How Musicians Can Network Effectively to Secure Gigs, Mentors, and Collaborations
By: WhisperRoom™
September 26, 2024
For as long as you can remember, you have wanted to devote your life to making music. However, building a career as a musician requires a whole lot more than singing or strumming your guitar.
Musicians benefit from building relationships across the music industry, from connecting with their fellow creatives to rubbing elbows with record label execs. A robust network could increase your fan base, give you access to live events, help you secure financing, and generate other exceptional advantages for your career. However, effective networking requires more than saving the contact info of every person you meet. Here are a few tips to help you build a network that works for you.
Plan Your Career
“Career planning” might seem like an activity for a corporate-bound MBA grad, but you would likely be surprised at how much you can benefit from researching and reflecting before launching yourself into a music career. There are dozens of ways to make a career from your musical talent, and you can use the process of career planning to better understand the path to your unique goals.
It might be wise for you to create more than one career plan. The music industry is intensely competitive, and you should have a path to pivot onto should your first-choice career fail to materialize. Fortunately, there are ways to work toward multiple careers simultaneously, increasing the chances of success in all of them. For example, if your dream is to be a recording artist, you might consider also gaining qualifications related to accompaniment, music production, or composition, all of which could be valuable in your primary career but could also become lucrative careers in their own right.
Your career plan should also help you identify which professional connections could help you achieve your dreams. For instance, if you love the idea of creating music for film and TV, you will place more value on relationships with Hollywood bigwigs than if you are striving toward a career in classical music performance, in which you might need to get to know conductors or orchestra managers. Knowing in advance which connections will be most beneficial will help you wisely invest time and energy in building your network.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is a powerful networking tool, especially for musicians. With the right kind of content, you can grow your social media audience and your fan base while making valuable connections with industry insiders. Just like the applause level you receive when you are on stage, social media can give you real-time insights into the right content for your music brand.
When leveraging social media to enhance your network, you should consider whom you are trying to build relationships with and how. For example, you are more likely to reach younger fans using TikTok and more likely to connect with music journalists on X (formerly known as Twitter). Regardless, you will probably benefit by uploading your music to online platforms like SoundCloud and Bandcamp, which make it easier to share your music across the web.
Attend Industry Events
Even as you harness the power of the internet, you can’t ignore the opportunity to build your network with interactions in the real world. You should take every chance you get to attend major music events like music festivals and conferences as well as smaller events like seminars and workshops. In big cities, these events will attract attention from music industry VIPs, so you have a good chance of getting to know someone who could positively influence your career.
Sometimes, the most valuable connections are those you make in your neighborhood. You should pay attention to music events in your area, where you might showcase your talent and form relationships with local folk in the industry. You might also consider hosting your events if you live in a music desert. By providing more networking opportunities, you can build a music community where help is given to those who ask.
Speaking of community help, you would be wise to adopt the practice of asking for help yourself. No musician is an island; even if you are a solo performer, you will need to learn to rely on fellow musicians, stage crew, producers, agents, and all manner of business types to help your career soar. Asking for help from members of your network tends to create strong bonds, as it starts a pattern of giving and receiving favors that can increase in size and scope. As long as you are gracious in your receipt of aid and generous in supporting others in your network, you will see improvement in your career with humble requests for help.
It is important that you attend music industry events with the right intention: to meet the right people to benefit your career. As tempting as it might be to relax and enjoy yourself, you should be prepared to sell yourself to anyone and everyone you meet. You might research the event beforehand to get a sense of who might attend, and you should practice presenting yourself in a way that suits your personal and professional brand. Most importantly, you need to maintain relationships with those you meet at industry events, which means reaching out regularly with phone calls, holiday cards, and other appropriate forms of correspondence.
No musician in the modern world achieved success with talent alone. From Dr. Dre, who leveraged his skill as a music producer to make connections with record labels before launching his solo career, to Justin Bieber, who gained visibility with industry execs thanks to social media, the careers of the biggest names in music demonstrate the power of networking. The sooner you focus on forging stronger relationships along your career path, the sooner you can reach your dream of being a career musician.
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