Monica Strut is an Australian musician and career coach for bands. After working for years as a music journalist and digital marketer (and seeing too many of her talented peers give up on music early on in their careers), she started her coaching business to help emerging bands get the exposure they deserve.

Through her coaching, consulting, online courses, Facebook group, and Being in a Band podcast she has helped hundreds of musicians become empowered to reach the next level in their careers. During our conversation, she offers up some great tips on social media marketing, Spotify playlisting, and how to balance a day job while pursuing your dreams.

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Social Media & Spotify Tips for Bands with Monica Strut

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello and welcome to episode 61 of Sing! Dance! Act! Thrive!

Ever hear of the 5 W’s and 1 H? People often ask me how…. How is my pr and marketing coaching for musicians and actors different from other coaching or training out there? And it’s a great question.

At the core, I believe in exploring the 5 W’s before we get to the H. This means my clients explore:

WHAT they really want and what they have to offer (recordings, live performances, acting for film/tv, merchandise)

WHO they truly are and who is most likely to appreciate their talents and what they offer

WHEN will they share their talents and offerings

WHERE will they share their talents and offerings

& WHY they want it, our why motivation is what drives us to keep going no matter what obstacles come our way

Only then can we be successful with the HOW of marketing, social media, and publicity.

I truly believe that how I approach helping musicians and actors attract fans, media and industry authentically is what gets the results they desire.

If you want to learn more I have a free resource called How to Attract Fans, Media, and industry for musicians and actors. The 6C Phase Roadmap to Book Gigs & Make Money that you can download at dianefoy.com/freebie

Today’s guest is Monica Strut, an Australian musician and career coach for bands. After working for years as a music journalist and digital marketer (and seeing too many of her talented peers give up on music early on in their careers), she started her coaching business to help emerging bands get the exposure they deserve.

Through her coaching, consulting, online courses, Facebook group, and Being in a Band podcast she has helped hundreds of musicians become empowered to reach the next level in their careers.

During our conversation, she offers up some great tips on social media marketing, Spotify playlisting, and how to balance a day job while pursuing your dreams.

[00:00:40.610] – Diane Foy

Hello and welcome to Episode 61 of Sing, Dance, Act, Thrive. How’s everyone doing? I’m curious if you’ve ever heard of the five WS and one H. People often ask me how how is my PR marketing, coaching for musicians and actors different from other coaching or training out there? That’s a great question. At the core, I believe in exploring the five W’s before we even get to the H. This means my clients explore what? What they really want.

[00:01:29.580]

What they have to offer, whether that’s recordings, live performances, acting for film and television merchandise. Who who they truly are and who’s most likely to appreciate their talents and what they have to offer. The when and where, when and where will they share their talents and offerings? And why? Why do they want it? Why are they chasing this dream? Why are you chasing this dream or why motivation is what drives us to keep going, no matter what obstacles come our way.

[00:02:15.730]

So it’s very important. Only then can we be successful with the how of marketing, social media and publicity. I truly believe that how I approach helping musicians and actors attract fans, media and industry authentically. Is what gets the results that my clients desire. If you want to learn more, I have a free resource called How to Attract Fans, Media and Industry for musicians and actors. The six phase roadmap to book gigs and make money.

You can download that, Diane, for dotcom slash freebie and you’ll be able to kind of see what the roadmap is that my clients go through.

[00:03:11.670]

Today’s guest is Monica Strutt, an Australian musician and career coach for bands. After working for years as a music journalist and digital marketer and seeing too many of her talented friends give up on music early on in their careers, she started her coaching business to help emerging bands get the exposure they deserve.

Through her coaching, consulting, online courses, Facebook group and being in a band podcast, she has helped hundreds of musicians become empowered to reach the next level in their careers. During our conversation, she offers up some great tips on social media marketing, Spotify playlisting and how to balance a day job while pursuing your dreams. For links and a transcript, visit, sing, dance, act, thrive, dotcom slash zero six one.

