Isabella Bedoya:
I think, with social media in particular, artists get a little bit of frustration, and then they go and buy a bunch of followers. What happens is, when you're investing a couple of grand into the Shoutout campaign just to be exposed to Kylie Jenner's audience or these big name celebrities, that can actually backfire more than it can help. That's the number one thing, actually knowing the audience before you even invest into influencer marketing.

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 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 with today's music industry, and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

Michael Walker:
All right. I'm excited to be here today with Isabella Bedoya. Isabella is awesome, she has a lot of experience within the major record label and industry umbrella. She worked as an A and R for a label under Sony music. She went on to work for an award-winning influencer marketing agency, and had the opportunity to work with multiple Fortune 500 brands. She's been invited to speak at the Musicians Institute, Bold TV, iHeartRadio, NBC, KCAA Radio, Beat the Clock podcast, lots more. She has a ton of experience when it comes to this background of influencer marketing, both in terms of major brands, and specifically for musicians. Obviously, the landscape has changed so much in terms of social media and how influencer marketing works in general. I thought it would be awesome to have her on here, and have a discussion about influencer marketing, and what are some of the opportunities for musicians right now to be able to fully leverage that world.

Michael Walker:
Isabella, you're awesome, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Isabella Bedoya:
Awesome. Thank you Michael, I'm excited. Thank you for having me.

Michael Walker:
Absolutely. To start out with, I'd love to hear a little bit about your story and how you got started. We had mentioned that you had this background working under a label under Sony Music, but maybe you could share a little bit about your story, and how you got started and made your way here.

Isabella Bedoya:
Yeah, absolutely. I have a very unique story of how I even got started in the music industry. I knew that I wanted to work in music, and I know it's super competitive. I actually started by becoming a private chef. I was cooking for people, and that opened up a back door, because I moved to LA through it. I was a live-in private chef, and the second I got to LA, it was straight to networking in the music industry. It really is true when they say this business is all about connections, because one thing led to another, and the next thing you know, I'm in A and R for this label based out of West Hollywood, and they were under Sony at the time.

Isabella Bedoya:
It was amazing, because I have no connections to the music industry, to having this amazing opportunity, which opened up so many doors along the way. That was when I first got introduced to social media as a thing for artists, that was the biggest eye opener.

Michael Walker:
That's so cool, not to mention that you probably became an awesome chef, there's a lifelong skill there, awesome. I know that you've worked with a lot of artists now, and you've had both an inside look at how the industry, works and you've been able to work hands-on with artists. What do you say are some of the biggest challenges or mistakes, common mistakes that you see artists making when it comes to social media and influencer marketing?

Isabella Bedoya:
I think, with social media in particular, is that artists get a little bit of frustration, and then they go and buy a bunch of followers. When it comes down to the influencer marketing side of things, one of the most common things that people are doing right now are Shoutout campaigns. What happens is, when you're investing a of couple grand into a Shoutout campaign just to be exposed to Kylie Jenner's audience or these big name celebrities, the biggest mistake that artists make there is that they're actually not being exposed to the right audience of people that might actually be interested in them. It can actually backfire more that it can help. That's the number one thing, is actually knowing the audience before you even invest into influencer marketing.

Michael Walker:
That's super interesting. And that totally makes sense, because in the day and age of social media, where a lot of it reflects our self worth or our status, how we think of ourselves, it's very tempting to purchase a bunch of fake followers or likes or something. It sounds what you're saying is, even though it's tempting at the beginning, that might not necessarily be the best long-term growth strategy, if those are the wrong people. Even trying to purchase legitimate Shoutout campaigns from major celebrities can backfire, because maybe you're getting exposure, but they're not really the kind of people that are looking to follow you and to be interested in your music.

Isabella Bedoya:
When it comes down to them buying the influencer Shoutouts, it can actually affect them with how the algorithm performs on social media as well. If you get this mass influx of people following you, and they're not interested in what you're doing, they were interested on the giveaway, it's going to signal to the algorithm that maybe your content isn't quality content, and you'll start getting a reduced reach. It's very important on various different levels.

