Brand Man Sean:
When you have a point of view that's exercised regularly, fans connect with that. This is how they get deeper with you. So people who are able to share a point of view, that's not the only thing that matters, but those artists tend to make pretty strong connections with the fans who do connect.

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.

Michael Walker:
All right. So I'm excited to be here today with Sean Brand man Taylor, who is a music branding and marketing expert. He's written three books on the music industry, all about mastering your brand name. And his book, Master Music Branding, is considered the expert guide to an artist's image. And specifically today, believe it or not, I think it would be really valuable to focus on the topic of music branding. Because as an artist, especially nowadays, there's so much content, there's so much music, there's so many things online, and I think one big question that are asked is, how do we cut through the noise and how do we really present ourselves in the best possible way?

Michael Walker:
So I'm excited to have Sean out here to be able to talk about this. So Sean, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Brand Man Sean:
No problem, man. Glad to be here.

Michael Walker:
Absolutely. So to start out with, I'd love to hear just a little bit about your story and how you got started?

Brand Man Sean:
I didn't plan to be in the music industry. I never saw it as a place that you could work full time, make money from, it just never really dawned on me that way. For whatever reason, I always loved music, but it was just a passion and that it just was what it was. And then one day I started helping some of my friends out who were this collective of artists and DJs and food curators and everything was just this really artsy way of presenting whatever they did. Like the food was done, you would've thought they were an artist. People thought that the grilled cheese maker was a rapper, the guy who made these juices, he came off as this anime character. It was this really creative bunch. And in trying to help them get attention for themselves, I started to find myself really heavy in events.

Brand Man Sean:
Obviously multiple of them were artists and DJs. So I'm in some sense, I wouldn't say managing them, but definitely advising and providing counseling when necessary, and then 100% making promotions happen, strategizing the entire campaigns for that. And it was really small events here, parties and things like that. And then one day I came up with a platform called Adventure ATL, Adventure Time ATL was the first name, changed it just to be further away from the TV show that became eventually Adventure ATL Fest. And that whole idea was this massive event we rented out in school and every single room felt like its own different environment, whereas it felt outdoors in one room, it was a high level, what you call that? Art gallery in another room. You'd go in the basement, it's a rave going on. It's a glow party in another space.

Brand Man Sean:
It was really immersive event and that it just kind of took off. But I originally came up with it because it was like, "Hey, it's your turn to do something." And it was like, "Well, I'm not an artist. So what can I do to just gives you guys a platform?" And as that began to take off and by word of mouth more and more people wanted me to do it again, I didn't plan on doing it again, that grew. And as people really realized that I was the mastermind behind all of it, all of the artists started to ask me for advice. And from there I just got to a point where I was like, "Hey man, there's so many questions coming in, why don't I just put them on a YouTube video and then send them the link for when I get these similar questions."

Brand Man Sean:
And from there it just became, "Well, man, I kind of like this, let me give this a year's worth of time and see what happens." And I gave it a year's worth of time, I ended up with 23,000 followers. And after that year, and I was like, "Well, I guess it's worth doing." But to be real, at first, it was just this one guy. There were a lot of people who gave me good feedback on some videos here and there, but there was this one guy who was just like, "Yo man, I'm sharing this on Reddit, it's a great video." And for a while I was just making it for him, because he was encouraging me on and on, he was the one guy that I didn't know, there were other people, but I didn't know this guy, which I thought was cool.

Brand Man Sean:
And all of my stuff was pretty brand-focused. So when you ask where Brand man came from? It came out of thin air, because I was Sean Taylor, that was the YouTube channel. All right, I'm talking about all this artists branding stuff, just because that's my interests. I really plan to talk deeper into psychology and so many other aspects of things, but it kind of just got, I wouldn't say pigeon hole because I did it to myself, but it was so much traction in that part alone, which I enjoyed naturally that it started to become a thing. And I was like, "Man, I can't talk this much about branding without branding myself at all." And Brand man was what I came up with. I don't even remember how I came up with Brand man, but it's not that creative, right? It's not that far.

Michael Walker:
I like it. But that's how the Brand man was born. Awesome.

Brand Man Sean:
That's it.

