Course TitleCreating Your Personal Brand

MSIT Music BusinessFriday Session

Week 4

My Music Industry Background

• Have worked as venue manager, artist manager, media commentator, publicist, social media manager, filmmaker, door person, roadie, tour manager/booker.

• Hold degrees in Behavioral Studies and Education, Cert IV Education & Training• Currently teach at Music Industry College. Previously taught in England and

Central QLD• Owned Brisbane Sounds 2006-2012 (www.brisbanesounds.com)• Have worked in event and venue management at The Zoo Nightclub, Brisbane

and The Hammersmith Apollo, London• Managed artists The Winnie Coopers and SEALS• Tour managed bands internationally to Europe and UK• Attended international music conferences in the UK and USA• Toured and promoted international artists to Brisbane• Developed App’s• Maintained a database of 10,000+ on social media platforms

My Music Industry Philosophy • The music business is brutal so be prepared.• CARVE your own name.• Get off your butt and make awesome stuff happen. Lemonade not

lemons! • If you’ve got a great idea. ACTION IT!• Stay positive and keep setting goals. RADICALISE POSITIVITY!• Get burnt, make mistakes, learn and come back stronger. • INVEST IN YOU! • Have impeccable time management and communication skills.• Always be professional and respectful to whoever you meet.• Hard honest work brings positive results.• Network like a ninja. Your business card is your ninja star!

Class Structure

• Friday’s 9-1pm• Room A4.14• Attendance • Structure (ROUGH)

9-10am: Presentation/Lecture/ Questions/ Video10-11am: Class Activities and Group Work11-12pm: Individual Work/ Research12-1pm: Assessment/ Feedback

Weekly Class Activities

• Music Marketing Artist Spotlight & Presentation (Individual)

• Music Brand Spotlight (Group)• Music Distribution & Social Media Database

Analysis (Group)• Assessment

Assessment and Due Dates

Marketing QuestionsDue Date 29th August 2013

Music Distribution ReportDue Date 25th October 2013

Music Marketing and Distribution EssayDue Date 15TH November 2013

What is a Personal Brand• Personal branding is the process by which we market

ourselves to others.

• A ‘personal brand’ is in many ways synonymous with your reputation. It refers to the way other people see you.

• Are you a genius? An expert? Are you trustworthy? What do you represent? What do you stand for? What ideas and notions pop up as soon as someone hears your name?

Why create your own personal brand?

• What it really comes down to is discovering what your brand is. "This is the most critical step. Everything else already exists--all the job boards, all the people around the world connected by technology. The one thing that doesn't exist that you need to solidify is how you want to position yourself,”

• Many people think that personal branding is just for celebrities such as Paris Hilton or Britney Spears, yet each and every one of us is a brand.

• We can also have just as much presence as most startups and mid-size companies and products. Social media tools have leveled the playing ground and have enabled us to reach incredible heights, at the cost of our time.

• ‘Everything Communicates’

Creating a Personal Brand Statement

1. Start with listing your key career or business attributes on a piece of paper. Once the list is complete, take a good look at it and pick out the ones that make you unique. These will form your unique selling points, or USPs.

2. Look at your unique values and key attributes and you should be able to develop a 1-2 sentence brand statement, answering these three questions:

• What value you provide (what problem do you solve)• How you do it uniquely (your USPs)• Whom you do it for (your target audience)

3. Target your audience4. Stay authentic5. Make it punchy and memorable6. Keep it reasonably short7. It ain’t cast in iron

Why is it important to create your own personal brand in the music industry?

• Competition in music industry is fierce, so how do you differentiate yourself from the pack? Whether you're a job seeker or just looking to grow professionally, creating an impressive and meaningful brand is the best place to start.

• To stand out from the pack!

• To understand that bands are brands! Artists, venues, publishing companies etc are businesses.

• To understand where you fit in the game

• To sell yourself and your role

15 Steps to creating your Personal Brand

1. Look at your personal brand as an investment. Your personal brand has the potential to last longer than your own lifespan

2. Set goals for your public image. Because your personal brand is built from the thoughts and words and reactions of other people, it’s shaped by how you present yourself publicly. This is something that you have control over. You can decide how you would like people to see you and then work on publicly being that image.

