Guest post by Dayna Young of the Symphonic Blog

Looking to better define your brand as an artist? Dayna Young, the Founder of Fred & Augustus and strategic marketing expert breaks down how “content pillars” can do just that…

What is a Content Pillar?

Content pillars are 3-5 topics your brand will consistently discuss, amplify and create content for on social media. — As a key marketing tool, they act to help define your brand to your fans

Creating brand definition is one of the most definitive acts of artist marketing. Capturing fan attention is a bit of a chess match in that there’s many moving parts played out strategically over a period of time. In fact, capturing fan attention requires you to know and understand your voice, your audience, your aesthetic, and social and streaming algorithms.

• You must have a clear understanding of your positioning as it relates to other artist brands and be able to pivot easily as your brand voice reacts to what is happening in the real world around you.

Get Personal

A musician should never just talk about one thing (music). People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Your fans are invested, because they invested in you, which means sharing how you view the world with them as a way of drawing them further into your personal story.

Artists who only share news about their music or merchandise run the risk of giving the impression that they are one dimensional, and that they are only capable of one conversation (themselves). We can all agree this isn’t very engaging or interesting. — It’s important to be authentically you.

How do you bring a more multi-dimensional voice to the table?

If music (new releases, behind the scenes, music videos, songwriting insights and so forth) and promotion (touring, merchandise, fan clubs, livestreams – anything that you’re “selling”) naturally form the first two categories, you’re left with only 2-3 additional content buckets to ‘fill’. Consider here what’s important to you personally as an artist, the interests you have, and what you want to stand for (as well as the degree to which you feel comfortable vocalizing your position).

It is a reasonable expectation that some artists are naturally more comfortable using their voice for advocacy matters, whereas others (who still wish to demonstrate support) feel more comfortable being active in less direct ways.