Sasha Pisterman: You know, getting creative with the type of content that you're putting up on your YouTube, on your social media. Don’t just… I see so many indie artists where their socials are just pictures of their artwork and like: oh, new album out soon. And that's not appealing to anyone. Start doing behind the scenes content, blogs, anything that really falls within your brand and what you're trying to portray and it's creative, is a win. Then putting together kind of an overall strategy. Who are you going to reach out to?

Michael Walker: It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high-quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

All right. So I'm excited to be here today with Sasha Pisterman. Sasha is a PR strategist and consultant has over a decade of experience in the music industry working with everywhere from ASCAP to BMI and now with her agency, SDP digital, and she's worked with major record labels around the world, and recently she launched something called the complete music PR playbook, which is an online course that is aimed to help empower indie music creators like yourselves. So I'm excited to have her on the podcast today to talk about the current landscape of PR and the music industry and how, as an artist, you can really get the most bang for your buck and what to focus on as it relates to publicity. So Sasha, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Sasha Pisterman: Thank you for having me, Michael. I appreciate it.

Michael Walker: Awesome. So to kick things off, maybe you could share a quick intro of yourself and how you got started in the PR world.

Sasha Pisterman: Yeah, so that was a broad overview of my career. To give you the backstory, my father has actually been in the Latin music industry for 40 years. My parents are from Argentina and when they came to the US, my dad started working as a producer and then he started working at a lot of the major Latin record labels. He ended up being VP over at Warner Music Latin, working at Sony Music Latin. I kind of grew up with the influence of the music industry within my household and just everywhere and of course that was when the music industry had a lot more money and larger budgets. [both chuckle] Yeah, they would fly us to Hawaii for retreats and stuff. So yeah, it was a cool way to grow up, but I always loved music. So I knew I wanted to work in the music industry and I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to be behind the scenes. So when I went into college, I initially started studying marketing and I didn't love it. So I ended up pivoting towards PR. I’ve always been creative and been a writer, so I felt like that was more aligned with my background and my skills and I loved it. I started interning and I was a hustler, like I was working a full time job, I was going to college full time, I would be doing internships, I would be reaching out to publicists like: Hey, do you need help with anything? I can volunteer at your events. So that's how I started building relationships. I was working countless events. There were events for songwriters that I helped with, I did like after parties for concerts, like Drake's first LA show? I did the after party. And I ended up interning at ASCAP my last semester of college. And that's where I've developed friendships and relationships that to this day we still keep in touch. It's funny because people think that I actually worked there and I never worked there. I was an intern. But even after I was done with my internship, I would still help them on their award shows and with their ASCAP expo. Out of college, I ended up getting an actual job at BMI. I was there for about five years in their communications and marketing departments. We did four award shows a year, so we did pop, Latin, Hip hop, and film and TV. I got to go to the Sundance Film Festival, Latin Grammys, Latin Billboard Awards, South by Southwest... So it was like a crazy, amazing experience. And then from there I ended up starting to freelance and ended up starting my own agency, which brings us to where we are now.

Michael Walker: Awesome. It definitely sounds like you've had quite the journey through the music industries your whole life.

Sasha Pisterman: I have.

Michael Walker: I'd love to hear your perspective on… we have a lot of indie artists tuning into our podcasts right now. And PR and publicity is something that they've probably heard about and maybe they've put their toes in the water, or maybe they haven't done a whole lot yet, but I'd be curious to hear from your perspective what are some of the most important reasons to include some form of publicity or PR in your strategy as an artist?

Sasha Pisterman: I think that there's kind of two parts to this. I think the core of PR is really your brand strategy. So figuring out what your brand is and how you're going to showcase that beyond your music is super important because that's what's going to set you apart. And then the other part is the more traditional media relations aspect of it, which gives you the credibility. So it's not just you on your socials telling everyone like: Oh, check out my music. I'm amazing. Now you have a third party that's reputable and they're saying: Hey, this is a great album or this is an artist you should be on the lookout for. So it's like that that co-sign for an artist, especially in the beginning stages that I think is very important.

Michael Walker: Awesome. Yeah. So it sounds like a couple of the main benefits are around understanding your brand and kind of your positioning, what sets you apart, how to frame your story and you having some of these media outlets do a write up on you is a great source of credibility and positioning that you can leverage on your website and across all of your channels.