Michael Walker:
And shout out to that one person. I think that every successful artist or every successful person who has built a following, I think has started with that person, that one person who was just all about it, he just believes in so much really. So shout out to that person. What was their name?

Brand Man Sean:
K-ola.

Michael Walker:
K-ola.

Brand Man Sean:
I'll never forget that, man. K-ola.

Michael Walker:
Yep. Shout out to K-ola. I've got someone like that. Don Samgy who just comes to mind like instantly, because same thing and I think that's so powerful, especially at the beginning and it's a good lesson for everyone that's listening or watching this right now is like as a musician, if you're starting out and you haven't built an audience yet, it's just one at a time. And when you just have like a few people that doesn't mean that you're not successful yet just means that you've really focused on showing up and doing your best and really thinking about that person who is all about it and the rest will follow.

Michael Walker:
So, now having fully assumed the identity of the Brand Man, being born as the Brand Man I know that you've connected with a lot of of artists who have asked you a ton of questions around this specific topic of branding and how do we stand out and how do we like really find our niche? And so I'm sure that you start to see a lot of patterns, a lot of like similar questions, common challenges, common mistakes are coming up. So when it comes to like artists branding, what do you think are some of the biggest challenges or mistakes that you see artists making?

Brand Man Sean:
All right. So I'll break it down a few different ways. Number one is understanding that, branding is not just a visual phenomenon, right? And most people think branding and they just go straight to what they look like, that expression. And that's only one part of the brand DNA. I remember artist that, she's pretty successful in her own, right? But this is like artists, like drawing and stuff. And she told our mutual friend that I needed to brand myself better earlier on. He was like, "He's the Brand man. What is he doing?" But I knew, right? The most important thing for my particular platform was the information, right? Like I didn't need to have high quality video. I didn't need to have high quality mics. It was like the information for the right people that if anything, it would filter out the wrong people early on.

Brand Man Sean:
And that's what I needed. Like let alone the fact that I wasn't like a wizard with those things. I probably would've did it anyway, if I was a wizard with those things. But like just knowing, right? That there's more to it in that helps vastly and also understanding that is contextual. So what a lot of artists will oftentimes find themselves thinking of as separators aren't necessarily separators because they're looking the wrong directions in the wrong context. For instance, if I'm the guy who says, "Oh man, I want to be different. I'm going to give myself colorful hair". Right? Well, contextually, if you're at your corporate job, yes, you're different. But then if you're a rapper, especially today, right this day and age, people aren't comparing you to those people at the corporate job, they're comparing you to other rappers, right? So you have to stand out next to the people that you'll be compared to more than anything, right? So always consider that context as well. I mean, I could let more come out naturally, but those are just immediate things that come into mind.

Michael Walker:
That's good stuff, man. Yeah. And I think that it is really powerful and to take a step back and think about it in those terms, in terms of, I think a lot of times musicians, like you're saying, they might feel separate. They might feel like they stand out because they're a musician compared to everyone who's not a musician. But when it comes to musicians themselves, like you're on a stage next to other musicians and so that makes a lot of sense. Really kind of thinking about what is it that makes me unique when it comes to my voice within the specific domain?

Brand Man Sean:
Voice is huge, by the way. Voice is huge, not just vocally, right? But point of view, right? One thing when you'll know, now, we're talking about deeper than individuals and all that stuff, is when you have a point of view, that's exercised regularly. Fans connect with that. This is how they get deeper with you. And you'll see the best branded people from the point of view perspective. One, they tend to last, right? When people are attaching to point of view and people will be able to say something like them, right? Drake would say it like this, right? Taylor swift would say it like this because they've already made their point of view clear, like you could mimic your mom how she would say something versus your dad would say something versus your relatively or your wife or something like that because you are very familiar with their point of view. So people who are able to share a point view, that's not the only thing that matters but those artists tend to make pretty strong connections with the fans who do connect.

Michael Walker:
This is a really powerful thing to consider, I think is kind of reflecting on the points of view that you have, that might be... Yeah, I don't know if this is the right words, like controversial, but things that are connected to a movement, right? Like controversial, I think sometimes controversial is like a good thing if it's used to create a movement in the right direction, right?

Brand Man Sean:
Right.