Michael Walker:
That makes a lot of sense. The algorithm's going to be looking at the fact that those people weren't the right fit, they're not really interested. They might think the content's not that good, when it's just the wrong people. Maybe you can speak a little bit more to that initial challenge, because one of the biggest questions that comes up for musicians is, how do I build a fan base? How do I get started from scratch? I don't have a big audience, just my friends and family, how do I find new people? How do they use those tools and use social media, and potentially social influencer marketing, to actually find the right people? How do they get the ball rolling on that?

Isabella Bedoya:
Yeah, that's an incredible question. First you want to have an idea of who your audience is, and then you want to build a list of 20 people or so, of people that might have access to your ideal fans. They don't necessarily have to be other artists. They can be dancers, they can be in completely different fields. They could be fitness coaches or whatever the case is, but their audience is going to be, most likely, into your music. The first is always going to be a little bit of research. Influencer marketing does require budget, because you've got to pay the influencers. On TikTok, if you look for, and if you actually spend some time making the connections and building the relationships, a lot of the TikTokers will post your stuff just to help out. If you have a limited budget, focus not on the big TikTokers, but look for the ones that are just starting out, they're getting some decent following, and build a relationship there, so they can help you out.

Isabella Bedoya:
What's very popular on TikTok? It's dance challenges. If you find any dancers, they used to be really affordable, but now, because they have management and they're blowing up and everything, when I started influencer marketing, you could do an awesome campaign for $5,000 to $7,000. By the time I was making my way out of working for that agency, the minimum quote had gone up to $20,000. You've got to be really aware of all the factors that they're going to take in consider when they're charging you for it. When you get them to create a challenge, you can either bring the influencers together, or you can create the concept yourself, and have them execute the creative concept, and make sure they tag you, so that they know where to find you. It's a multi-step process, but if you know where your audience lives, it's going to be so much better and easier.

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Michael Walker:
Awesome. It sounds like this is the kind of thing where, if you have a serious budget, that can help quite a bit when it comes to getting the right influencers, but you want to make sure that you do have the right approach. Ultimately, you make sure that it's the right people, the right people that are following that TikToker, and that you have the right strategy around it. Maybe we can talk a little bit about that initial research strategy. I know that, for a lot of artists, one of the biggest challenges starting out is they're like, "I don't really know who I sound like, or I'm eclectic," they're still figuring out themselves, and figuring out what they want their music to be, what they want it to sound like.

Michael Walker:
How would you recommend that someone, if they want to get started down this path, and what you just mentioned, identifying these other artists or other people, whether they're artists or not, that have these audiences, is such a crucial first step, no matter what strategy you do, finding out where those people already hang out. It's really smart starting with that, but how would you recommend they get the ball rolling on that process, if they're early on and they're not really sure, they're like, "Who do I sound like?" How do I do the research to figure out who I should target in the first place?

Isabella Bedoya:
What every artist should also do is be aware of the subjectivity of their music, because that is another angle that you can take, especially when you're trying to figure out where you fit in this whole process. The subjectivity of your music, there was an artist that wrote this song to help people stay strong during the pandemic. The whole TikTok campaign was strictly organic, I think there was no budget actually put into it. But, because the subjectivity was, "stay strong," the concept of the videos were people telling their "stay strong" stories, and her song was playing the background. It was easier to bring in people that fit the ideal listener to create these videos.

Isabella Bedoya:
The other thing is, there's a lot of work on your end, where you have to actually vet the influencers, especially with people buying their followers and their likes and stuff that. You've got to be really careful. There's this tool, it's called HypeAuditor, I'm pretty sure everyone can get a free trial for it. That was a tool that we used to use, because it was one of the most accurate to tell you how credible the accounts of the influencers were. That's another major important fact too. You don't just care for their followers, you care for the quality of their followers.

Michael Walker:
That's smart. Oh my gosh. That tool, I just Googled it right now, it looks awesome. It's called hype hypeauditor.com.

Isabella Bedoya:
Yeah.

