Many years ago, someone once described me as, “Ask Bruce what time it is, and he’ll tell you how the watch was built.” Kind of funny, I suppose, but yes, also very insightful as to my personality, meaning, very detail oriented.
The irony is the expression that’s often used, “The less said the better.”
I understand why someone would suggest that and there certainly are times when you don’t need to go on and on (and on) about something. However, when you’re in the creator world – music, podcasting, a streamer, a YouTuber – there is certain information that you must communicate. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people, however, who leave out that vital data.
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Sometimes it’s a case of being too close to it. On other occasions there are (gulp) assumptions being made. And still other times it’s a case of just good old fashioned, “Whoops!” Certainly, you have to allow for human error, but my goal this week is to give you the nudge that will make you more aware of a bad habit you might have gotten into.
This isn’t too far from my often telling new clients that I have a knack for seeing what’s not there, for example, missing information from their website.
I’ve got one for anyone doing any type of live streaming of any kind, but first, here’s an example for indie music artists to start with as it relates to leaving off the details. And if you need a point of reference, I see this most frequently when I scroll through the Instagram feed for the account I have for my weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast, following (only) guests who I’ve interviewed on the show over the last ten-plus years.
For example, you say you’ll be performing “this Friday at The Music Venue” but you don’t say where that is! I know, I know, you’ve played there LOTS of times and you THINK that everyone knows where and/or what it is. That, my friends, falls into that ‘assume’ category. But let me dig deeper into this for you.
Sometimes you might say the street address but not the city and state! Believe it or not, there’s a chance that people might live in a close enough proximity but just haven’t heard of the place, and thus would come if they knew that it was near them because you included the city and state. Think about people who just moved to your area but don’t know their way around yet. Never mind GPS. I’m talking about not recognizing street names. Heck, I moved last August 1st and still don’t know my way around where I’m now living.
Another example is someone like me who travels a lot and wouldn’t know where Koval Street in Las Vegas is, but if you said you were performing at someplace on that street in that city and I knew I was going to be on a trip to Vegas on that same date – as is the case with me being here now – I would look it up so I could come see you!
There’s also the reverse of that, which is saying the street name but not saying the city (and state) and now I do recognize the street name, but it turns out that I was thinking, say, Tampa, and you meant, Houston, for example.
We all know really common street names that it seems like every city has, so give all the details.
If you’re part of a show that has numerous acts on it, you also want to indicate when you’re playing. If an event starts at 5:00pm and has, say, five different acts on it, but you’re not playing until 8:00, someone might decide to just arrive at 7:30. If it’s something where they had to stand the whole time and they got there at 4:45 (because it was listed as starting at 5pm) and it was three-and-a-quarter hours before you finally went on, they’re not going to be real thrilled that you obviously knew that but didn’t mention it anywhere.
You’re trying to build a fan base. You always feel a whole lot better when you take the stage and see, say, 125 people in the crowd and not just 25 people. Give yourself a chance to succeed in getting lots of folks to come out and see you by giving them all the information they need to make plans to be there to see you.
And for anyone doing any type of live streaming, always make sure you specify the time zone. If you just say, “Wednesday night at 8pm,” how do I know if that’s Eastern Time, Central Time, Mountain, or Pacific? And don’t say, “Well duh, I live in Seattle. Of course it’s Pacific Time!” First off, think of the people that don’t know (yet) that that’s where you’re based. But secondly, you might be traveling and saying, “I’m going to live stream a songwriting session from my hotel room” or, “We’ll go live for the first 30 minutes of our show” but you’re now in a different time zone from Seattle. See? Details!
Are you too close to it? Do you need someone to take a look and give you some honest feedback? Let’s jump on a ten-minute call just to make sure you’re on the right track. For twenty years now I’ve been helping indie music artists, authors, actors and actresses, entrepreneurs, small businesses, podcasters, and more. Take advantage of all my experience to keep yourself moving forward.