Marketing Monday Written by Jon for April 27th

I wrote a book a few years ago.

I published it in 2020 – so I guess that's six years ago now, and really even longer, since I mostly wrote it in the two years prior. That's an eternity in the marketing world. It feels like yesterday.

Every so often I'll still Google¹ the book's listings on Amazon and Goodreads to check whether anyone has left a review that'll fill me with pride, shame, or a deep sense of personal significance. The most recent review was in 2022, so what was always a misguided search for validation has become, for the last four years, entirely fruitless. I'll keep checking, though.

It's probably good that no one's reading the book, since large parts of it have aged like sliced avocado. The second half, especially, was all tactics: platforms tips, release plans, etc. It was the kind of stuff that's best learned in YouTube videos whose titles include the current year. I wouldn't recommend you read it.

But the first bit of the book is a little more timeless.

When I first got a job at a marketing agency out of school, I thought a lot about whether marketing was worthwhile at all: What should marketing be for? What makes promotion good? What makes music itself worthwhile?

And I kept finding myself drawn, as if by gravity, to the grounding concept of community. That's what I started writing about, and it eventually became the first section of the book.

Six years on, I still think the concept of community is relevant, and maybe more now than ever. So here's a quick refresher on what I think community is, pulled largely from what I wrote back then.

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Community is a nebulous word, which means, of course, that there have been plenty of attempts to nail it down.

Out of all of them, the definition I like most comes from an often-cited 2001 study in the American Journal of Public Health, in which researchers used cluster analysis to review verbatim responses to the question, “What does community mean to you?” across four distinct social groups: gay men in San Francisco, injection drug users in Philadelphia, HIV vaccine researchers in the United States, and Black people in Durham.

Here’s the answer they uncovered:

I think this sums things up nicely. There are four main elements that define any group as a community: social ties, shared perspectives, shared settings, and shared actions. These are all that’s needed to create a strong community.

In the book, I spend a good bit of time unpacking each of these four components; I'd rather not make this email into a book, so I won't go into as much detail here.

But I will share a few quick points:

1) Your artistry is the shared context (rather than a specific song).

Communities grow around things; you can't have a community without a center. The key is to pick the right thing to center things around. One of the easiest and biggest mistakes to make in music promotion is to overemphasize a single piece of art at the expense of the artist.

You never want one song to be bigger than your artistry. To put it simply: Focus on the catalogue rather than the quick hit.

2) A strong perspective leads to a strong community.

It's easier than ever to make music that sounds good. It's as hard as ever to make music that says anything worth saying. The former sort of music fades; the latter lasts.

I'm not saying that to have a lasting career you need to make political statements, or write ultra-deep lyrics, or even write lyrics at all. But I am saying that without a striking, discernible point of view, your artistry will become indiscernible from the internet's noise.

One tip to this end: Regularly make some other form of content. Short-form video, long-form writing, behind-the-scenes studio content – something that shows who you are and what you're about, something to set your art upon a wider web of meaning.

3) Give your fans something to do.

Shared actions are the most emotionally impactful part of community building. This is why joining an exclusive community nearly always requires some kind of action: bootcamps for the military, pledging for a fraternity, the ring-giving ceremony for a wedding. When people act with a group, they will be more invested in it.

Outside of maybe selling tickets to a show, most artists don't offer much in the way of participatory action. It's worth asking yourself: What actions signal that someone is a part of your community? If you don't have a ready answer, it's probably worth spending some time to come up with one.

4) Relationships are the end goal.

You can't really make your fans be friends with one another – but friendships follow naturally from fandom, and they're the strongest signal of the strength of a community. They're also the whole point.

Six years on, this is still the heart of everything.

It's funny reading my book now, just like it's funny listening to a song you wrote a decade ago; you find yourself in such a different place, and you find yourself so much the same person.

I've always been angsty, I guess, back since before I first started doing this. (That's probably why I like music in the first place.) But for all my existential griping, I've always returned to the same sort of answer: Building community is the end. That's what music – and music marketing – is for.

I've written about this for years. I think I'd do well to remember to it more often.

– Jon

Jon Anderson Founder @ Two Story Media Surprisingly Bad @ Sports Trivia

🫆 100% Human Guarantee I wrote this, not AI. Today's random photo: Speaking of community – Pittsburgh sports, anyone? My dad and brothers and I made it to the NFL draft last week. Here's us in front of the Lombardi trophy for the best Super Bowl ever.

P.S. – Last week's newsletter featured a bunch of reader advice on marketing and life. You can read their wise words here.

P.P.S. – This wasn't meant to be any sort of promo for the book, but if you're curious, here's the Amazon page. Feel free to buy it and leave me a review.

¹One of the side benefits of googling my book is that I get to see what Google thinks of me. Apparently I have over 25 years of experience in music marketing, which means I must've been a marketer before I was eight.

I wasn't, to be clear. Google must have me confused with Gary Vee. I find it especially funny that the bullets include links for the sake of verification, but then the linked page for that second bullet literally says nothing about me having 25 years of experience. AI is so crazy good, but also you should only trust it as far as you can throw it.