EP4: How to Get More Exposure for Your Work in 2024

Episode number four.

Want to get more exposure for your work?

Well, keep listening.

In this episode, I am going to share some ideas that can help you do just that.

Hello and welcome to the Food for Musical Thoughts podcast with Elishema,

The diary of a music artist.

I am that music artist and in this podcast, I document my activities, experiences, ideas and creative processes as a music artist.

My hope is that some of this will serve as inspiration and fuel for your own creative endeavors or just be food for musical thoughts.

In today’s episode, I will be sharing some ideas to help you and me get more exposure for our work.

I was doing some research for my podcast just this morning and came across a website that helps podcasters find guests for their shows. And it sparked some ideas that I want to test out in my music career, which I will do soon.

However, I thought, well, why not also share the ideas with you just in case you want to test it out as well. And if you do decide to do this, I would love it if you let me know how it turns out.

So let’s get into it.

All right.

So the website that I’m talking about is called matchmaker.fm.

Their mission is to connect podcasters with guests and vice versa.

So you may be asking, well, if this is for podcasters, how does this apply to music artists? Well, they’re also so connecting guests with podcasters and you as a music artist can be their guests.

You as a music artist can get yourself on some of these podcasts and share your story.

Their main page says join to connect with over 70,000 shows and guests ready to collaborate on compelling conversations.

So there is a lot of opportunity here.

This is a great site for anyone who wants to get more publicity and exposure for their work.

So it’s definitely great for music artists.

The beautiful thing is they actually, at the time of this recording, have a free plan which you can start with.

The free plan includes 10 conversations a month, up to five favorites, and that is basically saving favorite profiles to your dashboard. And weekly collaboration recommendations.

I just actually signed up for it as I was doing my research.

It only took three minutes and there is a section where I can create a guest profile and a show profile.

So you don’t have to do both, but you can if you would like to.

Once I was inside and looked around, I noticed it was a pretty simple website, which was great.

It’s not a lot of complex stuff that you have to go through, or links.

I noticed they had a post tap where paid members can create posts and asks for help from other matchmaker members.

And some of the posts as I was reading through them were asking if anyone wanted to come on their show to share their story.

So the opportunities to share your message and your music are abundant on this platform.

And of course, on the free plan, you only get 10 conversations a month.

But if you need more, there are other plans and I also saw an option to upgrade to their plus plan.

And at the time of this record, it was $19 a month and you get about 50 conversations a month if you need more.

So the conversations are really just messages, like messaging other people on the platform.

So I would say this is an excellent site to use when you’re looking to grow your fan base and promote a new project.

You can even use it if you just want to just like stay relevant in between projects and want to have some content that you can share with your fans.

I mean, you can always get interviewed and then share the links to your interviews on your social media profile.

So you can let people know that hey, I’m still out here doing stuff, being interviewed.

And it helps to build up your popularity and keep you relevant as an artist.

On their website, they have some articles to help you get started.

And I went through some of the articles one in particular that stood out to me was how to create the perfect guest profile.

I’ll put a link to that in the show notes as well as a link to the website itself.

So one thing that was mentioned in the article that I found was really important was to think like the show host.

What would motivate a show host to want to have you on their show?

It all comes down to what value you can offer to their audience.

And this is the most important aspect of getting exposure.

A lot of times we as artists may think like, well, I’m not an expert.

And we think that you got to be an expert to get exposure and think that, you know, like, what do I know?

However, I just want to tell you, you are an expert.

You might be saying, well, no, I’m not. I’m going to tell you how.

You may not be an expert at everything.

And I don’t think anyone is really an expert at everything.

Maybe the Creator is, the Ultimate Creator is.

Anyway, get back on subject.

One thing, if not anything else, you are an expert on your own life experiences.

You will know your life experience better than anyone else.

And what is an expert anyway?

According to a Google definition, I looked up, an expert is a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area.

Comprehensive just means they know a lot.

And authoritative means “able to be trusted as being accurate or true; reliable.”

So who knows more about your life experiences and can share the details of it accurately more than you?

I don’t think anyone.

I mean, you may say your mother, but I mean, I’m pretty sure as you got older, like, she don’t know everything.

So you are, in fact, the next bird.

She may be an expert on your childhood life, but you’re an expert on your pretty much adult life and mostly a childhood life more than anybody.

So anyway, moving on.

Sometimes we overlook the things that may come naturally to us or think some things I just trivial, but they are not.

As the saying goes, one person’s trash can be another person’s treasure.

That’s an extreme example, but hopefully you get the point.

What may be easy for you, may be challenging to someone else, and just seeing or hearing about you doing it may be amazing to them.

I say this to say that we are more than just music artists.

We just have to dig a little deeper to see more of the value we possess.

Sometimes the music aspect of us can overshadow everything else and that’s something that I’ve experienced.

And we can always tie whatever it is that we’re talking about back to the music.

If need be.

But one thing we need to remember is that in order to get what we want, we have to help enough people get what they want.

And I believe Zig Ziglar said that.

In the article it says no one wants a guess that’s only out to promote themselves.

I can see that.

So essentially no one wants to interview an artist who just wants to come on and promote their products.

Honestly, I feel that would make a quick and boring episode, almost like a TV commercial.

