Artist Manager on Viral Syncs and the State of Music Marketing

0:00We put a picture of the band and it said the off-campus effect and it swiped and it showed the song going from 18 ,000 streams a day to a million streams a day. And like we had the graph and that ended up getting like 100 ,000 likes or close to it. And that's way above our, you know, 10 to 15 to 20 ,000.

0:26What's going on? Welcome to the new music business. I'm your host, Ari Herstand, author of How to Make It In, The New Music Business, the book 3rd Edition is out now. All formats, hardcover, ebook, audiobook, however you like books, you can find this book. Today my guest is Lori Lee. She is the founder of Wednesday Management, a boutique management company in Toronto. She manages the beaches along with a few other artists. When we talk about the beaches for the majority of the time today, Lori was also named Billboard board, Canada's manager of the year and women in music, Canada's entrepreneur of the year.

1:04She sits on the Keras board as well. The beaches are having a massive, I can't even say year because it's been a few years. You know, they played Coachella last year. They had their first, I would say big viral moment in 2023 with their song, Blame Brett. It was, you should go watch It's just the lead singer, Jordan, singing from the studio. And this moment went viral. Most recently, they were mentioned in the hit TV show, one of the biggest TV shows of the year off campus. And there's this moment in the show where one of the lead characters says to the other one, have you heard, wait, have you heard of the beaches?

1:46Their Coachella set will change your life. And then later in the show, the character brings up the beaches on his phone and listens to it on the train. And it's like it's a pretty massive placement. So we talk about kind of the era of sync licensing that we're in right now and how that has evolved over the years because this was such a huge placement for them. I mean, it took their, in a few weeks, it took their streams from 1.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify all the way up to 7 million monthly listeners almost overnight. I mean, it was like a week or, yeah, it was crazy how quickly. And she talks about it at one point at its peak, the song was getting around a million streams a day, which is crazy.

2:34so you know we talk about this moment and how this all happened but you know it didn't just happen on its own i mean sure like you know of course it starts with the music and they got the sink and she talked about how they got the sink but also how they capitalized on the sink and that's the thing when you have a moment you don't want to let it slip and you don't want to miss this moment you have to jump on it when something's moving you got to know how to harness this and how to throw gasoline on this fire when there's a little fire burning. And she'll tell you herself, her artists have had hundreds of things over the years.

3:12Not everyone has had this type of impact like the Beaches have had recently with Off Campus. But their whole career, I mean, we talk about a lot of this is honestly not even about the Beaches. It's just her strategy around social media and TikTok and Instagram and Reels and YouTube shorts and how she approaches music videos and the point of music videos, fan conversion tools and tactics. Towards the end, we talk about her favorite tools that she uses for fan engagement and fan conversion and data collection, which is so important these days. This was a great interview. I mean, so many takeaway moments.

3:49I learned so much from Lori. You're going to learn a ton. I really encourage you to listen to this episode all the way to the end. Whether you've heard of the beaches or not, whether you're a fan or not, it doesn't matter. She is incredibly smart and her team is unbelievable. And it's really is very impressive what they have done with their whole roster. And I just love how she is approaching artist development and fan building. We talk about the funnel and just like a really strategic and smart approach to fan acquisition and fan building and storytelling and how to make sure that it's not just a moment around a song, but around the artist itself.

4:32So you're gonna get a ton from this. You can find the Beaches on their socials, on their website. You can find Wednesday Management, that's WednesdayMGMT.com. You'll learn more about the other acts on their roster. You can find Lori Lee on Instagram or LinkedIn. You can find all of us that make the show happen at Ari's Take on the socials. Find me at Ari Herstand on Instagram. Feel free to shoot me a DM or shoot me an email. But right now, if you wouldn't mind, just pause this episode, leave us a five-star review, however you're listening to this right now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leave us a comment on Spotify, on YouTube.

5:09I love seeing these comments come through. And visit Ari's Take.com and get on our email list. That's actually the best way to stay in touch with us. Ari's Take.com, get on the email list. All right, let's kick into the show. Lori Lee, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah. So you've had, I mean, quite an adventurous last couple months. I mean, last few years with the beaches. But honestly, like over the last couple months ever since kind of the off-campus sync and the placement and just the mention and all of that, I mean, things have really changed. And I want to start there and then we'll go backwards from present day because I feel like we're in this like interesting time where like sync in general, getting songs placed on TV shows.

6:00I feel like it might be having some kind of a resurgence or something where it's doing more for artists than maybe it has done in the past. And like watching this sync in this placement specifically with the beaches on off campus, which wasn't just the song being placed on the show. was like there's a whole mention uh like have you have you heard the beaches there coach alice that will change your life it's it like took me back to like garden state back in the day i don't know if you ever watched garden state it was like that was like you know right and and like you know when natalie portman says to zach braff like oh have you heard the shins no you haven't heard them the song's gonna change your life and it like blew the shins up you know that was like 20 some years ago and then we've gone in these waves of sync ever since but tell me just like first off how did that whole thing go down and happen what has been happening since then and just like your thoughts overall on just like sync and and all of this yeah yeah i i always reference it to garden state because it is it has to be it has to be a direct reference i mean like it's basically the same thing totally yeah yeah um i actually did a meme on the on our company instagram and it quotes both to them and you see it oh really yeah it's really great um yeah it's been really crazy it's so funny because i think with the music industry the moment you think you understand it it just flips and so you know three years ago the vi the virality that the band got through that one viral tiktok you know like we can have 10 of those today and it doesn't really change it doesn't move the needle And then kind of out of nowhere, you kind of get this big sync and you're like, holy shit, you know, you know, like this can't really be a strategy, but I guess we kind of have to take it for what it is.