Hello, welcome to the show.

[00:04:21.130] – Monica Strut

Hello, thanks for having me.

[00:04:23.900] – Diane Foy

Yeah, so you’re based in Melbourne, Australia.

[00:04:28.070] – Monica Strut

Yep, that’s right.

[00:04:30.250] – Diane Foy

You kind of do a few things, you are in a rock band and also you coach artists on social media, marketing, all that good stuff, and you came from it from being a journalist, is that right? Love to hear a little bit more about kind of your journey from how you kind of started to get into the industry and leading to what you do now.

[00:04:57.280] – Monica Strut

Yeah. So I have been in bands since I was a teenager and before that I actually wanted to be an actor. So that was the path I was pursuing. And then when I didn’t get into the school’s musical because I couldn’t sing, that’s what I sort of started taking singing lessons and transitioned into the world of music and fell in love with that. So I’ve always loved the arts, but I found that when I was trying to build up my bands, I was taking the kind of old school approach of just playing as many shows as possible.

[00:05:35.140]

And eventually I got to a point where I felt like my band wasn’t really growing. I was in a band for about six years prior to the current one that I’m in now, and I was in several bands before that. But the band that I was in for six years was sort of my main one. And we toured overseas and did a bunch of big supports and toured Australia as well. And we were starting to build a name for ourselves, but it kept feeling like we were hitting our heads against a glass ceiling.

[00:06:05.200]

And it wasn’t until I did some consultation sessions with a local promoter and manager that I really got the knowledge that we needed or we got the knowledge that we needed to actually understand how the modern music industry actually works. And that was such a pivotal moment because prior to that, I’d just been going off all the biographies that I had read. I’m a huge 80s rock fan, so I’d read Dirt and all the Guns and Roses books and Alice Cooper and everything and was basing my knowledge on that, which definitely served me, especially when it came to the mind set piece.

[00:06:41.590]

But in terms of the new world of social media and how to actually release music properly, there were a lot of gaps in knowledge. So eventually that band that I was in for six years did break through that glass ceiling and did achieve some of the things that I mentioned. But then we broke up and I thought, oh, my gosh, I can’t spend another six years effectively getting a new band back to the start, so. I’d already been dabbling in music journalism and I needed another creative outlet anyway, so I transitioned my career into marketing, specifically social media management, and I just became obsessed with learning how the bands that were up and coming and, you know, signing to management and agencies and labels and getting off that local level and reverse engineering what they were doing.

[00:07:34.890]

And then eventually when I started my current band, The Last Martyr, we were able to put a plan in place that I definitely think has saved us a lot of time and energy and emotional stress in the process. So I my mission is to, I guess, school bands and specifically being a music journalist, I have, I guess, been exposed to the business side of the industry and the network as well. And it’s amazing how much you can learn from someone, you know, a label person or a manager just by sitting down and having a beer with them.

[00:08:15.270]

And that’s the opportunity that music journalism sort of afforded me and being backstage at festivals. And I was like, no one is teaching them this stuff, that there’s a huge gap here. And yeah, my goal is to really, I guess, fill that gap and help bands generate a buzz and get off that local level or what’s coming at it from the perspective of being in a band and being in similar shoes, trying to get my own band, you know, with my own band forward at the same time.

[00:08:48.780] – Diane Foy

So what are some of the success stories of the band that you’re in now or before?

[00:08:57.000] – Monica Strut

Yeah, so my band’s The Last Martyr. We have only been around for about two years. Well, probably about 18 months if you just 20, 20 was a write off. So we took a bit of a break. We did record our second EP though, so it wasn’t completely a write off. I guess some of the main differences between the way that this current band is launched and full transparency, there’s no shortcut here. So even though I feel like we have done things very strategically, it’s not like there’s a shortcut that’s going to say, OK, well, six months after you launch, you’re famous and touring the world.