Michael Walker:
So being intentional about kind of reflecting on those things, those movements that are happening right now and having a space where you can share your point of view. There is something about music, especially, right? Where a lot of times it's like the communities in general are kind of built around quote-unquote misfits, who all feel like misfits, but when you come together in this community, it's like, you realize, "Man, I thought I was weird because I was into this thing. But man, like all these other people enter this kind of thing too." Right? So just kind of mention [crosstalk 00:11:17].

Brand Man Sean:
Yeah, I call it the established anti-establishment, right? Where they begin to form their own rules. And in many ways become kind of like the establishment they originally were supposed to be raging against because now you see the guy in the business suit and you expel him right away from the group in the same way you might have been up before. It's a weird phenomenon, remaining independent is a very difficult thing. And there's a difference between being contrary and independent. It's a fine line.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, for sure. It is definitely interesting because it does seem a lot of times, I mean you consider like in America, like the political divide in a lot of ways, there's kind of like these two conflicting points of view and in some cases, it seems like it's not very constructive at all because it's difficult to let down our point of view, to kind of see the other point of view and people become so polarized. But also I think there is a case to be made about that, a lot of times, that's where.... Sometimes where that tension, comes from two different points of view kind of coming together. You can kind of like as long as both parties are willing to be open to hearing the other point of view and understanding, I think there's always truth in two sides of an equation, and there's that kind of a third thing that emerges from that tension that gets pulled out. So, as an artist being able to think about that. Yeah.

Brand Man Sean:
I think a lot of great artists are able to do exactly what you just said. Just like a lot of great comedians are able do this. Like find that thin line of truth that everybody has to kind of admit that's it, that's what we're talking about. Because we know from our regular human experiences, people are just harder on public figures. But you're married and I know from like my relationship with my wife where it's just like, there's times when not only are you arguing, but there's times where you swear, you agree, but why are you arguing? It's like, we know we have these core values and belief that are so similar and that's what makes it so weird at scale. For like a country like America, where it's like, there's so much similar each side when we look at the core values, but for some reason you can't let the guard down or whatever.

Brand Man Sean:
And in so many ways it is counterproductive. If we're talking about the ultimate goal of staying on top, whatever that's worth. But I think that's really something that you have to always stay attuned to as someone who's trying to work in the public, work in the media and manipulate media in some sense because these are the realities of human behavior and it's only amplified at that scale, it's not eliminated by all means. And when I do breakdowns of videos and explain certain things to people, I try to say, "Hey look, this is the media, right? And this is how you manipulate media, get attention and build certain things and guide fans to the directions you want them to". But that's not the same necessarily as reality.

Brand Man Sean:
There's some things that cross over, but the media has its own agendas, right? There are certain conversations and trends that just work in your favor, if you can inject yourself into those conversations or work against those conversations at the time. And it changes from era to era, even year to year. And so you have to be aware of that, right? Because you'll see things that are very prevalent in the media that you never really encounter in your life, your main life, right? But the agendas are the agendas. And sometimes I feel like it as an artist, it becomes a... This internal fight, right? Because you don't fully want to go along with the... You want to hold steady to whatever your core looks like or you don't want to do something feeling like you're doing it for an end result versus just not focusing on the music, right?

Brand Man Sean:
This is weird place that artists get caught in between. But I think ultimately we can be as practical as possible. It's about how do I use the tools that are at hand to make as much of a connection as I can with fans? And then once you have that connection, you can shepherd them wherever you may or guide them or walk with them in whatever direction you may, but the trouble becomes, "I'm trying to be over here and why aren't y'all looking at me, this is better". But they're over here, man. You got to come to them, right? You're the one who wants them to come over to you, right? You got to go say or walk up to her and say, "Hi", in the bar, alright?

Michael Walker:
All right. Let's take a quick break from the podcast. I can tell you about a free, special offer that we're doing right now, exclusively for our podcast listeners. So if you get a ton of value from the show, but you want to take your music career to the next level, connect with the community of driven musicians and connect with the music mentors directly that we have on this podcast. Or if you just want to know the best way to market your music and grow an audience right now, then this is going to be perfect for you. So right now we're offering a free two week trial to our Music Mentor Coaching Program. And if you sign up in the show notes below, you're going to access to our entire Music Mentor Content Vault for free. The Vault is organized into four different content pillars. The first being the music, then the artist, the fans, and last but not least the business.