7:42The sync came by like anything. The sync team at AWOL is really incredible. They're really invested. They love the band. And they had been speaking to off campus for a while. And same old thing. Get the email. hey, we would like you to approve this. And it said in the email, the main character will look at iPhone, search the beaches, and press the song. And I went, oh. I was like, that could be good. Yeah, for real. I was like, that could be good. But I was like, a hockey show? I was like, a hockey show? A young adult hockey show with an all-female queer rock band? I was like, oh, I don't know what.

8:29I was like, okay. like you know it's like okay i guess we'll see so um said to the girls girls were like cool this is great and we're all like could could be something but i don't think any of us had the expectation of it becoming what it did i mean the first day came out i mean we talked about the week before it was in the update we're like okay you know show comes out on wednesday we'll see what happens and when you watch it we were like this looks like an ad you know like i think that like Yeah, totally. I mean, it felt like the two sponsors were Ivy, Liquid, and The Beaches. And I had people calling me up being like, how much did you pay for them to do that?

9:13And I was like, can you believe they paid us? For real. And so, yeah, when you watched it, you're like, oh, shit. Like, this is kind of huge. Yeah. Right. Because it's not just a reference to the song. And I've had plenty, you know, I've managed for 10 years. And in those 10 years, I've had artists have sync hundreds of times. And sometimes it moves the needle a little bit. And a lot of the time, it doesn't really do anything. And so, but this, you're like, okay, this is looking good. This is, this feels really good. And then you kind of slowly but surely, you know, I'm watching the data on Spotify for artists.

9:57from day one and immediately from day one i'm like oh shit like this could be something and then you never really want to get too excited about anything so i was like this is looking good but like it also could be not that good it could be okay you know like it's definitely something and then like every day you kind of like it grew and the first the first two three weeks were kind of like, uh, brought the streams to a place that I'd never, I'd never seen before. And we also kind of our team, the moment that happened, like, uh, me on my management team, there's Alison who does day to day, but a lot of the social media strategy and Kylie and Sydney and, and, you know, the show came out on Wednesday and we worked all weekend editing TikToks.

10:48And so we're like, wow yeah so i was like here's this this huge moment um what can we do to captivate it while the show is kind of blowing up um yeah and so you know the first thing is you know we spoke to the band i said okay uh what can we say on stage that we can cut and edit into a tiktok mentioning the show um they were on tour at the time they were on tour we got really lucky they were doing some shows um that weekend too and so oh great and then we thought why don't we put the the why don't we put the clip where she yeah the scene behind them and start with that to the earth will be like that's you know like it's it's for it's for the live but it's it's it's for the live but it's also for the tiktok and the content right and then we you know like allison probably spent four days editing hundreds of tiktoks that we then fed onto our accounts to see if we could kind of recreate that spark so and then it kind of yeah and then it blew up to a place that like i'd never yeah i'd never seen for the band and it was four times what blame brett had ever been at its peak so it yeah it was kind of it was kind of crazy if i'm honest that's wild yeah and and And right, and like, right, my next question was kind of the, how do you capitalize on a sync?

12:13So, I mean, that is great that you, I mean, you jumped right on that. It was like, did you jump on this and have your team editing these hundreds of TikTok clips because the nature of the sync or because you saw it was already starting to move on Spotify because you're just like monitoring that? Because like you said, you've had hundreds of syncs in the past. Not everyone does this. I mean, sure, it's nice to once in a while you get a sync. It's like, OK, let's see if we can do anything with this and make a moment happen through TikTok. Which because just for some context, like what your team is doing, what they're calling now in the industry is clipping.

12:53And, you know, it's like that's a whole they're like clipping companies. And, you know, I just talked to Joe Lim from Flutify, who runs a, you know, TikTok marketing agency for music. and they do like AI clipping. It's, you know, it's getting automated. I mean, you guys are doing it. So it's just like, this is a strategy, but I'm curious, like, did you lean in, work through the weekend and all jump on this because of it was already moving on Spotify? Or did you make this moment happen or just kind of throw gasoline on this fire? We definitely threw gasoline on the fire. So the moment was already happening.

13:35and you could see the beginning of it. Like I think we didn't do much on the first day, but I think the second, the moment Spotify for Artists came, the way that the streams per listeners jumped and the way that the save jumped was, I was like, okay. And it hadn't even started yet, but you could see early identifiers and like that was just from the show alone and it was a Wednesday. So like by the time you hit the weekend when people are binging, we kind of had a short window. um did you do you remember what these numbers were like streams per listeners and save rate and all that stuff i don't i don't remember off the bat but you know it would have easily gone from like two streams per listener to like four you know right away okay doubling yeah yeah yeah yeah and i was like okay and again it wasn't like you know the song started at 20 000 streams and it jumped to 60 which was still pretty high but not like you know yeah a day but like we you know we we peaked at 900 ,000 so the 60 you can you can know you couldn't predict yeah 900 ,000 in one day in one day yeah and that's people are people are that's insanity i mean people are having to get 900 ,000 streams on a song in a year and you're getting this in a day uh just on spotify alone and uh wow that's just on spotify and so um the it's i wouldn't say i i know a lot of people do clipping and clipping companies are going to hate that i'm going to say this i do think that they don't drive the same results as the results of the team that are involved in it i think that i personally get frustrated when we spend money on a clipping campaign and but all of our videos do 300 times better now we do have the lean in of the band and so it's a bit different but like uh i think everyone always thinks the solution is to just hire these companies to do it for you but at the end of the day like nothing moves the needle in the same way that that artists or even our our own accounts do because we put more time into it um we always take advantage of moments what so like it wasn't it wasn't just because it was this thing that was happening that we did it I mean, like we put, we spent a lot of time, we put more effort into this one just because we could see how sticky it was from the beginning.