How would you like potential customers/clients to think of you?

What you’re ‘about’. Think about the key ideas you would want people to associate with you. Expertise. Every good brand involves the notion of expertise. Your style. This is not so much what you communicate about yourself, but rather, how you do it.

2. Create a memorable brand name.

3. Capture your online turf/ Build out your social profilesBuy the domain name that corresponds to your brand name and secure the Facebook page, Twitter account,

Google+ account as well. If you find that your brand name is already "owned" create a different brand name.

15 Steps to creating your Personal Brand

4. Build a website for your domain name.

5. Set up automatic updating.To reduce the busywork of all those different social media platforms, set up an application that allows you to simultaneous post to all of them.

6. hare and create useful content on a regular basis.Don't try to be a full-time blogger. Instead share "helpful tips relating to the products [you] sell, relevant news, and personal updates that build emotional connection and convey positive character

7. Get feedback from people you trust.Setting up a "board of directors"--a few trusted colleagues who can assess your ongoing efforts and act as an informal sounding board.

15 Steps to creating your Personal Brand

8. Be authentic, even a bit risky.

9. Keep your brand fresh. No matter how good your content is, you'll risk seeming stale and repetitive if you don’t continue adding new elements to your brand.

10. Continue learning and updating your knowledge, especially if your expertise is based around the online world.

The web changes drastically from month to month. If you were an ‘expert’ two years ago but have since stopped learning and challenging yourself, you’re not an expert anymore.

11. Get people talking. Think about your personal brand each time you interact with someone - or don’t interact with someone. What impression are you leaving them with? Try to build relationships with as many people as possible.

15 Steps to creating your Personal Brand

12. Figure out what you do best and what you are known for"What are the top one or two selling points that make you unique?

13. Figure out how it's relevant to your industry"People are looking for specialists not generalists when recruiting and promoting now. If you can become the best at what you do you will become sought after," says Schawbel.Once you've got a handle on the one or two things that you do best you have to relate how that is important to potential employers.You have to know what your value is and try and build a story around that narrative that shows potential employers why they need you.

14. Help people understand why they need your services

15. Make sure every interaction leaves them feeling like you have lived up to your brand statement

16. Keep your personal brand and your personal life separate

Dorie Clark: Reinventing You!

• Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You, outlines a systematic approach for branding yourself and shares these actionable tips:

1. Conduct a personal 360 interview to identify how you're perceived — what do people really think of you?

2. Discover who you want to emulate, and establish a broad-based personal board of directors who can serve as ongoing advisers

3. Leverage your experience, and determine points of differentiation and transferrable skills.

4. Test-drive new possibilities by volunteering, job shadowing and joining boards while you plot your next move.

5. Craft a narrative that make sense and threads where you were, where you are, and where you're headed.

6. Create content that showcases your expertise.

Your Personal Brand

Start to answer the following questions to map out your personal brand

1. What are your skills?2. What are your weaknesses?3. What experience do you have? Employment/Life?4. How would people describe you? How would you

describe yourself?5. What are your goals in the music industry? How will

you aciheive these?

Personal Brand Activities

• Complete GOOD.CO to look at personality types for business

• View the skills/traits to map out your own (http://www.gurusoftware.com/GuruNet/Personal/Factors.htm)

• Start a LinkedIn Profile (www.linkedIn.com)• Resume/CV (Great examples)

Iconic Music Industry BrandsThe Rolling Stones

• The Rolling Stones• 50+ years of touring and music• Strong image from logo, font, clothing to set

design and iconic LP cover art• Why is this brand effective?

• What is another iconic music industry brand you can think of?

Research of Music Distribution/Marketing Sites

• Start to collate all the music distribution and marketing sites you can think of and add them to the forum under the current post ‘Music Distribution and Marketing Sites’

• Critique• Review• Forms part of assessment

Music Marketing Artist Case Studies #1: Beck Sheet Music

• Artist Profile:• Geographical Location:• The Product/Service:• How is it marketed/promoted:• Why it works:• http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/

1549809/becks-sheet-music-project-gets-physical-life