Why focus on Artist Branding? Because your future depends on it. You see, your brand extends far beyond any logo on your website or merchandise items (need help designing?). Being aware of what you are and what you are conveying to the public is key to controlling the magnetism of your brand. But before you can begin to develop artist branding, you need to follow the 3 C’s of artist branding.
Clarity
Be clear about who you are, and who you are not. You need to understand your unique promise of value, and how this sets you apart from others so you can see yourself as others do. Once you’ve made it clear on what you’re about, you will soon attract and build a more targeted fanbase to support your position.
You don’t want to be all things to all people, when you’re just starting out. But you do want to be the leader a particular tribe based on what you believe individually. Good brands taps into emotions that drive most of our decisions.
“What makes me distinctive? And how do I communicate that?”
Be authentic, and always true to yourself. Clarity then extends to your logos, your social media topics, and even the diction you use when talking to your fans. Choose a position and stick with it.
Consistency
Consistency is what gives the public faith in your abilities and your delivery. It creates expectations. Once you’ve taken a position, you need to remain consistent with it.
From a digital standpoint, all your web properties should be aligned with one another, and you want to make it perfectly clear that someone has arrived at your official web property. Other sites like your Facebook and Twitter should also be consistent in look and feel. Your website is the mother ship, and all other social assets should conveying the bigger message (need help designing?).
Once you’ve defined who you are and what you’re all about on a consistent level, you want to ensure that you remain active in conveying this. This doesn’t mean constantly bombarding fans with promotional messaging. What it does mean is being there on a constant basis to engage and interact with your audience.
Constancy
Fans want to interact with you, but they don’t want to be spammed with how great you are or why they should spend money on you. Think of your videos & interactions as your own reality TV show: if the story continues with regularly scheduled programming, people will tune in. They don’t, however, want to see commercials running the entire time.
Once you’ve employed these 3 C’s to your brand, you can begin positioning it. Once you’ve defined it, seek out all opportunities to better position your brand. Find those who will be most receptive to what it is that you have to offer and focus on them.
Bottom Line:
Artist branding takes a lot of time and effort but once you put in the work to build a good, consistent reputation, it will continue to pay dividends into the future. – Hisham Dahud