15:58But I think any opportunity that the way that we do marketing for our clients is that any opportunity that happens, we make it a moment for social media. And so even if it's a, you know, if it's a developing artist and they get a sync, we usually get them to do a TikTok like, oh, my song was here showing the clip. If we get an article, we build like a Rolling Stones article, we build assets, like we share all of these moments on social media with so that one fans can feel invested in the successes of the client. But then it also adds fuel to the fire, because if you're not using social media to tell people about what's happening, then it's like, you know, the tree falls in the forest.

16:44Will anybody hear? And so it's like you're paying for press, not for the article, but for the ability to share the article on socials. And so it's just the how do we take advantage of every single, whether it be small or big, like radio, press, show, support, feature. It's just like everything that happens around the client's campaign, we strategize digital strategy around it to try to amplify it as much as possible that's brilliant and it's uh it makes so much sense because there's everyone is kind of wondering uh especially the independent music community is just like does press move the needle and the short answer is just like well no not like it used to 10 15 years ago and like you know the hype machine air day and day and age and stuff like that it doesn't move the needle like it did one back when um however if you know it like you said you kind of um you turn it into a moment because people will still recognize it's like if you get it if you get a write-up in rolling stone you know a digital or something like that uh maybe a few hundred people might see it maybe organically especially if they're not sharing it on socials and it just goes on the website Like, you know, who knows who's going to see that?

18:07But everybody knows Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone magazine. It's legit. It's and so if you, you know, turn that into a moment, like you said, and you have the artist talk about it and share it. So the focus on that, I mean, I guess when you're doing that, I'm curious how you approach clipping and just social media in general. because some of it, I would assume, is to grab a cold audience to try to go viral. You've had some of these viral moments. Like you said, you're cutting up hundreds of clips to try to get some of them to catch. And that, yeah, you've had viral moments in the past, of course, with Blaine Brett back in 23, and that clip went crazy viral.

18:56And that's reaching a cold audience. It's bringing in new people. But I'm curious if you're also thinking about when you're posting especially on the artist's account and if there's a difference between instagram and tiktok uh i'd love to hear your thoughts on that but what type of content are you posting uh to engage your current fan base and what type of content are you posting to try to get new fans and how yeah that's a great question um tiktok is constantly about getting new fans it's about cold so like posting to the people that already your fans your followers i don't think really matters it's just about is the video going to be sticky enough to help you get new fans um because the existing fans are already kind of aware of what's going on um and the same and the same thing with instagram i mean instagram has an amazing feature called trial reels and you're and so before if you were to post all of your tiktoks onto instagram like you'd kind of like be messing the vibe and i know it's instagram is a little bit more about sharing the brand of the artist and the story of the artist where tiktok is kind of just like it's like a slot machine almost um but with trial reels you can kind of repurpose all of the tiktoks that you have put them on trial wheels and then and then for stuff you don't want to post on your page you can still get those new cold audiences um yeah that way because the way that it oh sorry just just for people that aren't familiar as familiar with trial reels right is i believe how it works is that they don't show it to your followers.

20:30So you're not bombarding, like you said, you're not bombarding your followers and overwhelming them and annoying them because Instagram, if you do post a regular reel, it will show it to your followers on Instagram first. And then based on how well the engagement of your Instagram followers, then they'll decide Instagram, the algorithm will decide to show it to a wider audience of non-followers. Whereas trial reels is kind of the opposite. It's not showing it to your followers at all. But if it does well, then you can decide if you want to publish it to your main feed and to your followers. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

21:06And so we do a lot of that. And then but we also I think what worked really well for us on the Instagram is we showed like we created assets to show fans the success of the sync and the impact of it and I think a lot of it is because people don't fathom what's happening until you you you write them down in simple details so like I think one of our biggest posts was you know we put a picture of the band and it said the off-campus effect and it swiped and it showed the song going from 18 ,000 streams a day to a million streams a day and like we had the graph and that ended up getting like a hundred thousand likes or close to it and that's way above our you know 10 to 15 to 20 000 and and and we actually saw other artists kind of like copy it and do the same thing on their posts and i think people get really excited i think fans get really excited and that really helps the algorithm because they're say here before you know like all the fans are like you you know, here before off campus, blah, blah, blah, blah.

22:09And, and so it's using, um, yeah, that was a really good way to like show existing fans what was going on, but also gain new fans and have really engaging posts. Because I think for Instagram specifically, and if you're posting the same photos over and over again, like a bunch of live photos, you do eventually lose, uh, engagement on those photos. And therefore like, what's going to help you get the best engagement is going to be based off of novelty. And it kind of goes back to moments or even just like cultural impact and context is like the more novelty your post has or the, you know, the more of something new that you're showing, the more chances of doing really well engagement wise.