[00:09:38.550]

It just really it doesn’t work like that so that some of the core achievements that we have had is we I mean, our debut EP has over one hundred thousand streams on Spotify. We’ve been able to build our social media fairly quickly and not just of friends and family, but we’re starting to interact with people globally who are genuine fans of the music and aren’t connected to us personally.

[00:10:10.440]

And we’ve also, you know, established a really great reputation within the media, specifically Australian media, because that’s where we’re from. So, yeah, we’ve we’ve had articles in most of the major publications here and I guess. Had that sort of backing from the industry as as well, which is really nice, I think that PR is so important to getting exposure to new audiences and scaling credibility as an act and generating a buzz. So, yeah, we’ve got some big goals for this year playing.

I mean, shows are just coming back here in Australia, so hopefully playing some support shows and getting out there and building our fan base locally, even more so because the industry has suddenly changed since twenty nineteen.

[00:11:05.570] – Diane Foy

Yeah. And do you still write for magazines?

[00:11:10.040] – Monica Strut

I don’t anymore. I, I mainly just focused on my own business. I was just sort of phasing that out and just doing the interviews at festivals and whatnot because that’s of course the funnest part getting to, to, and I always have my own kind of agenda.

I love asking the big artists about when they were first starting out and about the advice that they would give, because oftentimes I don’t think a lot of people ask about that sort of stuff. But yeah, I mainly focused on my own band and business at the moment.

[00:11:48.380] – Diane Foy

Yeah. That’s why when I do interviews with artists, it’s like I love hearing the whole journey. I want to hear the struggles along the way. What did you learn? You know, it’s so important to inspire the up and comers. Absolutely. There is no fasttrack. There is no easy way. It’s it’s not even the well-known names have had some struggles, so.

[00:12:11.780] – Monica Strut

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:12:13.670] – Diane Foy

Yeah. And so what made you transition to also helping out other artists? In promoting there, is it mostly promotion that you help artists with?

[00:12:26.310] – Monica Strut

So it is consultation and coaching. So my philosophy is really to teach a band to fish so that they can be self-sufficient. I don’t want to be working with bands forever. I want to kind of send them off into the world and then able to have strategies that they can rinse and repeat. But it really just stemmed from I saw a lot of my friends give up on music really early on.

[00:12:50.540]

So I went to music college and after a couple of years later, after we graduated. A couple of years after we graduated, most of those people that I was in a class with and I’m talking about a class of 90 people had given up or just weren’t interested in music anymore. And it may have been that maybe they didn’t have the passion and drive to begin with and they were kind of just studying music. And mind you, this was a very expensive course.

[00:13:23.440]

So, yeah, it’s this is crazy. If this is the case, maybe they just never had the drive to succeed in the first place and were just doing it as sort of an interim thing. But I think for a lot of my peers and friends who all are so talented, I was constantly blown away by the people that I was in the class with. I think that. They just experienced that frustration of not really knowing what to do next, booking shows and just feeling like their audience wasn’t growing or releasing music and posting on Facebook and not really getting a response and wondering why that is.

[00:14:04.030]

And it just broke my heart after seeing people that I was close to not pursuing what was once a huge dream of this anymore. And I thought, well, if I can share what I know. Even though, you know, I’ve still got so, so much that I want to achieve and I will continue to document my journey, but just working as a music journalist and being as obsessed with studying the industry, if I can just share what I know and and help others to live the life that they were born to live and then help people through that music, that would that would be really, really fulfilling for me.

 [00:14:46.480] – Diane Foy

And so what are some of the social media tips that you give artists and what is your process when it comes to approaching social media promotion?

[00:14:55.510] – Monica Strut

Yes. So I have a bit of a relaxed approach compared to a lot of social media managers. My approach is pretty holistic nowadays, so I always am. Working with clients at the whole picture, as opposed to just building social media, because you can just run an ad and get a bunch of followers and that’s that. But that’s not necessarily going to generate fans for you, because if they just empty followers, they’re not likely to actually purchase any music from you or merch or come to your shows.