Michael Walker:
Cool, yeah. A big part of it is doing some vetting, making sure those influencers, that it's legitimate, that they didn't buy fake followers/listeners so they could get paid for dance challenges. Cool. You also mentioned the power of, even without a budget, the right campaign with the right people, that was relevant because of what's happening in the world, you can really create some massive leverage. Maybe we can go into that as well, because that probably is something that's going to benefit you, whether you're going with a paid approach or you're trying to start out organically, is trying to align with those movements, or what's trending right now.

Michael Walker:
I know that sometimes, as an artist, we all want to think that we're unique snowflakes. We're not anything else, and we don't necessarily want to hop on the hype train or sacrifice our integrity as an artist by following trends. How would you recommend that artists who might be listening to this right now think about that process of maximizing the existing momentum and the existing trends without also losing their authenticity, or their artistic integrity, with it?

Isabella Bedoya:
Jumping on trends is such a common topic. When it comes down to an artist getting the exposure themselves, if you're on TikTok, for example, you can do duets. There's a really good example right now, Russ, you know Russ right, the artist? Russ, he just released a song, and his method was, instead of paying all these people to promote it, he did an open verse challenge. All these people are dueting his song, and they're showing up his song, and his verse goes first, then the artist has an opportunity to do their open verse. It's getting this mass attention, because he brought in the community to be a part of the creation.

Isabella Bedoya:
I've seen Charlie Puth do that too. He'll do a little jingle, and then he'll allow other artists to jump on. When you're looking for trends, especially as an artist, it's not always doing the dances and being silly. Be intentional, and actually look for the trending subjects that could impact your music as well. What will happen is, if they repost you, that's free influencer marketing right there. You just hijacked their entire audience by showing up on their feed.

Michael Walker:
That's super interesting, yeah. Intentionally structuring the campaigns so that people can repost and add their own creative input, or do duets or something that, that's a really cool idea. To dive deeper into that duet idea, on TikTok they can record a harmony, or they can record one of their songs, and the idea is that someone else can take that recording and put it side by side with themselves doing a harmony, or doing some other kind of creative take on it.

Isabella Bedoya:
Yeah. I saw this last year, I can't remember who started it, but it was a song made exclusively on TikTok, where one creator started one part of the song, and then all of a sudden, next thing you know, there are seven duets in of people keeping the song going. It was awesome. TikTok is definitely the place for musicians right now.

Michael Walker:
That's so interesting, it's almost the modern day chain mail. It keeps getting forwarded, but everyone adds. That's a super interesting idea, structuring it so there's that chain where other people can link it, and you decide the best one, and that turns into the next chain. It's almost like the blockchain. Hey oh, okay. Let's be careful. I feel the rabbit hole is coming along. Cool.

Michael Walker:
Obviously there's going to be people who are watching this or listening to this who, they've already established a core fan base, they already have a profitable business, or they have income and they can invest in this. I think the majority of people are probably going to be a stage earlier than that, where maybe they don't have a big budget, but they are willing to put in some extra time or energy and effort to figure this out.

Michael Walker:
Imagine that if someone's looking to get the most bang for their buck, and maybe do a very light influencer marketing campaign, but they also want to make sure that, like we were talking about it, that it maps out well, where it has legs, where even without a ton of budget, it connects with people, and they have some of that built-in re-posting ability. What are some clues or advice that you might give people to craft, specifically a TikTok campaign, if they're looking to plug into the trends, or plug into the movements of how people are doing those types of campaigns?

Isabella Bedoya:
The key to all of this is becoming an amazing human connector, because a lot of times what happens is, people will actually go and spam everyone, "listen to my song, pre-save all this." If you actually approach an influencer by complimenting them on how amazing their content is, everybody loves to hear recognition and hear that they're doing a good job. Start by complimenting them, start by trying to be friendly. As the conversation grows, you can then start introducing the fact that you're an artist, and you're also looking for influencers, and they fit the description. That way you're not burning a bridge before it even starts. Even if they're not the fit, chances are they probably have a friend or someone similar that they can recommend you to.