22:57And so that's kind of how we treat Instagram. And then we mix in a lot of reels. like we mix in when the because edge of the earth is performing so well posting reels of edge of the earth is obviously gonna uh that's the song that was on off campus that's the yeah exactly um is gonna drive the best results on the platform so we we do repeat posts a lot of reels but most of it is kind of like a mix of those and then tiktok again it's just a slot machine we kind of just like try to do as much as possible and see what sticks so is your strategy do you uh replicate uh kind of everything you post on tiktok do you then put those on trial reels and then only publish then if they start to do okay yeah exactly um and also youtube shorts and oh yeah i always forget about youtube shorts tell me uh how that plays into everything and uh if you see any traction or engagement or feedback on uh trans you know translation on youtube shorts yeah we've had a lot of uh youtube subscriber growth from youtube shorts from doing the same thing i mean it's not as i don't think it's as impactful as an instagram or a tiktok but it um for longevity and for youtube it's kind of a great way to drive people to the channel um and again it's like it's a little bit annoying but having someone you already have the content so you might as well get it up there and i also think that it's like for youtube you're triggering the algorithm and so like the more you're posting by the time you do end up posting a longer form video you do have a bigger audience waiting for it so yeah speaking of which um you know i see that you've done some music videos in the past i i think you just posted right before we hopped on a promo uh for a new music video coming out soon um is it for edge of the earth no it was for yeah it is yeah it is okay that's what it was um and uh tell me about the importance of music videos in your mind and in general i guess for maybe the difference between emerging artists versus an artist like the beaches and and edge of the earth is a song that's three years old and you're doing a music video for it now So just tell me about the strategy and focus behind music videos.

25:22Um, I mean like everybody flip flops constantly, uh, until, I mean like young lean's video is a young lean, right. Who put, put that video up and like exploded. And then everybody's like, music videos are back. Um, I don't think they matter as much as people. Well, I don't think they matter that much for me, the way that I see it for someone like the beaches or someone who's a little bit more established or someone who's growing in development it does make the project feel bigger if you have a music video so like if you have a really high res video done properly that you spend a little bit of money I think it goes from this is not not a DIY artist this is someone a little bit more here um and so do i think that spending video like as a developing artist is important absolutely not i think whatever money you have should be focused on short form content like tiktoks um even just like having someone help you find a way to express your music for short form content is more valuable than spending money on a music video uh there's just so many more marketing uh things i would do before music video but once you do get to the tipping point of like we no longer want this artist to feel diy we want them to feel like there are things happening and it's a big deal then i then i feel like um a music video kind of just like establishes that brings them to that next level and like yeah it helps build the brand a lot better like i think people understand artists better when they see music videos they they they understand what's trying to be said through the music video but again like that's only once there's like more investment in the needles moving like spending money on a song that's not performing well and doing a music video for it sometimes can be the worst thing you ever do so sometimes it's better to just release a song and then see how it performs and then film a music video based off of the performance is what i would say but yeah it's more about establishing credibility um more more than anything than like a marketing tool that's going to move the needle unless like you have a crazy good idea that's like so good that's going to blow people like away but that really yeah yeah no definitely and that makes a lot of sense it's kind of like another touch point for fans to dive deeper with the band with the artists and like you said it's it's um you know helps tell the story of the band and it's just like another i guess fan engagement tool it's just like a way to just like deepen that connection tell me like um i you know i'm curious like how you approach this is a marketing term but i'm curious how you approach the funnel it's just like and if we think about you know everyone identifies this a little bit differently but it's just like you know we think about this funnels it's like the top of funnels like tiktok you know and maybe it's just like a song that is uh or a sound that might be trending on tiktok or something and and maybe people will then like go stream that song on spotify and that's like super top of fun they're not like fans they're like listeners they might not even be followers they're just like oh this is a cool song maybe they heard it on a playlist or something like that and they're like listening to a song and then you kind of like move them down but i'm curious how you get from like that oh this is a cool song that i heard somewhere one time i think down to their front row at your concert wearing the t-shirt having all the merch tell me about that whole journey yeah um i think we're kind of getting into a new era i think the reason why sync is working again is because of cultural importance.

29:22I think that because TikTok, you know, when TikTok started, they used to sell the time TikTok now because there are more people watching than there are posting videos. And then it became so oversaturated with musicians trying to make their music go viral that it doesn't really have the same impact to just post a song. I think we're in a new era of context and cultural moments. And so I think it's the stories behind the artists and the songs that are creating more sticky moments for artists. The Beaches were lucky because with Off Campus, we got to steal a cultural moment from basically one of the biggest TV shows of the year.

30:02So, but it was, it was that cultural moment that we got to hold on to. That was so sticky. That was global. That did what it did to the band. It also, the, because it was its own cultural moment, mentioning the band and having the band in the show rather than the song, just the show impacted fan acquisition in a way that I've never seen before. Whereas like, if it was just passive, where if it was just a song playing and you stream it, then that's when it becomes like a passive listener. But because it was a part of the moment that happened, it became what the people that were watching the show were attaching themselves to the show or also attaching themselves to the song.