Sasha Pisterman: Absolutely.

Michael Walker: So having lived in this world and you've been a part of it for a lot of your life. I'd be curious to hear: with artists that you're working with right now, what are some of the biggest misconceptions or challenges or mistakes that you see them making as it relates to PR and publicity?

Sasha Pisterman: In the past six to seven years I went from working with a lot of major label artists to indie artists. I became known as the go to person in LA to develop indie artists into getting record deals and stuff. I would say the thing that I've come across the most is people think that getting press is their key to success and also they have these unrealistic expectations of the type of press that they should be getting. I think that a lot of times they don't understand that there's a strategy and there's a buildup that it takes, and it takes time. When you work with a publicist or even if you're doing it yourself, it's a long-term game. You have to really put in the time, put in the energy, put in the effort to build it up and get to the point where you're being covered in a Rolling Stone or Billboard or whatever.

Michael Walker: [sarcastically] Wait, you can't just like out of the gate, get a placement on billboard or Rolling Stone. What? What? What? [both laughing] Oh man. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. So it sounds like you're just having the right expectations going into understanding that PR isn't going to be like the only thing you need to do is going to save you from doing everything else, but you actually do have to have a foundation doing other things that you're doing as well. I love to hear from your perspective: where does PR fit into sort of the overall landscape of success as an indie artist? When they're looking at, budgeting their time, they're looking at: how do I get the best use out of this angle or this lane? It's not something I want to overlook. It's something I want to include, but also I need to budget my time to be focused on all the different hats that I'm wearing as an artist. What's your general mindset on this?

Sasha Pisterman: I would say 1) you need to know at what point to start implementing it into your overall marketing plan. And there's no specific metric to this, but I would say generally speaking, you should have built some type of buzz on your own where people are seeking you out. Fans, like your social media is growing, you're getting a good number of views on your YouTube, you're getting a good number of streams. Then at that point I would really focus on the foundation, like I mentioned, the brand strategy, creating your press kits and then starting to reach out to journalists. As far as budgeting time, I feel like you can do it in the beginning stages, within five hours a week of time dedicated to it.

Michael Walker: Awesome. Got it. I know that you just created a playbook on PR and publicity, and I'd be curious to hear an overview of an outline of what maybe three to five of the major steps are, if someone is at that point where they've got that foundation set up, they're starting to build a little bit of buzz, they're getting some momentum, and they feel like it's time for them to add on a PR chapter to their journey. What are some of the overview steps that they need to take?

Sasha Pisterman: I would say in this day and age, because the media world has changed so much I always incorporate content into my overall PR strategy. Like I mentioned, putting together your press kit, so either writing your own bio or having a bio professionally written, making sure that you have professional, high resolution press photos. You can use Canva to just put together a one sheet or just a basic press kit that has the bio, the photos, key highlights, links to all of your music, and your YouTube and all of that and highlighting: are you promoting a new album? Are you going on tour, et cetera. And then from there I always suggest to have a website too, and have some type of email capture because building an email list is super important, especially as an indie artist. I think too many artists depend on social media too much and as we've seen happen, the whole universal situation (on TikTok), your music can be taken down. You don't control that. So having an email list that you're in control of is super important.

Michael Walker: [sarcastically] I couldn't disagree more with that whole sentiment. No email. I hate email. All of you, you know me, I'm the anti-email guy. Just kidding. We actually built a platform called StreetTeam that we help our artists set up that's basically a CRM platform where they can use an email to connect to their fans, but I'm right there with you. I couldn't agree more.

Sasha Pisterman: Yeah, so building your kind of owned channels and then creating content start getting creative with the type of content that you're putting up on your YouTube, on your social media. Don’t just…You know, I see so many indie artists where their socials are just pictures of their artwork and like: oh, new album out soon. And that's not appealing to anyone. Start doing behind the scenes content, blogs, anything that really falls within your brand and what you're trying to portray and it's creative, is a win. Then putting together an overall strategy. Who are you going to reach out to as far as media? I would always suggest starting local. I always take a tiered approach: going local first, then you go into your genres publications. And then once you've built up enough momentum, podcasts are great. Nowadays there's so many different topics of podcasts that you could be on. And then once you're at a level where you've built things up and you've gained a significant amount of press, then you could go on towards the larger more major publications. It's putting together the course covers, putting together press releases. I have templates for how I write pitches, how I write bios. I have a worksheet for putting together your media list. I have a questionnaire for building a brand strategy. So I'm really taking you from A to Z of how I run publicity campaigns for artists that I've worked with.

