EMC: Connect Brisbane - It's All About Community
Last night, a selection of the electronic music scene's industry leaders converged at Monster Robot Party in Brisbane for EMC: Connect. Composed of two sessions (song writing workshop and industry consultation) EMC: Connect produced an informative discussion and insight into the dynamic landscape of the electronic music industry. Although a multitude of interesting topics were discussed by the panel; Leanne de Souza (AAM), Chris McDonnell (Music Partnerships Manager, Eventbrite), Emily Collins (Deputy Chair, AMIN), Jane Slingo (Executive Producer EMC/Artist Manager), Poppy Reid (Managing Editor, Seventh Street Media), Vanessa Cohen (Events & Marketing Consultant), I've narrowed it to a few things that are beneficial to the whole electronic music sphere. The main points included; building a community and understanding how to market to that community.
A consistent sentiment addressed between each panel member, is to be actively involved in your particular scene. Being involved is a core aspect when building a community, around your personal, professional and artistic brand. The mentality of, "fake it, until you make it" doesn't work within the music industry. The key focus should be understanding your role and how your brand interacts within the industry. A genuine understanding of your content and a personable persona is key to generating interest around your social space. Nurturing of relationships within this community, can lead to a supportive team being built around your brand, leading to possible collaboration and growth.
It's one of the most accessible times to enter the music scene, as traditional gate keepers fall by the way side. As algorithms take over, it's become crucial to understand your brand's touch points, and target audience through data collection, and analysis. Broadly, the collection of data from your audience can be broken down into passive and active fans. Using data collected via social media, streaming platforms, google analytic etc, you can determine target demographics, usage time/period, along with a plethora of other insightful information. With this information you are able to manipulate the algorithm to work for you and broaden your reach. An example of this, is increasing engagement to translate passive fans, into active fans through targeted social media campaigns, opinion leaders or via traditional media mediums. Overall, the continued tracking and analysis of your audience and their relationship with the external environment allows for educated, and calculated targets.
To sum up; build your brand identity, engage your target audience, generate genuine content, understand your analytics to work strategically, and collaborate with your fan base, and wider industry. Stay up to date with EMC workshops, and EMC: Connect events, HERE.