30:45And so I think it's just like we're getting into an era where it's like there has to be cultural impact or context to music for people to care or else it's just another huge song. I mean, you see it all the time, right? Like you have like brands and agencies that are, every time something huge happens on social media, they like, they do like culture hacking where they try to imitate the cultural moment in order to get their brand heard. And so like, and you constantly see it, right? It's even that flag that was on the Empire State Building, all the brands started doing the same thing in order to have.

31:27Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what they're essentially doing is that they're attaching their brand to that cultural impact and then trying to get their brand heard. I think as musicians and bands and artists, they have the ability to spark culture. And so they have the ability to be a cultural moment or be a part of a cultural moment. But in order to do that, it can't be just about the song it has to be about the context around the song and what it means and what it means to people so like even for example olivia's olivia rodrigo's latest album is a concept album and it's about everybody knows that it's about that guy that she dated and that the first beginning of the album was actually written when she was in love and the and it's kind of like when they were breaking up and there's moments where she's on a press tour, Millie Bobby Brown's on a press tour with the other actor who is Olivia Rodrigo's ex-boyfriend and they're mentioning it.

32:33And so a lot of the, obviously the album's amazing. I personally have been listening to it non-stop, but it's also the, there's meaning for fans behind the album because they can associate to a real life moment. And so the moment it becomes stickier when you're attaching it to something. And so it doesn't always have to be the artists themselves. Like, again, like we got really lucky with off campus, but I think it's like songs do really well when there's context to why people should like them. So it's no longer just here's a song. Do you like it? It's like, why do you like it? And why do you like the artist?

33:07You know, Audrey Hobert, her song was in an off campus, but I think she really took advantage of the moment by bringing a trampoline on stage at Gov Ball and then to the same song and jumps on the trampoline and the video goes viral and it's like people watching that are like oh she's like a little weirdo just like me and so like there's there's reason to why you like it and it's based off of contact context and and culture and or again tell me you can tell me when to stop but like you know the the the best example is um chapel rhone when chapel rhone was started everybody really loved um the album but it wasn't until uh coachella when she came on stage in the whole dress up and that thing went viral and so like how she came on stage was a cultural moment and so it's like as musicians you're capable of of starting cultural moments you are actually the moment that everybody else is trying to attach themselves to the brands because brands no offense are kind of like cultureless um and so it's like when thinking when you're an artist and you're thinking about the music that you're releasing it's like how do you attach um culture or just stories around the music that you're saying so that people understand and then they they're in the same way an artist is attached to their song because of what it meant to them how does that attachment then get from a fan to feeling the same way to then being a super fan yeah no that that makes a lot of sense and the context is so important and helps the fan uh more deeply identify like you said with the song with the artist um i'm curious like specifically how should artists uh contextualize their music because i it just for for some context of of my own um i you know when i talk to artists i think artists like to say let the music speak for itself i why do i have to tell the story behind the song like just let the song speak for itself and then it's like no but because people will deep more deeply identify with you if they know why you wrote it or like but no i want them to have their own experience with the song like they don't need to know my experience like you know i'm curious like one how do you what would you say to an artist that says that but also specifically you know if they don't have a sync or like they're not an off campus and they're not playing gov ball or coachella or something like that they're an emerging artist and they're trying to like this is a great idea i want to tell stories or i want to put context behind it but like how would you do is this like hey guys this song is about that i was like well you know yeah so yeah break that down for me yeah i mean that's a great question and i i think it's like everyone's always like would pink floyd be doing tiktoks about their songs about exactly um but it was it was it was a different era that we were in yeah you know like and it's like the the people the people who drive culture are essentially like teens between the ages of 14 to 24 and and so if you want to have an impact in a way that's going to explain i mean like not everyone wants this audience and like you know like beach's audience is actually a bit older but um but with with a lot of younger mixture but it's like if you want to be able to impact culture with your music like you're gonna have to find a way to express it it's not enough to just write a song and put it out there and expect something to happen um i just don't think that's how people you know like i always compare like when the weekend came out 10 years longer you know house of balloons it was so faceless and it was cooler to be faceless because at the time millennials liked to feel like their artists were untouchable.

37:06Like we wanted to aspire to our artists. We wanted to like look at them and be like, they're at a party that we're not invited to. I think today, or like if you are invited to, you're extremely cool. I think today people don't like that. I think people want to feel a part. They want to feel like their artists are relatable and they want to feel like they want to feel with them. And therefore, in order to connect with that specific audience, you do have to build context around what you're doing. Context can be anything. It doesn't have to be like, I feel like it's major label one on one. They're just like, can we have a TikTok about behind the song?

37:44Like, it doesn't need to be about behind the song. It just has to be in the theme of what you're trying to do. And so if you don't want to have to, if you don't want to say with words, oh, this song is about heartbreak, then how do you find ways to film something that portrays it in a different way? or the world building that's around it is, is then seen as different or felt different. And, and, and so that there's a feeling it can be through the artwork and through the creative is that you have a feeling associated with the song that is then the storytelling of the song rather than just like, uh, you know, I mean, the cheapest and the fastest way is always memes.

