Be easy to find
My wife who’s a journalist once told me, “The more established the person, the easier it is to find their contact info for an interview…”
I’ve been volunteering for a music festival and music venue this year, which has been a great chance to get perspective from the other side of booking and promoting.
(If you do work for a venue, I now “feel” how difficult it is! Thank you for what you do!)
So here’s a little tip: Put your email and phone number on your websites.
Quit using a submission form like you are famous.
If you are worried about spam, think about missing out on legit emails instead.
I honestly get very little spam that isn’t filtered out through my Gmail account, but I’ve had three booking representatives reach out to me this year that said, “We found your contact info on your website.”
If you want to be found, make it easy for others to find you.
Here’s another example: When Lefsetz reposted my blog last year–a surprise to me– I had multiple musicians and readers email saying, “Hey! I found your email on your website, and I wanted to write that I liked your blog.”
I actual found out from a famous country musician’s mandolin player who emailed me first, before Lefsetz’s newsletter got to my email address.
Tigers, Lions and the Bear of Social Media Links, Oh My!
Picture being a volunteer for a venue, and having 100+ shows a year to promote, trying to find every acts’ Facebook pages and Twitter account for tags with PR.
You can save a volunteer’s time by having all of your social media links in one place. I want to help promote bands booked at the venue, but picture trying to find 100+ acts accounts as a volunteer! It’s a time suck!
Last Point – Booking Isn’t Done Via Facebook
It’s amazing how many acts are still sending Facebook & Twitter messages to attempt to book shows.
Seriously, what’s the percentage of successful bookings you’ve done doing this? Single digit success rate?
That’s because booking isn’t done by Facebook.
Venue owners already are time crunched, so they might have an intern run social media. Do you think that college student has anything to do with booking?
If the festival is volunteer-run, they probably have a volunteer helping out with social media. That volunteer doesn’t do the booking, and will simply direct you to the booking directions on the website.
Plus, email is more organized on your and the booking agent’s end! As a musician, I can search my past email box to see my previous messages quickly. I can re-send from the previous message. It’s way easier for the booking agent or representative on their end, too, to see the email exchange.
Comments are closed.