5 ways to create a brand as a musician

Identifying your brand is essential for success as a musician. Fans want to know Who are you? and Why should I care? Learn how to stand out from the crowd by following these five steps.

by Monica Strut from Bandzoogle

While branding may seem like a new concept in this social-media-fueled industry, it’s always been an important part of bringing art to life in our modern world. 

 For some artists, understanding that music is only half the picture can be overwhelming and a difficult pill to swallow. But creating a brand around your music is important because it will:

• Communicate what your music sounds like before people listen to you – This will attract your ideal fans to you faster.
• Communicate your personality – The more people know you, the more they’re likely to feel they can trust you and are a part of your journey.  This leads to a deeper relationship with your fans so they’ll stick with you long-term.
• Communicate your values – This further builds know/like/trust and gives your brand depth.  It also can help attract your ideal audience.
• Allow you/your band to stand out in the market – A strong visual component or message is enticing for new potential fans/the music industry and can really help you to differentiate yourself.

So here are 5 ways to create a stand-out brand around your music:

1. Pick 1-2 core colors

Use these colors across everything from your band photos (for example, in the background or what you wear), album art, logo, merch design, social media graphics, tour posters, etc.  If you want to stand out further, try to steer clear of black and white.  This tends to be a fall back color scheme for most artists and won’t do you any favors in terms of differentiation.

2. Pick a symbol

A symbol can be something you use all through your artwork and in videos or it can be as simple as an emoji relevant to the song/album title that you use in your social media posts.

3. Pick a theme/motif

A theme/motif isn’t as tangible or straight-forward as a symbol.  This would be something such as a VHS or early-2000s motif across all your content through filers, color-grading, fashion style, etc.  Another theme/motif could be having a recurring character in your videos or using the concept of a beach to influence color choices or music video and photo locations.

Creating TikTok trends can also fall into this category.  You may like to think of transitions or concepts relating to the lyrics, mood or certain contrasting parts in a song.  This can really shed light on who you are as an artist and perhaps what you were going through when you were writing that track.

4. Clarify how you want your audience to feel

What is the overall message you’re trying to convey with your music or art?  Knowing this will feed into everything from your live stage performance to the colors and symbols you choose to include in the visuals for each release.

Do you want people to feel empowered and inspired?  Understood and less alone?  Happy and joyful?  Like they want to immediately party?  If you don’t already, I recommend writing out a band/artist mission statement with the impact you want to make with your music. Yes, I’m sure you enjoy writing and performing, but this mission should be more about other people, not yourself.

I also recommend writing out a list of your values as an artist.  For example, does your band have a political stance on something that seems to be a running theme in your lyrics?  Getting clear on your values as an artist/band will help with so many things from song and video themes to deciding who to bring onto your team.  If a manager or agent doesn’t hold the same values as you, it may not be the best business decision for you to work with them.

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5. Understand that you have a personal brand

Your personal brand is about how people perceive you as an individual. It can influence how people see you as an artist/your band, in a positive or negative way.  Whether you like it or not, everyone has a personal brand.

Some things to think about to foster a good personal brand are:

What is your reputation?

Are you cool to deal with or do you often turn up late or gossip about others in your scene?  The music industry is smaller than you might think, even on a global level, so it’s really important that you’re professional and don’t make life harder for anyone else you work with.

The age of the rockstar is over.  The market is too saturated and people have been through enough over the last 2 years to deal with any nonsense!

What do you bring to the scene outside of playing music?

Are you a photographer, graphic designer, or music teacher?  Are you always supporting other artists at local shows?  How can you bring these things into say, what you post on social media so that it creates more depth to your brand, and helps people get to know you.

A good personal brand can lead to more exposure and business opportunities

As a career artist you’re on the path to becoming a public figure.  If your social media profiles are private, you’re basically holding up a neon sign telling people not to follow you.  Therefore, you could be rejecting potential fans that could be led back to your artist page, as well as business opportunities.

Your personal pages are such a good tool for free organic marketing.  They can also be leveraged for sponsorships and endorsements down the line.  If in a band/group, you should treat your personal social media pages as subpages of your band page and try to build them alongside it.

As you can see, branding goes far beyond visuals. It’s how you speak, your reputation and what you stand for.  But the brand you create now doesn’t have to be forever. For example, you could use different colors and symbols for every single, whilst keeping the overall theme/motif of an EP or album the same.  

What is most important is that you aren’t wishy-washy about your branding and that you stay consistent for the entirety of one release.

Your core values and mission will change less frequently, if at all.  But even these things can even be tweaked over time as you grow and evolve as a person.  You are entitled to reinvent yourself at any time, so don’t overthink things because you are worried you might be stuck with one particular image forever.  Just do what feels most representative of you and the music right now, commit to it, and you can’t go wrong!

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Monica Strut is a musician, heavy music fiend and “former” Myspace kid from Melbourne, Australia. After working for years as a music journalist and digital marketer, she now helps emerging bands and musicians reach the next level through her podcast, Being in a Band, coaching services and online courses. When not helping other musicians kick their goals she is writing, recording and playing in her own rock/metal band, The Last Martyr.