Michael Walker:
When you sign up, you unlock our best in-depth master classes from a network of world class musicians and industry experts on the most cutting edge strategies right now for growing your music business. On top of that, you'll get access to our weekly live masterminds, where our highest level Modern Musician coaches teach you exactly what they're doing to make an income and an impact with their music. Then once a month, we're going to have our Music Mentor Spotlight Series. And that's what we're going to bring on some of the world's biggest and best artist coaches and successful musicians to teach you what's working right now. And one of the most amazing parts is that you can get your questions answered live by these top of music mentors. So a lot of the people that you hear right here on the podcast are there live interacting with you personally, so imagine being able to connect with them directly. On top of all that, you'll get access to our private Music Mentor Community.

Michael Walker:
And this is definitely one of my favorite parts of Music Mentor and maybe the most valuable, is that you're going to have this community where you can network with other artists and link up, collaborate, ask questions, get support, and discuss everything related to your music career. So if you're curious and you want to take advantage of the free trial, then go click on the link in the show notes right now, you can sign up for free. And from there, you can check out all of the amazing contents, connect with the community and sign up for the live master classes that happen every week. This is a gift for listening to our podcast, supporting the show. So don't miss it out. Go sign up for free now and let's get back to our interview.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, no, that's a really good point. One visual that just came to my mind as you're describing that sort of like there's this river, this big river flowing and the river is current, like what's trending. It's what people are talking about, it's the conversation, it's the movement that's happening right now.

Brand Man Sean:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
And if you want to maybe build a channel that you cuts into that river and you don't want to do it in a way that you're not being authentic with yourself. You just want to have your own unique perspective and your voice, but to be able to really like to do that in a way that also takes full advantage of the conversation, that's happening right now and really the flow of exposure and attention that's coming through that conversation.

Brand Man Sean:
Yeah, exactly.

Michael Walker:
Cool. Yes, it's definitely. I love talking about stuff like this. It's fun. So let's talk about some ideas to... Let's say that someone is listening or watching this right now and they're basically ready. They're like, "Okay, great. So I'm on board. I want to kind of plug in with current things that... Basically I want to take my own unique perspective and I want to be able to connect with people and to be able to grow and my audience be able to find new listeners". What are some tools that they can use right now to basically tap into that current that's running?

Brand Man Sean:
Okay. So we have that obvious things like running ads and being able to target specific audiences. But then something else to consider is the places that your audience aggregates or congregates is actually what I meant to say. But so if there are any publications online or like Instagram pages or things like that, how can you show yourself on that page, right? As if you're being covered, just like anybody, like a magazine back in the day, right? How can you pop up to that fan base that people already have shown some validation with, how can you pop up there, right? How can you find other spaces? I think you mentioned when we talked, there was something like your band. Y'all basically went up to the other band and found your audience because like, "Hey man"...

Michael Walker:
Yeah. The tour hacking like walking off the flow and lines for shows. Right.

Brand Man Sean:
That's exactly what it is. And you can find that digitally, multiple places in the physical world, but like, where are people that like you, and then there's other people who are putting that effort in for you. And when you have minimal resources, right? Just go with where they already did the work and figure out ways that you can work yourself into the conversation or provide value, whatever that looks like for your audience. And sometimes that means adjacent audiences is not the music directly and they're covering R&B or Alt-Pop or rock music, but they're covering something that your fan base just might be interested in, right? Like, maybe your audience is really into specific care products or makeup, right? And then bam, slide on in there, right? Because that's what's happening at all times, whether it's some movies, commercials, we see these placements happen.