38:25And so like, um, taking videos, sharing lyrics, and then meme-ifying it. And then there's like the more honest ways where people are like, I wrote a song about this person who pissed me off, and then going straight into the lyrics. And so like you're attaching the lyrics to the moment. But then there's like hundreds of ways, you know, you just have to spend a lot of time being like, okay, what is the world that i'm building around my song what do i want what do i want people to understand i get really frustrated when people are like i want people to interpret it however they want to interpret it it's just like i think it's a bit lazy to do that i think it's like people do you remember um do you remember uh msn names when i feel like i'm aging myself but you'd have like an msn account yeah well you've had msn you're from canada we had we had like aim but yeah yeah yeah the screen names icq icq i i tell you we're going way back yeah yeah sure the screen names yeah yeah definitely and my good friend from back in high school his screen name was fish and dave and you can guess who his like favorite bands were you know it was a jam head like right you did a lot of the identity of the of the person based on what their screen name was yeah exactly i was in love with uh alua i don't even know why she came up with that but that was her screen name oh yeah totally yeah yeah and and so like i and and you would if you were upset at someone you would have a lyric in your screen name you know what i mean like i don't need you right now and i think that like the modern day version of the screen name is uh is like is a tiktok video and so i'll see my niece who's 14 you know like lip-syncing a lyric to a song that's obviously direct it to someone and so um or she's pretending it's not but we all know the truth and so it's like it's like you want to make sure that the not even that the music that you're making like all music that you're making probably has something that a teenager can lip sync to but i think that's what somber is so good is that the lyrics are so relatable that anyone can feel it and then they can you know like they can sing they can sing the lyric to a tiktok video as a message to their crush or as a message to their ex and so again like he does really well with his own videos where he's building context just based off of the fact that his songwriting is so to the point that they are the context themselves um but i do think that like for someone who doesn't necessarily have something that's as obvious it's like okay what what's the world around it that you're gonna build so that people attach a feeling and deeper connection to it so that they want to stick around.

41:15I've never had the viral sound. None of my clients have ever had that. And that to me is like a full-on, that's like a lottery. Something just goes viral and people start, there's no way around that other than maybe when it starts going to spend money to have someone do more videos. we've we've been really lucky uh that it's just like the act going viral and it's the we get the fans directly from it but we take advantage of the moment to try to do as much as possible to add fuel to the fire um to get as many fans as possible yeah totally so right i i I'm curious, like, how much are you expecting your artist to shoulder the weight of creating this content?

42:06Like, if it is the artist kind of going viral, like you said, I mean, there's pros and cons to both of this. Of course, everyone wants their, you know, their video. Like, the video that The Beat just had of Blaine Brett of just her in studio singing the song. And that goes viral. Like there's millions, literally millions of other videos identical to that that have not gone viral. And it's just like that is, you know, like you said, it's like a lottery. It's just like, you know, you guys won the lottery on that. But it's kind of like, you know, how much like how many other videos that we didn't see that didn't go viral did you guys put out there?

42:43And is that exhausting to the band? And is it just like, you know, this is the common theme that, you know, we hear from artists. They say, oh, my label wants me to post more TikToks. My manager wants me to post more TikToks. How much are you expecting the artist to shoulder this versus the pros and cons of, like you said, you've never had a sound necessarily go viral on TikTok. But the benefit of that, and as of like, you know, of course, a lot of these UGC and influencer and marketing agencies and stuff like that. And of course, like the chaotic goods of the world that we all know about the, you know, that viral podcast and everything that they've done for Sombra and Geese and all of that.

43:26It's like the band is not responsible to do that, which is helpful. It's just like with with sound campaigns and clipping campaigns, you can take an artist song, clip it up and the artist actually doesn't have to have any involvement in that. So, I mean, I see pros and cons both ways. But yeah, I'm just curious, like how your artists and how you work with your artists on shouldering that responsibility. We take a lot of the responsibility out of their hands. And I know not a lot of, not a lot of artists have the, like, not a lot of management companies are set up that way. However, the way that we manage is that we do a lot of it.

44:08Allison, who works with me, spends a lot of her time doing social strategy just because it moves the needle. And there's just like, you can't expect a label to do it. And I also don't expect the artists to like, I think they do need to be involved. I think a lot of the times to do nothing won't make sense, but a lot of our social strategy is done around taking the burden off of the artist to be able to do it. If that's not available to an artist, then hiring people to help you do it should be the number one driver. And so I would still hire people to film content for you and help you strategize that way rather than spend on a clipping.

44:50um and so like for us for example if an artist is mid-campaign or an artist is during doing a campaign we'll schedule content days and allison my number one star will go into the uh camp like into the content day with ideas like here are the trend ideas here are the songs that we're going to film front to back and then with our photographer meg um who kind of does everything the beaches is that together and Sydney who's our social media person is together they'll bank essentially a bunch of videos for that single and then um and then we'll have and then our team will kind of like do a bunch of edits and then they'll be available to post when needed and so a lot of it you know like a lot of it the artist doesn't have to do on their own uh we kind of do with them but again i don't think that's right like i don't think everybody does that if you don't have that then it's like hire your friend you know like to to help you do those videos to make sure that you're posting i mean like you know like at bare minimum every song that you release there you know like you should find ways to play the song and film them front to back on an iphone and that's there's so many that like when you actually break down content and what's needed from it.

46:13It's like not that complicated to do. And I think that sometimes artists have kind of like ADHD brain where they just like, they don't know where to start. And so it feels like they're climbing a mountain, but it's like, why don't you start by filming the song front to back, you and a guitar, and then laying the audio on top and cool location. Like, it's like, it's really as simple as that. And then like, once you get comfortable doing that, adding different things that you can do, Like, like if you have a live show, making sure that you're always getting the performance shot from the live show.