[00:15:34.060]

So one of the biggest things for social media is one of the biggest roadblock, as I find is people run out of content, so. The more that you can build in content creation into your everyday band activities, the less stressful it’s going to be when it comes to posting on social media. So one of the my favorite things is documenting. So if you’re shooting a video, then having a behind the scenes photographer or a friend with a good camera there to really document that and take behind the scenes videos that you can later edit into a video series or behind the scenes photos that you can use to promote or tell funny stories about the shooting day on Sociales. You’re already there in your stage outfits shooting the video anyway, so why not capture various types of content, not just the actual video clip content?

[00:16:39.830]

And it is important to get a third party to capture this because of course your main focus should be on the actual performance of the day of the video and making that the best it can be. But that’s really one of my favorite tips to share.

[00:16:55.850]

And whenever the band is hanging out or whenever you are, if you’re a solo artist or even if you are an actor or dancer, whenever you are rehearsing or you’re in the recording studio as well, just remember to document. I think if you get in the habit of documenting, then that is just going to make your life so much easier when it comes to social media. And yes, it’s important to know the algorithms. And but I don’t think that that’s the most important thing.

[00:17:26.690]

I think having high quality content and sharing your personality and your values is going to override, you know, just a stock standard. Boring post on social’s. So really letting that shine. It’s building authentic communication and authentic connections, and so just being able to kind of. Document what you’re doing, you collect photos and videos and stories as you go instead of facing your computer going, I don’t know what right now.

[00:18:02.600] – Diane Foy

Yeah, exactly. What do you recommend when it comes to instagram? Instagram can be very overwhelming, because that alone there’s the feed, their stories, there’s Reels, there’s IGTV, there’s guides, and pretty soon they’re going to add audio to compete with the clubhouse and all that. So how do you recommend someone just begin to tackle that if they haven’t been consistent?

[00:18:30.910] – Monica Strut

Yeah, it can be quite overwhelming because this social media channels popping up all the time. There was an 80 something percent rise in twitch consumption in twenty twenty because, of course, everyone’s at home and and also clubhouse is just launched. So it can be really overwhelming for musicians and bands and any creative to try and tackle all of that and be like, hey, you’ll have to be on clubhouse, have to be on twitch, I have to be on Facebook or have to have a Facebook group.

[00:19:08.770]

I have always come at social media with the approach of just choose a couple of platforms and do them really well. And then once you feel like you’ve mastered those, then if you’re interested then to expand onto the other platforms. Because, yes, Tik-Tok is amazing in breaking new artists and new songs, but. If you don’t understand the nuances of the platform and if you’re missing the basics and spreading yourself too thin elsewhere, then that’s not really going to be the best strategy.

[00:19:43.520]

So I always think the best place to start at this current time is still with like the big four, which is Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. And most of the stuff can be repurposed across all of those platforms.

[00:20:00.090]

You can pretty much post everything on Instagram, on to Facebook, but I wouldn’t share it. So because then you end up having hashtags and the at symbol usernames across on Facebook, which looks really messy. So it just takes three seconds to copy a caption and rewrite it for the Facebook format. But you can also share the same stuff on Twitter. As well, and not making life too hard for yourself, and then once you get into the habit of posting every day, then you can start to switch things up.

[00:20:36.540]

And especially with Twitter, it’s such an easy platform to use once you get the hang of it, because it’s basically just writing your thoughts or asking questions. It’s kind of like my friend Matt Bacon calls it the world’s chat room. So we fight Real’s and all the all the new features. Yes. Algorithmically, if you start to use those features as soon as they pop up Instagram, certainly pushing rels right now, then, yes, it’s beneficial.

[00:21:05.970]

But if social media isn’t something that comes naturally to you, don’t feel that pressure, just do your best and be consistent and then when you’ve got a handle on things, then start to experiment. And I think experimentation and having fun is really key to being motivated with social media not taking it too seriously.