Brand Man Sean:
But I don't think many artists think beyond the traditional placements that you get paid for to sting licensing, that whole thing. But it's happening, every YouTuber, every Instagramer or influencer and just regular people, right? When they're posting, it's a miniature version of that. And you can make that happen at scale, if you do it enough times. It just depends on the amount of energy you have to do so. Because some of these tactics take more energy. Some of them just take more money, need less energy, which is a whole another discussion.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah, dude, I think for sure. Like the principle that doesn't really change, that's like the foundation of marketing is like, you find out where do your people hang out? Where do they come together? Where do they congregate? And like you mentioned, as a musician, oh yeah, they're probably big fans of other artists that are similar to you. They're going out to their shows, they're following them online, they're engaging with them. So I think that's definitely a great way to kind of like tap into the channel that's already going to work through that momentum rather than trying to convince someone who has never purchased a piece of fan merchandise in their life to buy your stuff. You go and you start building a relationship with the people who spend thousands of dollars already on that kind of stuff.

Michael Walker:
Then it's like Newton's laws of physics, right? "An object in motion tends to remain in motion". So one thing, speaking of, kind of hitting on current trends or ways or things that are happening, obviously been a huge amount of energy and conversation, things happening around TikTok as a platform. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on TikTok in general for musicians. Do you think that it's in terms of priorities, in terms of other platforms they could be on, what are your thoughts on TikTok? Should everyone be there? And if so, how should they get started?

Brand Man Sean:
I think there's no old platform that everybody should be on. However, I highly encourage people to get on TikTok and figure it out for themselves, if they can. You just have to be patient, right? Don't look for that quick fix. We all know that can be an issue. But look, if you can make TikTok work for you, if you can stay steady, the results are exponentially greater than any other platform right now. The amount of time to how fast you can truly blow up. Out of nowhere, like we've had artists where over 10 months they have 30,000 followers, which is a lot granted, like generally speaking. But then over the next eight weeks, after that 10 months, over a million followers, all right? Then we've had artists get on and a week, two weeks and they're off to the races to a million followers.

Brand Man Sean:
And then we have ours that are hanging around 300,000 or 20,000, but still they're getting value in. We have ways where you're directly driving your streams using it, right? So you don't even have to be popular. You don't have to have a trending song to take advantage of TikTok. Let's just go with the statistics, right? So music business worldwide reported that 75% of TikTok users said that they've discovered music, new music on TikTok, right? At the same time at the same report, they noted that TikTok has double the user base of Spotify. So that means if you take 50% of TikTok-Spotify's audience and then add that, that's how many more people are discovering music on TikTok than Spotify. There's more people discovering music on TikTok than Spotify, right? There's more people is covering music on TikTok than Spotify.

Brand Man Sean:
It's just a reality because of the size of the platform at this point. And the beauty is people are actually accepting music. They're looking for new music, right? Over a year and a half ago, people like call me crazy, said I was capping and all these random things. But I said that this was going to happen because I'd already saw the pulse. And I saw so many kids even tweeting, "Oh, my favorite music is TikTok music. Or I go to TikTok to look for new music". And the fact that artists have fought so long, right? To figure out how do I put my music in this thing without seeming like I'm advertising, right? And I'm pushy. And now we have a platform that people are expecting the music they're looking for the music. Now it's just more about, is it good or not?

Brand Man Sean:
All right? Which is cool. You're looking for merit, but you've gotten over the barrier of the having to ask or having to seem like you're not being a salesman or something like that. So the platform is just an environment. That's I feel like is really just getting started. It's maturing still. People think you have to have very pop driven, like commercial, common denominator music on TikTok to benefit from it. But you don't, this is no different than any era, right? Any period of time, there's always been the part that gets the most shine, right? But then there's always people benefiting on the long tail as well. And you can be one of those people, right? If you don't make pop music, you shouldn't expect that type of success, right? The peak of pop success. But does it not look good if you can with one post, drive a 100,000 Spotify followers to your music?

Brand Man Sean:
And you're a genre that can't even be named. I can't even like, describe your genre. I've seen it multiple times. Not even people I've worked with, right? And I've seen it from people that I've worked with. It's a platform that is just worth figuring out. And if anything, worth paying attention to for this one reason, we have a generation of kids that are coming up learning to communicate in that style and appreciate that style of marketing. That's only going to continue to embed itself in other platforms as they try to keep up with TikTok or stay off competition. You've seen it with reels, you see it with YouTube shorts, right? And if anything, you just want to be able to communicate in the language, right? That's it. Right? Just to be able to communicate in the language, you might not go viral, right? But to have that skill is valuable in itself.