Michael Walker: Awesome. Super valuable. It definitely seems like there's something about that idea of starting where you are and branching out from the things that are closest to you, locally, you mentioned in terms of PR, looking for the things that are close to you and then starting to branch out from there. It seems for some reason, there's a natural tendency to feel like success is like somewhere else, or that we need to find it externally, usually the place to start is right where you are and looking within and looking at the existing connections you already have branching out from there.

Sasha Pisterman: Absolutely. And also something that I think people don't utilize enough is their analytics. We have all of these tools, all your social media gives you the analytics. Spotify for artists gives you your analytics. So look where the people are that are listening to your music? What is, their age range, gender. Just pay attention to those things and base your strategy off of that as well.

Michael Walker: 100%. Awesome. So I see some folks in the audience saying: this is some great advice. Thank you. Yes. Beautiful. Maybe we can actually open up the floor to any audience questions. So if you're here right now and you have something that you'd like to ask Sasha, if you right click on your icon, you can raise your hand and come on here live.

Voz, you’re like prepped and loaded, ready to go. He actually just posted a list of six different questions here.

The first one on the list has got my attention. You know me, Voz. The first question he asked was, how do you see social media marketing evolving in the age of AI? That's a really interesting question and also how it relates to PR and publicity, but yeah, social media marketing in general. I'd love to hear your perspective on how you see that evolving and the age of AI. [ominous sound effect] I don't get to use that one very often, but I love that so much. 

Sasha Pisterman: Yeah. AI is a hot topic as we all know. And a controversial one also. I think that AI, when used correctly, can definitely help, especially indie artists, as far as streamlining them putting together content and not having to be such a heavy lift for them. But I would say also we need to be careful and conscious of how we're using it, because I think there's a lot of tools being promoted now that provide shortcuts and what I'm starting to see, and this is what I think has been affecting the algorithms, especially on Instagram, everybody's complaining that the reach is not good right now. I think there's an oversaturation and I think that is due to AI and people just creating all this cookie cutter content from these tools, cloning their voice, cloning their face and having the AI tool put together, like all these videos or whatever, and that's not going to work. So I think that to cut through the noise, utilize those tools but don't overly depend on them and you still have to be really creative. And like I mentioned: people want authenticity. It's also like the age of the anti-influencer. We don't want to be sold anymore. We want that human connection. So keep that in mind. And I think that's what's going to progress.

Michael Walker: The need for human connection in the age of AI when there's so much that is artificially created. It doesn't seem like it's going to get any better either in terms of saturation. It's only easier and easier to create more and more content. We already had an information overload problem. And now we have the ability to 10X the content that we're putting out.

Sasha Pisterman: Yeah.

Michael Walker: One thing that is really interesting is as we're getting ready to do our 2024 rollout for our Artist Academy Program, and part of the process is we help them to build a system for basically digital marketing for helping them connect with their fans. And part of that is helping them to identify who are the top fans that are coming into their community based on a scoring method of how engaged of a fan that they can connect personally with the fans who are at the top, like who have the most engagement. And one thing that we see working really well right now that I think speaks to the point that you just brought up, is directly connecting with those fans through Zoom Meeting. Actually connecting with them one-on-one. And obviously like your one-on-one time is super precious, but if you have a way to identify: who are the most engaged fans that are in your community who are coming in, who are new, then budgeting your time to actually connect with them personally is a really amazing way to cut through the noise and kind of stand out in the age of AI. And the same thing with live streaming, stuff like what we're doing here with the live audience, it seems like that's something that we need community as humans. So I would totally recommend what Sasha said in terms of focusing on the human elements. Use AI as a tool to help with saving time and all the other stuff, but by focusing your time and that thing that actually is truly unique that can't be replicated by AI, which is like the community of the people coming together. I think it's a really smart strategy.