[00:21:27.350] – Diane Foy

Yeah, because, like especially with stories, they disappear in 24 hours, so go for it, just have fun and see what works. you can repeat it if it worked out really well.

[00:21:39.710] – Monica Strut

Exactly. And with stories because they disappear, the relationship-buildinquality of what you’re doing doesn’t have to be that high. In fact, it’s more endearing and better for the relationship building if it isn’t high quality because people feel like they’re getting a behind the scenes sort of real unfiltered version of of you as an artist.

[00:22:02.930]

Yeah, that’s important to look at. Everything doesn’t have to be perfectly shot and edited and all that. It’s like people just want to see you. Yeah, it’s been quite interesting, actually.

A couple of years ago it was preferable to have the most polished feed high-quality and really, really professional high quality photos. And you see influences with the perfect creative approach, every third title title, for example. But now the preference to for uses is actually stepping away from that perfect facade and actually stripping away some of the filters and being more real and raw and authentic. And I personally have struggled with this because I’ve already trained myself over the last few years, too, know?

[00:22:55.160]

I mean, I still think that your photos need to be of a certain quality. Most people have a good quality camera on their phones these days, so that’s usually not really a problem. But I mean, I still wouldn’t recommend the grainy, dark rehearsal room photos or anything like that. But there’s less pressure to have that polished, perfectly edited photo. And and, yeah, a lot of you know, the beauty community is starting to strip away the filters in the editing and show that people have texture on their skin and, you know, they repurposing stories onto their main feed when half the text is cut off.

But, you know, that story was probably important to what they had to say. So that’s why they’re sharing it.So, yeah, it’s really interesting. The the trends now are to be less polished, which I think is really nice.

[00:23:47.080] – Diane Foy

Yeah, and you have a freebie about Spotify tips, you tell us about that and share some tips about Spotify playlists.

[00:23:57.460] – Monica Strut

Yeah, absolutely. So Spotify is one of the things that I mean, we all know Spotify is important. It’s an important platform. And the first thing is a lot of musicians don’t like Spotify because of the royalty payouts, specifically because they’re quite low.

[00:24:20.590]

But the first thing is you need to think of Spotify as a marketing tool instead of a sales tool, because Spotify has the ability to get your band exposure for free to potential fans all around the world. And your music can be recommended to fans and are listening to similar artists.

[00:24:41.590]

So I think that that’s the approach that everyone has to take with Spotify. So. My band has had some success with Spotify, as I said. Our AP got over one hundred thousand, has over one hundred thousand streams, and I’ll stand alone single, I think, got fifty thousand in a really short amount of time. And so I’ve seen firsthand how that then translates to people following you on social media and the power that it has in terms of discoverability. So I’ve worked with a number of bands who have been playing listed on editorial playlists, which is kind of the playlists that people are aiming for when they work, when they.

[00:25:31.530]

Think about Spotify, I suppose, but the algorithmic playlists are actually really, really powerful, so once you get picked up by those, then you’ll just see the numbers kind of snowball from there.

[00:25:43.830]

So I have a cheat sheet, which I guess breaks it down really easily. How to how to channel people towards Spotify, because I think one of the biggest issues is splitting your audience when you only have a small audience, so trying to direct your audience to too many platforms, you know, follow us and Spotify, follow us on YouTube and I guess splitting up the small audience that we already have.

[00:26:16.750]

So if you want to build Spotify and if you want to if that’s a platform that that especially for the younger demographic, if that’s a platform that you feel like your band could could really use, then this teacher will teach you how to funnel the fans that you have currently to Spotify in order to, I guess, create that snowball effect of getting picked up in the algorithms.

[00:26:42.970]

And then also I have a video on there of what to actually write when you’re submitting your songs for the editorial playlists and also an idea about time frames because. You can’t just upload your song a week before the release date and think that. There’s going to be a chance of getting playlist, did you actually need to upload your song about four to six weeks prior to the release date and not leave it to the last minute in order for the editors to actually have a chance to listen to it?