And I don’t know many people who like to sit through a TV commercial, except when the TV commercial is not selling but entertaining or educating in some way.

In life in general, we have to give, before we can get. Thats just basic principles.

If you believe in the Bible, it’s in the Bible.

You have to sow before you can reap.

So think about what you can give to the hosts of the podcast audience.

What can you share that can make them feel better?

I was listening to an audiobook on audible called “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur” by Mike Michalowicz.

It’s some fantastic book about starting up a business and it’s very inspiring and humorous.

Some of the languages is…. different.

It’s not politically correct. Let’s just say that.

I like the book overall. Even though some of them make me cringe, but I like it.

In chapter four, he has a section called “you got to do better” in which he says everyone is out to feel better.

And the sole purpose of your business should be to make the customer feel better.

And then he goes on to give examples to illustrate this point like one of the examples he gave was when a garbage man takes our right and garbage away, we feel better.

So how can you make the listeners feel better?

As it will be an interview and you’ll be speaking, what can you talk about in the show that will make the audience feel better?

At this point, it’s important to do some self-reflection and identify your passions, interests, hobbies, beliefs, experiences, triumphs and tribulations.

And then what you want to do is write them all down and determine which ones you feel most comfortable talking about and sharing.

If you haven’t trouble coming up with anything, you can try it another way.

You can write out some categories like health, relationships, money, fitness, sports, etc.

And use them as prompts to brainstorm some life experiences you have in each area.

And then from that you can identify how you can structure your life stories, about your experiences, beliefs, passions, etc. in each of those areas into something that entertains, educates or inspires.

For example, if you’re passionate about cooking, and in your past time you enjoy cooking for your family, you can find some cooking podcasts and pitch the idea of you talking about cooking and how it brings families together, if in fact that actually did for your family.

Not only that, you can even pitch to some relationship podcasts with that topic. And once you are on the show sharing your story about how you learn to cook with your mother or father and that built a strong bond between you two and how Sunday dinners really kept the family together.

And before the show is over you can mention your latest project, or your song release or tour coming up and ask people to sign up for your email list on your website.

And at this point, some people might really resonate with your story, fill a deeper connection with you and want to check out your work.

So basically, in this example, you’ve given some educational and inspirational content to the podcast audience and the podcaster to share with their audience and in return, you’ve gotten some new admirers and fans.

So that’s a fictitious example, but hopefully you get the point.

So now just identify some key stories you can talk about with podcasters. However, my suggestion would be to only pitch and talk about one story at a time.

And you can keep track of your stories by categorizing them with themes and keywords. This will help you when you’re looking for shows that cover that topic and also when filling out your profile, you can add these keywords and themes to your profile.

So a host will know you can be interviewed on these topics.

For example, say you survived the breakup. That can be categorized as relationships.

Say you like to Knit. That can be labeled as crafts. You can find some craft podcast that you can talk about your crafts and how you develop the skill and things like that.

And here’s something extra. If you’re still going through something and its like overshadowing everything, if you feel comfortable talking about it, that’s amazing. I applaud you.

And that can truly be worth sharing. So yeah, if you feel comfortable about talking about an ongoing challenge that you have with something.

But I would say approach it in a way in which you’re talking about it in terms of how you’re overcoming it and how you’re staying strong through it. So, it’s more of a story about true perseverance in the midst adversity.

One caveat, I would say is it shouldn’t be so sad where your audience cry, and you cry and it just become a crying fest.

I know there are instances where this probably is impossible, but for the most part, I mean, we want to make people feel better. So happy endings if possible, please.

Another way to think about it like in this case of an ongoing battle with something think of it as like an adventure story where the villain gets away at the end of the movie, but the hero crime fighter is still on the hunt for the criminal and is not given up until she defeats the enemy.

It’s a story of hope and possibility for a brighter future, even though bad stuff is still at play.

The audience when they leave, after hearing the story, they feel possibility, they feel hope, they’re not taken down to such a sad place.

For me personally, I like to keep people in a high vibration if possible. We need to keep elevated and raising our frequency, not lowering it.

So anyway, to wrap this up, check out matchmaker.fm to start connecting with podcasters. But before you do, think about what you can do to make their audience feel better.

How can you mold your life experiences into stories that can entertain, educate or inspire their audience?

We are more than just music artists, so dig deeper inside to see the hidden valuables that you can share.

Remember, we have to give to get and try as much as possible to create stories with happy endings.

They leave the audience feeling better with inspiration, hope and feelings of positive possibilities.

So to see the show notes for this episode, visit foodformusicalthoughts.com/ep4. If this episode sparked any question, you would like to ask me, you can do so on the website.

Also, if you are enjoying this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review or comment. It helps this podcast reach new listeners.

I would also be very grateful, so thank you. And last but not least, if you are enjoying this information and conversation and want to see it continue, you can show your support by making a donation.

Visit foodformusicalthoughts.com/donate or click the link to donate on the show notes page.

As a thank you, I’ll give you a shout out in an upcoming episode, as well as list your name on my show notes page for that episode.

So thank you so much for tuning in. I hope this episode inspires some musical thoughts. I’m wishing you a great day, evening or night. Bye for now.