Sasha Pisterman: And you just made me remember a great example: Nipsey Hussle, who I'm a huge fan of and have worked with in the past, I think that regardless of whatever genre people are into, I think studying him and what he did, especially in the beginning of his career, is super valuable because that's exactly what he did. He would take the top fans in different cities and whenever he would be on tour and let's say he was in Kansas City, he would contact the fan and be like: Hey I want to take you to lunch. Just having those strong connections created super fans. I think that, especially with indie artists, having those super fans and really connecting with them and building that relationship is also super important because at the end of the day, word of mouth marketing is always the best and having those advocates for you within your fan base is super valuable.

Michael Walker: That's so cool. I hadn't heard about that before, but where my mind goes with that is I think Joe Eddie is here live today. Yeah. Hey, Joe. What's up, man. So Joe is an artist in our community who also has a background in some software development and he created a fan map feature that plugs into our StreetTeam software that lets artists visualize on a map, little pins, where their fans are located on the map. And when you were just describing that idea to look up your top fans from different cities and actually get together and connect with them. Joe, I was just thinking about having a filter set up based on the value and doing that exactly: When you're on tour, making a point to reach out to your highest value and most engaged fan in that city. That'd be super cool. Thank you for that idea. That's awesome. 

For an artist, where do they start in terms of finding the right publications for them to reach out to? I'm sure it's wildly different depending on the artist and where they're at. But how do you recommend they start to identify the best outlets to reach out to?

Sasha Pisterman: Yeah. What I would recommend is to start with your story. So what is unique about your story? What is unique in your case, film projects or, your album. And from there you can decipher which angle you want to go. So I'll give you an example: I was working with a Mexican-American artist whose music was in English but when I was putting together his bio, what I discovered was that he was actually a third generation musician. His father was in a rock band. His grandfather was in a mariachi band in Mexico. So I said, okay, wow, this is a cool story. Now I'm going to frame him as a third generation artist. Even though he didn't really speak Spanish, I reached out to Univision, which is like the largest Spanish-speaking media company. I was able to land an interview for him on there just based around that story. Whereas, another publicist may not have caught on to that or seen that as an opportunity. Going back to your particular case, don't look at your age as something negative. Look at it as part of your story and see how you can use that to position yourself or frame your overall message. Do some research about who's writing about things similar to whatever your film is about, who's doing profiles on directors. Utilize your age and your knowledge and your experience as part of your message that people want to hear.

Michael Walker: That's awesome. Yeah. It's super interesting. Looking at more questions here from the audience, I see Voz, I'm going to keep going through your list that you'd written down here. Okay. Yeah, this is a great question. He asks: traditional marketing strategies versus social media. In the current landscape of things have evolved a lot and there's a lot of traction now with things like TikTok and Instagram and social media in general. I'd be curious to hear your perspective in terms of traditional marketing strategies, PR publicity versus digital social media. What's like the combination that makes the best sense? And are there any ones that, maybe people are under utilizing that are traditional mediums that you'd recommend?

Sasha Pisterman: I think that social media and digital is just another iteration of traditional marketing. I think that the principles still apply and I think that it has lowered the barrier to entry, which can be a good and a bad thing. So it's a good thing for indie artists because it gives you an ability to compete in an ecosphere that, prior, you had to have six figure budgets to advertise your music. And now, you can throw a couple hundred dollars on a TikTok video and promote it. So I think the principles are still the same. I would recommend for everyone listening to just read marketing books, read books about sales, and really apply those frameworks and theories that they're talking about to how you're approaching your marketing and your advertising. But as far as which platforms to use, I think it all depends on who your audience is. So if your audience skews younger, focus on TikTok. In general, I would say TikTok- you should be focused on regardless. If your audience skews more international, also incorporate Facebook and YouTube. Twitter (X) is iffy nowadays, but I would say have a presence on every digital platform that you can, because at this phase in your career, exposure is your goal. Yeah, just be everywhere. But as far as where you're putting money, as far as promoting and ads, be strategic about where your core audience is.

Michael Walker: Awesome. Yep. Super smart. Part of the strategy that you brought up earlier too was just around building your own platform, and focusing on having an email list. And it does seem like regardless of what platform that you use, if you take that strategy into account, your roots are still your community. It's still on your email list. And then you could maybe have more fun with the social media and just use the one that best connects it where your fans congregate, like Sasha was mentioning. Awesome. I see Daniel Cartier requested to speak. So let's bring on Daniel. Hey Daniel, how are you doing?