So there’s a bunch of tips and tricks on there. But it’s not just about editorial playlists. It’s also about those algorithmic playlists and what the difference between the playlists are and how to kind of maximize your chances of having success with all the features that Spotify offers.

[00:27:30.530] – Diane Foy

Yeah, and yeah, there’s so many independent playlist, too, and I find even with blogs and playlists, like when I was doing more publicity, a lot of times artists only thought about, I want to be on Pitchfork like the big major music magazines and I want to be on the editorial playlists. And I always had to get to go. But how about we start down here? We’ll get there. But, you know, I don’t want to discount the smaller blogs and the smaller playlists because it’s you’ve got to start somewhere. And I think the more smaller playlists and the more smaller blogs that you get on, the bigger ones will start to take notice.

[00:28:18.200] – Monica Strut

Oh, yeah. It’s like you can’t build the roof of a house before the foundations. It’s not just about being I mean, I don’t really like the term, but realistic. I mean, I think that anything’s possible, of course. But those smaller blogs and the smaller playlists, if they like you, they’re going to support you for many, many years. And I find that the small blogs are really, really powerful in getting that start building that foundation and getting a few media quotes from your app.

[00:28:48.650]

And there are so many smaller blogs that now support my band who have been following my journey since my old band. And they’ve supported everything that I’ve done because I reached out to them, you know, seven, eight years ago and they’re still following me. And I just think that that’s amazing and they’re still supporting what I’m doing. And so, yeah, I think that the smaller blogs and playlists, they’re doing it because they’re so passionate about the music industry.

[00:29:21.080]

And yeah, definitely don’t discount that because. Yeah, that there’s definitely power to that.

[00:29:29.760] – Diane Foy

Yeah, and another thing that you mentioned would be how to juggle a day job with your career, because a lot of performers, they have to have either part time or full time day job just to support because of the beginning, you’re spending more money than you’re making. So you have any tips about that? That would be fantastic.

[00:29:55.630] – Monica Strut

Yes. So this is such a core part as well about why I do what I do, because I’ve had a lot of, I guess, traditional jobs which were really, really unfulfilling. And as a creative, they definitely working in those and just feeling unfulfilled day in and day out had such a huge impact on my mental health. And so this is definitely a topic that I’m so passionate about. So I guess the. The first tip that I have is to I mean, first off, if you are hating your job and if it is at that point where it’s impacting your mental health and you’re feeling like you’re starting to get burned out, the first thing I would suggest is dropping down either from full time to part time or if you’re already four days a week, then maybe considering three days a week, because just giving yourself one extra day in the week, I know for me it changed my whole outlook.

[00:30:53.740]

It no longer felt like I was living to work and that this was consuming all of my energy. I then had the space to come back to myself and to create and to feel like I was living my life again, because I think that it’s easy to a lot of us get up at 7:00 a.m. and get ready and travel an hour to work and then work for eight, nine hours and then travel in our home. And that’s your whole day gone.

[00:31:22.570]

So if it’s really at that point where you are feeling anxious when you’re going to work or you’re just really tired and burning out, no longer have the energy to pursue your creative career, there’s no shame in dropping down a day because luckily it’s I mean, obviously circumstances are different for everyone, but for me at least, that one day of earning less income didn’t impact my life super significantly. I was still able to to live and everything. Of course, maybe not as much Obetz, but it really was, you know, a little bit less income in the meantime for a whole lot more gain in energy.

[00:32:06.400]

The next thing is really utilizing that travel time, your net time to and from work. That’s when I used to do a lot of my social media posting, traveling to work or on the way home and also listening to things that were going to inspire me on the on the journey to work also was a huge priority. So when I was back in Sydney where I used to live, that was saying that’s the kind of New York equivalent of Australia. I used to use that time to post on social media, and then when I moved to Melbourne, I got a little bit stricter about my social media use because I was doing it for a day job.