Michael Walker:
Cool. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. It's definitely really helpful perspective to understand TikTok at a high level and kind of a purpose of it. And I really like what you said too, just even about the core benefit of really learning, how to communicate with people with this new generation that this is their... I think that one objection for me personally has just been around. I mean, I personally don't use a lot of social media as a consumer just because my relationship with social media when I was using it just wasn't very healthy or it didn't add a lot to my life. So I just kind of like cut it out. But ironically, like I still use the heck out of social media, like ads, especially to drive traffic and to build a business.

Michael Walker:
So I do think that what you're talking about with like really learning how to use these tools in a way that, for all of us will have like a different relationship with it. And you have to just kind of be aware of yourself and how you're showing up. But I think that there's a lot of examples of people who have a healthy relationship with it and use it as an effective tool. Let's say that people are listening or watch this, they're like, "Okay, cool. I'm sold TikTok. It's finally for me, I want to jump in. I want to get things rolling. I want to learn this platform." What are some general tips? Like how do they get started on TikTok? And what kinds of posts do you think that musicians who are just starting out on TikTok should definitely like consider making or what would be the high level game plan for them to be able to succeed on TikTok?

Brand Man Sean:
Okay. Well, to start here, to your point about social media and your personal use, you actually do not have to be on TikTok to get benefit from TikTok. There's been multiple artists who only found out about TikTok, right? By finding out their song is taking off, or there's a lot of people posting to it. We've had artists, like last year we had a song, it did about 5 million streams on Spotify alone. And the artist was not on TikTok yet, all right? It was just about how to embed it into the culture of TikTok. So if you want to go that route, it's completely possible. However, that means you're leveraging other people and that can be more expensive than just posting yourself, right? That's just a reality of it. Now, when it comes to posting yourself, just the simplest way in is sharing your lyrics on the screen as you perform it, right?

Brand Man Sean:
When you can add all these other cultural connotations to your music and things like that, where... I'm trying to think of example, someone might say, when my boyfriend does X and then it'll pop up like multiple bubbles of what the options are and the song somehow relates to that thing, right? There's things like that you can do, but really just straightforward, literally your lyrics. If your lyrics actually cut through and they connect, right? And they're well written, when you perform them or just play it and you show the lyrics. We've seen instant connections from those where people who like that, they're like, "Yo", in the comments, "Can you do more of this? Or these are dope. I relate to this. I'm at work crying." We've seen that multiple times on one particular girl, but it's literally the benefit one.

Brand Man Sean:
When people see your lyrics visually, now there's a less of that effect that they are trying to understand and interpret the mind has to do a little bit less. And so what that clarity comes that alone. Then two, if your lyrics are good, which I'm just going to leave that out to the marketplace and the right audience.

Brand Man Sean:
If they connect in that way, for whatever reason, they just tend to move differently on TikTok, more than any other audience where people will say, "Hey, can you do more?" Or people will go to your other platforms and follow you or stream you quickly. Or, "Hey, can you make this a full song?" You have to say, "Well, it is a full song. Why didn't you just go search for it?" Right? But literally posting. So whatever your song is, put the lyrics on the screen and play that another layer that you can add to that is experimenting that same song, but with different things that you're doing in the video, whether it is background or one more minute you're dribbling basketball, like one of our clients did, or another minute you're laying in the bed next to your girlfriend or something.

Brand Man Sean:
And it goes with the song thematically. And you have that variety of posts. One, you're essentially testing the song in different environments and pieces of content, giving it more of a chance to go. But two, for some people that's starting to become omnipresent because they've now seen these multiple posts, but it's important that those posts are different, right? So it's not like consuming the exact same content, right? There's a lot of times the spamming ideology comes more from repetitive action that's lacking in creativity versus yo if you present it in 15 different ways, I'm all for it because you are still entertaining me. It's just a lack of entertainment value that makes it feel like spam. So I hope that was clear as far as a platform and we could talk deeper or find some other tactics to get into with TikTok. But that's my first thoughts for anybody who hasn't been on a platform seriously, already.

