When you start getting into music production, you sometimes think that you have to handle everything yourself. But the more you get into everything you may notice that building a great network with connections in the music industry is crazy important. A lot of awesome artists create super unique music but don't have the marketing knowledge or the contacts for getting on bigger playlists. Of course, you can do everything on your own and I am not talking about connecting to big labels. This is way more about creating connections with promoters besides labels. Oh, and it's important to mention the connections to other artists.
Table of Contents
1 - What are you looking for?
Before you even start looking you should know what you're looking for. Are you looking for a manager, promoters, people for your socials or just finding new sick artists? When looking for a manager, for example, you should make sure that you know what they should do for you. Don't just think "Okay, I need a manager to do all the manager stuff". First, you should make a list of what the manager should do. Are you looking for a manager to do all your paperwork or just for someone who gets you more gigs? The same for other artists. Are you looking for a producer friend, are you looking for a singer, or just for a songwriter.
2 - Don't be fooled
You probably know all those Instagram DMs and socials from "managers" trying to sell their service. Most managers/promoters that are successful don't need to show everyone how awesome they are, because they already have their clients. That doesn't mean they are not looking for new clients. They will choose people they like. So just try to be a nice person and also talk to people that don't look that interesting in the first place, you might find the connection you've been looking for all this time.
3 - Communities
There are a lot of great events that are exactly for that specific topic, connecting with others. Most of them are in bigger cities of course. Just take the next big city near to you and google for connection events. You will find everyone you're looking for over there. Events like ADE are of course crazy good for that. But when talking about communities I also want to mention communities like TEAMMBL. You can find thousands of awesome producers on discord for example! Join our server here and connect with over 10K+ producers, artists, singers, songwriters and more.
4 - Socials
Since the pandemic, visiting events got harder or even impossible. But, we also live in the social media time! Connecting on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube is awesome. To find the right business people in your area you can use a service like LinkedIn. If you haven't heard of LinkedIn before that's not a problem. LinkedIn is basically a business social media platform. When you sign up you select a sector of work and your job. For example Music Industry and A&R. You can also search for those jobs and find new people. Another thing you can see is people's achievements so you can make sure someone is trustworthy and does a good job.
If you find someone you like you can contact them on Instagram or directly on LinkedIn. I think there are other services like LinkedIn. I just wanted to give you an example.
And if you're looking just for musicians to work with, TikTok and Instagram are probably the most creative places and best ways to connect with others! Try searching for hashtags to find people on Instagram. For example, when you need a singer for your next project, you can search the tag #cover. Now, you'll see videos of singers performing covers, and if you hear something you like & see they've got a good recording setup, reach out to them & there you go!
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