[00:32:50.270]

And so I would not go on social media in the morning, but instead use it to attain knowledge and to be inspired. And then not my headspace was a lot better as soon as I’d walk into the office, because I’d already felt like I’d learn something new or that I had the motivation I needed to get through the eight hour day and and then continue my creative pursuits afterwards.

[00:33:19.610]

So that’s that. And then obviously lunch breaks as well. You can do the same thing. I mean, quite often I would pop out on a ten minute break or on my lunch breaks. And where I worked in Melbourne was near a bunch of factories and there was cool graffiti. So I’d often go round the corner to this nearby sort of street with a lot of graffiti because it had a cool background. And I’d just jump on stories and talk about the latest program that I was releasing or just share tips with my audience and just utilizing any sort of spare pocket of time that I had to, I guess, work on my on my business or work on my band, whatever my focus was at the time.

[00:34:02.630] – Diane Foy

And for those, like seeking knowledge, that’s the great thing about podcasts and audio books.

[00:34:09.230] – Monica Strut

That’s the time you can absorb all that information just in your ears on your way to work. Yeah, and I was lucky enough. I mean. All of my recent jobs were pretty relaxed, and that was definitely on purpose, for my part, being drawn to those roles where I could listen to podcasts and music as I worked.

[00:34:28.880]

So I think that choosing jobs where they aren’t so strict, working for companies, I guess, that are a bit more relaxed on that really helped my mental health because I have also worked in jobs where no phones allowed and I understand why. But even just the ability to like, listen to music and listen to podcasts and not feel like I was just dedicating all my energy to building up someone else’s career or someone else’s dream. That was really helpful.

[00:35:03.320]

So if you’re currently looking for a job, keep an eye out for maybe kind of more modern companies that are a bit more flexible, either with hours or have a culture that allows you more freedom. And they’re not micromanaging you.

And they don’t mind if you listen to podcasts or listen to music through your headphones during the day, because it’s just going to make it is going to improve morale, I think. So if you can swing that, then, yeah, that is definitely preferred, in my opinion.

[00:35:38.930] – Diane Foy

you have a podcast Being in a Band. What made you start the podcast and what kind of topics do you cover?

[00:35:45.680] – Monica Strut

Yes. So I’ve had the podcast for about 18 months or so now and it started originally I had a blog. So my website, Monicastrut dot com is still like a bunch of blogs on there. And I love writing. That’s like my first love. But I realized I could say a whole lot more through a podcast and I could get through a lot more information just by speaking instead of writing. And also, I feel like podcasts really allow your personality to shine, whereas sometimes with blogs you can still let your personality shine through.

But I think one of the nice things about podcasts is getting to know the hardest and. Even the mistakes I often leave those in, because it just shows that you’re human and can kind of laugh about it. And as far as topics. A lot of it was very marketing focused in the beginning, and I also have a weekly segment on the daily music business podcast, if anyone wants to check that out. And I still speak a lot about marketing on there, but I’ve kind of stepped more towards, I guess, that holistic perspective of being an artist, how to improve your relationships within your band when you’re working with three or four other creatives in this personality clashes, branding and release strategy, so to speak, about pretty much.

[00:37:19.140]

All aspects of being in a band, I don’t talk about gear. That’s the one thing that I don’t talk about. Right. But yeah, it’s mainly sort of marketing image and also the mind set piece and just the I guess, the business piece of being in a band.

[00:37:34.510] – Diane Foy

Right, cool. So where can people find you online?

[00:37:39.460] – Monica Strut

Yes, so you can go to https://monicastrut.com  and that will link you through to both the being in a band podcast and the daily music business podcast.

[00:37:47.950]

And there’s so much information on the website now through my old blogs and podcasts, so you can use the search function to find if there’s anything specific. Other than that, I’m just @monicastrut everywhere online and you can grab my free Spotify playlist cheat sheet at Monicastrut.com/Spotify

[00:38:08.320] – Diane Foy

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us.

[00:38:11.380] – Monica Strut

Thanks, Diane, for having me. It’s been great.