Michael Walker:
Cool. Yeah, man. That's great. Definitely helpful to get a head start on that. And one thing that would probably be helpful too, is just being able to actually go to the platform and maybe check out a few good examples of artists that you think are doing it really well on TikTok. Do you have anyone that comes to mind that you're like, "Oh yeah, they're going to start somewhere, maybe follow like these three artists on TikTok and kind of emulate or see what they're doing and see if you can do something on your own?" That's sort of relevant to that.

Brand Man Sean:
So Biddl that's, "BIDDL", the number three. So a three instead of a, "E", Biddl. And then there's Nic D that's, "NIC", the letter, "D", and who is somebody else, man? I can't remember her name, but I see her face in my head. So let's stick with those two right now. Let's stick with those.

Michael Walker:
If I remember right too, I think that someone was talking about like Lil. Nas did something?

Brand Man Sean:
Lil Nas is always doing something. I don't know about him as far as TikTok in particular. I wouldn't say follow him. He doesn't have necessarily the best TikTok for the sake of what TikTok is at this point. He's very good at manipulating the conversation and culture, but at this point, a large part of it is due to a platform that someone's starting off wouldn't quite have access to.

Michael Walker:
Cool. Yeah. That's definitely helpful. All right, man. Well, I'm not going to let, I mean, TikTok is certainly like a huge part of the conversation that's happening right now. And I keep hearing about it over and over again. And definitely, it seems like, I mean, especially now that they've opened up their advertising platform, I know that they actually like open it up publicly. And I think that in some ways it's probably kind of like the wild west where there's a pretty big opportunity to be able to leverage that if you're smart with using paid traffic and building funnels and things, so it might be something that we need to start looking into more.

Brand Man Sean:
Yeah. It's just new in the real sense. So they are trying to copy Facebook straight up, right? The ads manager feels like that in everything, but they... I can't remember what the last thing I was talking to a lady about one of the reps is she.... They didn't even have city targeting, like some basic things that Facebook has where they're still literally developing. And as you guys know, or may not know, like when you have AI driven platforms, it just takes more and more people to make it better, right? So it's still not even a huge adoption rate where it's deadly accurate, but you can have some big wins just like anything else, right?

Brand Man Sean:
Higher risk, higher reward. But it could be a big flop and most campaign, still at this point are a little bit more on the questionable side, but I've seen them get closer and closer when it comes to artist music start to be like more respectable. And even some people beating Facebook results. So maybe eight months from now, it might be something to consider as a serious, like I don't know about contender, but at least like a serious part of your marketing stack, depending on who your audience is and what the full activation looks like.

Michael Walker:
Cool. That's definitely interesting. And yeah, I guess that they would have a lot of catching up to do in the sense that like Facebook Pixel, not just on like Facebook, but like Facebook's Pixel has been across like websites on like most businesses that leverage Facebook ads will have like the Pixel on their website. And so they're able to like kind of capitalize on this traffic too, and the behavioral recognition based on those websites, not just Facebook. But I know TikTok, like they have a Pixel now and they're trying to do something kind of similar, but definitely interesting.

Michael Walker:
Cool, man. Well, Hey, I super appreciate you hopping on here first. I mean, it was great. We got both to discuss and kind of zoom out and look at like the forest at a zoomed out level. And then we really kind of dove into the trees. We got to actually navigate within talking about TikTok and whatnot. So really appreciate you coming on here to share some of the lessons that you've learned and for anyone that's watching this right now that wants to learn more or connect with you, what would be the best place for them to go to learn more?

Brand Man Sean:
Learnmorebrandmannetwork.com and connect with me Brand Man Sean on Instagram.

Michael Walker:
Cool. Awesome man. So we'll throw those links in the descriptions and I would definitely recommend anyone, especially if any of the topics that we talked about today, were entrusting you around like branding or around like TikTok and moving forward with that, definitely check it out. And hey man, appreciate you taking the time to be here. And I hope you have a great weekend.

Brand Man Sean:
No problem

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value at its episode. Make sure to check out the show notes, to learn more about our guests today. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's a few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends on your social media tag us after that really helps us out. And third, best of all, you leave us an honest review. It's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take the music career to the next level. It's time to be a Modern Musicians now and I look forward to seeing on our next episode.