age, are making a living doing this. If they offer interesting content, and can build a good subscriber base, it can be a very good living for some of the superstars of vlogging. Vloggers provide the content, people subscribe to watch it, and advertisers sell ads on their YouTube channels through the partner program.

Chris Pirillo’s VloggerFair 2013 In Seattle

I just attended VloggerFair here in sunny Seattle. VloggerFair is a combination trade show and giant fan club convention conceived and organized by the fast-talking and very creative Chris Pirillo. Chris is the star of the YouTube channel LockerGnome, a “Geek Lifestyle” channel with 288,000 subscribers. In addition to his fast-paced LockerGnome tech gadget reviews, Chris and his wife, Diana, also vlog about their day to day lives in what amounts, more or less, to a reality TV show on YouTube.

Marketing, Music

Business Lessons For Musicians From Book Publishing

March 25, 2013 5 Comments

A few weeks ago I went to a seminar by best-selling author and public speaker Patrick Snow on creating a successful career as a self-published book author. I was invited by a friend of mine, Randall Broad, who wrote a memoir and is now working as a motivational speaker. At 41, Patrick makes a pretty good living (six figures of some kind) as an author, public speaker, and coach/consultant to other authors. To quote his website:

His best-selling book, Creating Your Own Destiny: How to Get Exactly What You Want Out of Life and Work, and his personal transition were also featured as a cover story in USA TODAY. Patrick’s book has been translated into numerous foreign languages and has sold more than 150,000 copies across six continents since 2001… He has coached more than 200 clients in achieving their goals of writing, publishing, and marketing their books.

As I sat listening to all this interesting stuff about self-publishing a book, surrounded by middle-aged people with big dreams – many with really interesting life stories, and all of whom want to become best-selling authors and public speakers, rake in a six-figure income and quit their day jobs – I realized that a lot of the same business ideas apply as well to DIY musicians as they do to DIY authors.

Marketing

12 Amanda Palmer Lessons (Not About Kickstarter)

November 9, 2012 5 Comments

I’m not a huge fan of Amanda Palmer’s music, in fact, I admit I haven’t listened to her newest album. This is particularly embarrassing because I was a supporter of her Kickstarter campaign. But what drew me to donate, and what continues to intrigue me about Palmer, is less her music, and more the gestalt of her success. As an indie artist myself, I got to thinking lately about what differentiates Palmer in a sea of indie musicians. Why has she risen above the noise in such a big way?

By writing this list, I am not suggesting that every artist should emulate Palmer, and I certainly don’t plan to myself. Instead, like David Byrne, I believe we should be inspired by her to think creatively about how to gain exposure for and market ourselves, not just our music. This is what fans really want: they want to be intimate with artists, to connect, to feel moved emotionally through experiencing their art, to feel they know them. All human beings are attracted to (and frankly a little afraid of) people who are unusual, creative and dynamic. As musicians, we may choose, like Palmer, to use that attraction to create exposure for ourselves and our music in an increasingly cluttered musical landscape, with an audience that has a shorter and shorter attention span.

Music

Interview # 2 With Brian Thompson of Thornybleeder

April 19, 2012 No Comments

This is the second half of my hour-long interview with Brian Thompson (theDIYDaily.com), a Vancouver-based music industry entrepreneur, record label owner, artist manager, marketing consultant, digital strategist, brand architect, web designer, blogger, podcaster and industry speaker. Formerly the corporate head of buying and marketing for a large Canadian music retail chain, Brian faced a crossroads when his long-time employer went bankrupt. Using social media, Brian has since re-created himself over the past three years to become a well-respected voice on the convergence of independent artist development, music marketing, social media and technology.

Music

Interview # 1 With Brian Thompson of Thornybleeder

April 16, 2012 3 Comments

As a student of social media, I am interested in the role that content plays in the development of a personal brand. To get some firsthand insight into the processes and dynamics that are involved, I interviewed a social media marketing influencer I met through Twitter, Brian Thompson (of theDIYDaily.com).

Brian is a Vancouver-based music industry entrepreneur, record label owner, artist manager, marketing consultant, digital strategist, brand architect, web designer, blogger, podcaster and industry speaker. Brian’s been in the music biz for twenty years. Formerly the corporate head of buying and marketing for a large Canadian music retail chain, Brian faced a crossroads when his long-time employer went bankrupt. Using social media, Brian has since re-created himself over the past three years to become a well-respected voice on the convergence of independent artist development, music marketing, social media and technology.