4 tips for defining your personal artist brand

You don’t have to be unique to make it as a performing musician, but it sure helps! Having a unique style and presentation (or more pragmatically, “brand”) is key to helping your and your music standout from the crowd, as well as providing a point of connection with your audience.


Dress the part  Whatever that part may be, having a distinct style of attire is one of the most obvious ways (outside of your music itself) to become easily recognizable to fans. Depending on your genre, there may already be a blueprint for this, but taking a more irreverent route, and bucking tradition is also often well received.


Develop a good social media presence Sure it might seem obvious, but the key here is good. While being able to come across as clever and interesting on social media is nice, it’s certainly not something you should attempt if you’re just plain not good at it. As long as your posts are frequent and informative, your fans will be able to deal.


Read the room Authenticity is important but so is knowing your audience. If you’re trying to make it as a country star, but hate trucks and farming, it might be better to leave those opinions out of your stage banter. Learn to thread the needle between standing out in your niche, while not alienating fans.


The real McCoy Perhaps most important of all, be yourself. The music industry is full of stories of bands and artists reinventing themselves or catering to some fabricated ideal, only to fizzle out into obscurity. Even if you do succeed this way, if you don’t authentically love what you’re doing, and are trying to please everyone but yourself, you’ll quickly find yourself burned out and miserable.


As with so many things, cultivating a solid, authentic brand in the music industry takes time and effort to do well. Just like your style of music, however, nothing is set in stone, and while sometimes challenging, you always have the option of switching gears and reinventing who you are as an artist.