Hey!

Welcome to the first official newsletter from Hey Mike. At the recommendation and urging of a few friends & peers, I thought it’d be fun to start this and see where it goes.

My goal with this newsletter is to provide value to anyone creating as I share my curiosities and interests in the worlds of music, entertainment, tech, and marketing.

So…let’s get it.

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the idea of “finding your format” as an artist creating content.

We’re all aware that content contributes to almost everything (fandom, consumption, discovery, etc) but what does it look like to find a format that works for you?

This newsletter covers:

• A few things to think about when finding your format

• Examples of formats from artists like LaRussell, Russ, Manny Wellz, & more

If you enjoy this newsletter, feel free to refer it to a friend!

Let’s dive in ⬇️ 

This newsletter takes a look at format examples from the below artists and how they utilize that format to market their music.

1. LaRussell

2. Russ

3. Karri

4. Manny Wellz

5. Dijon

Finding your format is hard lol. It’s not just about standing in front of the camera while your song plays - if you look closely at artists that embraced their own format, there are a few key elements. Among others:

• Authenticity - does it feel authentic and on brand?

• Scalability - is the creation of that content scalable given variables like budget, location, equipment, etc

• Purpose - what’s the purpose of that content? Is it to support a specific release or is it more evergreen and not tied to anything specific?

Here are a few examples:

_LaRussell

LaRussell has mastered the game of creating content that’s not only incredibly consistent, but engaging, personable, dynamic, and provides value.

For example, his Free Game Fridays series shares advice and insights about building your career as an artist. The content is so valuable it’s giving fans something else to latch onto in addition to just his music - now he’s building a set of fans who support him because of the knowledge and value he’s sharing beyond just his music.

In the below clip LaRussell talks about merch production and how he handles his own. The value in this clip for a fan is huge coming from someone’s favorite artist.

LaRussell also incorporates performance footage as part of his content format.

_Russ

Russ’ content format tends to be more straight forward - selfie-style videos (often made in Tik Tok) teasing new music and showing the music making process.

_Karri

Karri uses montages incorporating footage relevant to his lifestyle (as opposed to content of him just singing on camera) to promote his music at scale across socials. The brilliance in this is how scalable it is along with the lack of needing major production.

@4karri

it’s only you. #fypシ

_{Manny Wellz}

Manny is another artist who does an amazing job on social media. His content usually centers on him as the main character along with the lyrics written on screen in vibrant and engaging settings.

This video promoting his most recent tour is one of my favorite pieces of content I’ve ever seen promoting live music.

_Dijon

To support his album “Absolutely”, Dijon created a series of live performance videos that all took place in one setting, but were beautiful and captivating at the same time.

Hopefully one of the biggest takeaways from this newsletter (besides inspiration for your own content) is that there’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to creating content.

It can be a tough puzzle to solve but finding a solution can help create an engine to promote music.

Thanks for reading, until next time.