46:44And so it's like, and that's kind of like the basis of our, our strategy is just like filling content in a cool location with the new song, making sure that the song is filmed live and then editing them in ways to see what's going to work and what's going to not going to work. A lot of the time it doesn't work. And so like if you're putting so much effort into thinking that something's going to go viral and it's not and then giving up because of that, you can't. But it's essentially like TikTok is a testing ground. And it's where if you have a bunch of videos and you're posting your song from loads of different places in the song, if something does click.

47:22And I've never not had like every single one of my clients has had something click on TikTok. And so like, it's not obvious, but it does happen. But when it does happen, that's when you go, okay, locked in. This is the song. This is the song. This is where it starts in the song. Let's do a bunch of content based off of this audio. And then you go. And so like, we film a bunch of stuff so that we have like a testing ground to be able to test on platform what's going to work and what's not going to work. Once it works, that's when we start spending money. but to your question like i i think that like we for our clients we would get frustrated trying to ask our clients to film tiktoks like i think we feel we would feel like pulling like we already have to we already put so much on them that like to then ask them to film tiktoks uh is very unfair on them considering how hard they work but i think we would also not we would not be like i was like we we would like kill ourselves trying to ask our clients trying to like post TikTok.

48:24So like taking the burden off, it just makes it easier for us to manage and makes things easier. But that takes a lot of trust in the people that you're working with in order to give that off. But if you don't have that, then I still, for me, from where I stand and all the success I've ever had, I still think that like your dollar is better spent getting those videos yourself and spending a bit of time and doing them in the ways that you want to than a clipping campaign, especially, especially without a moment, like a clipping campaign works when you have an off campus, or if you have a viral song that's already going viral to spend money when nothing is going viral and nothing happening is a complete waste of money.

49:08Like you're, you're just like, you're just like throwing it up in the air, hoping it's just like, I would, I would never do that in a million years, unless like someone just wants to, unless someone wants to lose money, I would always spend, and it goes back to the moment, right? It's like, one, what are we doing outside of TikTok to make your artist career feel real? Is it press? Is it, you know, our client Valley did a pop-up on Ossington, which is kind of a big street in Toronto. And we had them play from the windows of the street from this apartment and we filmed it. And some of those videos went viral.

49:44And so it's like, what are moments that you can be building on your own that you can have people film to then repurpose and and and so it's like it's like the marketing drivers again it's not just tiktok it's like it's irl right people want to feel like shit's happening in real life so it's like what marketing camp like what marketing drivers are you doing outside of just tiktok that can create a moment on these to show that like much stuff is happening around your music yeah no that's that's super smart and that that makes a lot of sense and it's it is kind of the um i mean right it's to to just throw money at something hoping that it would catch i mean it is it can be a slower process and a lot of the trial and error like you said of just finding what part of the song is the moment because i i know a lot of artists struggle with that they think oh it's the chorus that's the best part of the song it's going to be the chorus and oftentimes it's not it's maybe the outro it's the bridge or whatever and by testing all of that and then you can lean into that and um i mean you you know your bands have the benefit of of your team uh your your allison and meg and all of them that are kind of doing this for you know knowing the trends or knowing what the hook the words on the screen are going to be or the moment of the song and stuff like that and i think like you know yeah a lot of artists struggle with doing that and and you know filming and just like editing and then posting and posting and posting and like nothing's catching and it's just like you know i i i see it as like you know a manager myself and i kind of you know i look at it as it's a game let's just try to win this game and let's figure out what the part of it whereas like the artist i'm working with it's like every video that doesn't catch um is right it is like it is like the entire internet is saying that you suck and that is it is like completely your entire self-worth is based on you know this one 20 second video which it's not we know and most people know and i think most they artists know this too deep down inherently this is like oh it's just how the internet works but when it's your song and it's about something deeply personal and it's your voice and it's your lyrics and all of that it it can be tough and and i think you know we've seen i've had a lot of these artists on the show talk about this the the ones that are can separate themselves emotionally a lot easier uh and and approach it like a game are the ones that can just rapid fire this stuff out and play that lottery and then you know i would say more maybe the ones that are like less leaned in and maybe more traditional artists uh you know that are album artists and stuff like that it doesn't come as naturally and it it you know burnout can set in a little bit easier and sooner I think there's two ways to see it, right?