Daniel Cartier: Hey, how are you?

Michael Walker: Fantastic!

Daniel Cartier: I'm so glad I showed up for this today, cause this is actually something I've been thinking a lot about. And I actually wanted to get your thoughts on… Michael knows my story. I'm releasing a bunch of albums this year and they're all based around my story, which is like starting over again after getting sober. I have a big train wreck of a history where I worked with Elton John and then my life fell apart and then I've been sober for 5 years and I'm 54 and I’m getting started again. My thing is like: my demographic… Even though I'm covered in tattoos, it does skew to a lot of older women who are in their fifties and sixties for some reason, who think I'm like the best thing ever. I don't know why, but I'm like this weird tattooed gay guy. So I don't know, maybe they just like that. Anyways, my long winded point… you may have already just answered this so I apologize. Hiring straight up an old timey publicist… obviously doing TikTok and Instagram and this thing and that thing and threads and blah, blah, blah. If you actually have a story that you're promoting behind the whole thing, which I think is really important and we talk a lot about that with the artist's journey and everything, and what's your journey and is it engaging? Do you have a story? And getting a publicist to try to get actually old timey articles written about you as well and putting money into that: Do you think that's a good investment?

Sasha Pisterman: Yeah, I would say for your situation in particular, yes. Because you do have a history of working in the music business and working with an artist like Elton John, who's obviously huge, is a story within itself and also mentioning sobriety and mental health is huge right now. So that's something that could also be pursued as like a different press angle for you that you can speak on and that could expose you to a different audience that will connect with you on a more personal level and tune into your music and just be captivated by your story.

So I think that you have a unique opportunity to pursue several different angles to get different types of press that could help you at this point in your career.

Michael Walker: Awesome. Yeah, I totally agree. I think Daniel, it seems like there's a lot of alignment with your message and what you're doing, your music and being able to share that. I could imagine a lot of people who'd want to bring you onto their stage to be able to share your story.

Sasha Pisterman: And, just to add one thing… he said like old timey articles, but those articles, there's still the pinnacle for an artist or really for anyone, any type of business, they always want, the New York times write ups and the billboard write ups and stuff. I wouldn't discredit that at all. And social media for you can be secondary to those types of methods. Michael Walker: Awesome. So maybe to get ready to close out our podcast for today. First of all, I just want to say thank you so much, Sasha, for being here and for having this conversation. I think the music industry and all of us in general need more people like you to be able to share behind-the-scenes, what's working and be able to save a lot of time and energy and for an indie artist, a lot of budget upfront of to learn some of these strategies and tools. So thank you for doing that.

Sasha Pisterman: Thank-you for having me!

Michael Walker: Absolutely. For anyone that's interested in learning more about your course and the resources that you've put together specifically to help artists be able to do this without hiring a $200, $500 a month PR agent, could you share a little bit more details about the course that you've created?

Sasha Pisterman: Yes. So it's a self-paced online course where you can go through the modules and I'm walking you through each section. There's a video component and there's also a workbook I created that has all the templates and the worksheets. I've also put together a 60-page kind of guidebook to go along with it too. It's really thorough in helping you as an artist:

• develop your brand

• put together your media kit

• develop a PR strategy

• figure out who to reach out to,

• what types of media and publications

• implement that

• how to follow up

• how to speak to journalists.

Like I said it's really like the A-to-Z of what I have done in my career working with artists and specifically with indie artists.

Michael Walker: Awesome. Sounds super valuable. So what are the best places for people to go to if they're interested in learning more, connecting or diving deeper to take the next step?

Sasha Pisterman: So the link for the presale for the course is in my linktree, which you can find. I don't know if you can share the link, but I would say the main place is my Instagram, which is just my name @SashaPisterman and my linktree is in my bio so you can access it through there. Feel free to send me a message if you have any additional questions as well.

Michael Walker: Beautiful. All right. Let's give a virtual round of applause to Sasha for being here live today. Yeeeah.

Hey, it’s Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today, and if you want to support the podcast then there’s a few ways to help us grow.

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