Is Your Online Presence Up-to-Date?

A singer/songwriter just hired me to write their bio.  I admired this person’s honesty in saying that they hated what they currently had.  (Yes, “hate” was the actual word used.)  Plus, it showed me a level of dedication to having something polished and professional from a provider that wasn’t themselves or a friend or family member.  There was a desire to have something up-to-date that would – yup, here comes that theme that’s quite recurring throughout these blogs – present a first-class image.

And this afternoon I had a lunch meeting with someone who I talked to about providing similar services to.  How can you expect to get booked if you don’t even have a website, not to mention much of a presence – an updated, posting regularly presence, it should go without saying – on the social media and platforms relevant to your industry?

With regards to the first client, there was also a request for me to look at their LinkedIn profile.  Initially the thought was, “You can probably find some information on there that will help you in writing my bio.”  Well, it was helpful, but for an entirely different reason.

After looking at the LinkedIn profile, I came back with, “Have you looked at your LinkedIn profile lately?”  I know what you’re thinking, reader; this is a singer/songwriter, Bruce, so why is LinkedIn even coming into play?  The individual that I was doing this work for had the vision to see that perhaps they could be attractive to corporate applications (i.e. a company who needs a singer for their commercials).  What this person forgot, however, was that their LinkedIn profile hadn’t been touched in quite some time.  Thus, it had something on there that sent up red flags when we met in person, at which point I was hurriedly asked, “How do we get that off there?!”

I admired that the professionalism and dedication extended to having a dynamic looking résumé.  Yes, as in, the document that candidates send for job openings, along with their cover letter.  Again the thinking was, ‘Perhaps these companies might want to see that I’ve done projects in that arena.’  Even though I explained that it’s not that easy (and that companies that size outsource their advertising through an agency, who is going to have their own relationship with a studio, who will have their own bank of singers), I still admired the thoroughness and the vision of this individual.

So, what about your bio?  What about your website?  What about your social media?  And are you on LinkedIn?  Is everything up to date?  When was the last time you looked at what you have posted – for all you musicians – on ReverbNation?  When was the last time you posted a track on your SoundCloud?  For that matter, are you holding on too tightly to something you wrote two years ago?  It might be time to loosen up the reigns and have someone else write it for you.

I can’t bring myself to apologize for repeating again that image is everything.  If someone visits your website or social media and is given the impression that you haven’t posted anything in eight months, they could very well think that you’re not in the business anymore.  And there goes a potential opportunity.  Don’t miss out because you’ve let your online business card fall by the wayside.

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