52:49And so I still think if you're an artist that's like, oh, I'm more traditional, I don't want to do that, then it's like, okay, so what are you doing already in your day? What are you doing already in your life that are around your, what are the marketing drivers in your campaign that feel organic to you that someone just films? And so I think fan acquisition is, I see it, you know there are two important tools in um fan acquisition the first one is data collection and so using things like lay low to make sure whatever fans you have or whatever new fans you have you can collect the data and because the more emails and the more data that you have long term the more control that you have and so like the the ultimate game is actually lay low to me um and so like we're constantly like oh this this show sold out like let's give two tickets to on lay low like our brain is just wired of like what can we give away to get more fans on lay low and then the other one is like the um the tiktok in the world you know the filming that you're doing and so like if you're a traditional artist and you're like you know i don't want to fake perform my song then it's like okay um you know like uh if you're like a geese let's say for example okay it's okay so you're like this okay what's a cool location where you could do a really cool pop-up show in front of fans and then have someone else film it for you and then so you're not actually doing anything that feels unorganic you're just doing the thing that you want to do but you have it filmed and then you use that as the footage that you put on tiktok you know and then not only that is that you're using the pop-up moment as a way to collect data for long-term stuff so it's like if you don't want to play that game of let's do videos it's like what do you what can you give in exchange um that can be used that can be used for the for fan acquisition and so like you know it's not as tiktok heavy as it used to be more like let's put like the strategy three four years ago used to be like post on tiktok until something sticks this is gonna drive it's gonna drive people to spotify right i don't think that works anymore i think it's still part of the strategy i still think that like when it comes to releasing music you you need to be thinking about what you're going to post on reels and tiktok and you need to be filming stuff but actually what's more important is like i think because everyone got so bored of tiktok we're all starving for in real life and so that's why these pop-up shows are doing so well that's why shows and that's why and that's why tv shows are impacting music more than tiktok is because it feels outside of it it It feels cultural.

55:35It feels like being a part of something rather than like watching it on TikTok. And so it's just every artist is so different. It's just like, how do you build a marketing strategy built around what you're the world that you're trying to build and what you're trying to say and the person that you are? Because guaranteed, there are things that that traditional artist does that could be filmed and cut off for TikTok. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, you mentioned Lalo and data collection, fan acquisition, all of that. What are some other tools that you use that kind of help you with this, like, fan engagement tools or data collection or just, yeah, any other tools out there?

56:24I'm a strong believer that you should just use one tool. I think there's, like, so many tools. I think, I think, I think everybody goes, okay, you should do, okay, you should, you know, like, it's, it's almost like dieting, you know, like, when you go on Instagram reels, and then it's like, you should eat carbs, you shouldn't eat carbs, you should do keto, keto is bad for you. you'll only lose weight to a car you'll only lose weight to and i think i feel like it's the same thing for the marketing i i think it's just like artists are just like uh there's too many choice of what they can do and every day i get a new email from someone like this is our platform and this is what we should do um i think that you should just pick one and stick to it and so like if you if it's discord if you love fan engagement if you want to speak to your fans then you should direct all of your fans to discord you should do everything that you can to make sure that you're building exclusive content on discord for people there if you like to write then maybe it's sub stack maybe it's like a writing a newsletter and telling people about how you feel and your writing is at the center point of it and you're collecting emails that way lay low to me is just the easiest because it's the easiest way to collect um i just think like an instagram post or an Instagram story or, you know, even like sometimes with our bands, we'll have them share from the stage, like DM us the word this to win a T-shirt.

57:54And, you know, like we've had it where they've collected 7 ,000 emails over one tour just from saying that on stage by giving away a T-shirt. And so that's why I like Lalo. I love Lalo. I'm not sponsored by them, even though they probably should pay me at this point, considering how much I talk about them. yeah um but you know like replying on a story or it's just to me it's low lift and it doesn't have to involve the band too much and we can we can just do a lot of strategies a lot of giveaways and a lot of fun things with that so like we usually love but it's just like whatever you think feels like whatever is the easiest it's the same thing with tiktok it's like you know like people are going to give to post five times a day and it's like post time and however many times a week, but just in a way that you know, is consistent.

58:38So like, keeping the bar very low for yourself, but knowing that you can do something consistently is super important. So yeah, just pick one fan platform, my favorites lay low, but there's like a bunch of different ones. And then with videos and editing, it's like, just just try to do it, you know, like try to do it in a way that feels sustainable is super simple, like one content day a month, maybe and then edit that so that you have two posts a week and and i think there are very easy steps that artists can take that don't feel as scary but it feels scary at the beginning because you know again like it's like do i eat like do i have to eat keto or but it really is just like it's it's very very simple and it works for you yeah and i think like first and foremost the music has to be the best it can be because the product at the end of the day, like if you're trying to sell a shitty product, no one's going to buy it.

59:36And so making sure that you're spending more time on the music than you are on the marketing is probably the most important thing. But once you have that figured out, it's just like, you know, like very simply, what is going to be the best tool for you? Stick to that and then spend all of your time trying to build that so that you have data from there. yeah that's awesome well laurie this has been uh so enlightening i really appreciate everything and all the wisdom that you've shared and um it's uh yeah it's been really exciting just to kind of watch uh from afar just the kind of everything uh that's been going on with the beaches and your career the last few years so this has been great thank you so much for sharing and being so transparent about all of this um i have one final question that i ask everyone who comes on the show And that is, what does it mean to you to make it in the new music business?

1:00:28What is making it?

1:00:32Making it is just adaptability, like the ability to change very quickly. I think people get really stuck in their own ways or something works for them. You know, like something that worked four years ago. You know, I remember I used to be able to like get things at number one on Hype Machine all the time and I thought I had it figured out. And then very quickly I realized I didn't. And so like adaptability and, and being, you know, like figuring out what that next thing is. And when you don't know, just not getting discouraged in the lows of it and holding on and trying to learn and think about what the next thing's going to be to kind of move the needle.

1:01:12And so like, yeah, that, that to me is what is making it stick, sticking in it for a long time and being able to adapt. Right on. Laurie, thank you so much. That was great. Cool. Thanks, Laurie. Thanks for having me. This episode was edited by Ruben Zarate with music by Brassroots District and produced by all the great people at Ari's Take.