Isabella Bedoya:
It's all about the connections and the relationship building. Build your list. If you guys have never heard of the dream 100 concept, I highly recommend you do a dream 100 for the influencers, where you find the influential people within your genre or your niche that you can reach out to and they can help you out, because they have their audience already. Make your list, start connecting with them, start liking their stuff, start engaging with them. Even if they're not posting you or re-posting you, just by interacting on their comments and in their community, you can still get some exposure that way. Have a clear idea of what it is that you want, because nobody likes to be confused or not have enough information.

Isabella Bedoya:
Know that, for example, if your campaign is going to be for a particular song or a particular project that you're working on, already have some sort of creative concept established. Make sure that, when you are approaching them for the creative concepts, that you also don't limit them. At the end of the day, they are creators, they don't want to be limited, they want to have a little guiding do's and don'ts kind of thing. You definitely want to use your link, put your Spotify link on their bio. Sometimes they'll charge a little bit more for that, but at least you have a place where you can actually send them to. Spotify link, and make sure that they tag your TikTok account. That means that you should probably be active on TikTok as well, so you get the full effect. Don't just go for one person, try to actually get at least three to five people.

Isabella Bedoya:
We all know, in marketing you have to have multiple touchpoints. When you only get one person, you only have that one opportunity. If you have three to five people, and they're all in the same group of friends, or they're all in the same demographic, chances are the followers are going to see you multiple times throughout the videos. They're going to be, "Who is this person? Who is this song?" Based on their influence, they'll also have a lot of people recreating the challenge with your song. That's another cool thing, because you might not know the repercussion that, just by getting the exposure, it might actually be a lot stronger.

Michael Walker:
Super cool. When you say the challenge, you mean when you're doing the campaign, you create a dance challenge, where the idea is that they'll repost it?

Isabella Bedoya:
Yeah. It doesn't always have to be a dance challenge. I think we've seen pretty much everything. We've seen anything from dances to people actually telling their stories. Be aware of what it is that you want to do. What's the goal with your music? Keep that present.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. I think that's super smart, identifying what kind of challenge can I do around this. The challenge implies activity, that they're engaging, that they're putting their own input into it, so getting smart about creating a challenge. Shameless plug, for our street team software, we have a challenge that we do. It's a seven day challenge, and we're starting to use the software for our own challenges so that we can create a challenge maker for artists to be able to do a seven day music release challenge, or something that. I wonder if there's a way we could plug it in, so that one of the days of the challenge is that they're sending people to do a TikTok daily challenge, or something that.

Isabella Bedoya:
Yeah, that would be amazing. What we did for the stay strong series, one of the perks, if I'm not mistaken, was that they actually get to be together in a Facebook group, so they can interact with each other and get to know each other. I think some of them actually got shirts as a gift for participating.

Michael Walker:
Super cool.

Isabella Bedoya:
Even if you don't have the money, you have other ways.

Michael Walker:
For sure, yeah. I think that's a great idea. I think there's a lot of movement happening around right now around challenges, which is an interesting meta movement. Cool.

Michael Walker:
Someone's starting from scratch, they have a new song or a new release and they're like, "Man, how do I get the most leverage out of this?" They start out by creating their dream 100, right? They figure out, "Who are 100 other people that are either musicians or influencers or people that I think are going to have fans who might enjoy my music as well." Let's say they've done this initial research, they've done this initial work. They've made a list of 100 people, and maybe they've followed them. I think that's such great advice too, to make that list, and then to use that as a way to specifically create some intentional network effects.

Michael Walker:
We become the five people that we surround ourselves with. If you surround yourself with all the people who are your ideal role models, and you start interacting with them, their communities, and you're seeing what they're doing, then it really influences you, even on a subconscious level. I think that's super smart. Let's talk a little bit about the reach out process, or starting to build some of these relationships with some of these influencers who are at the level right above them, or maybe people around the same size.

Michael Walker:
I love how you mentioned that your job is to become a super connector, or a human connector, where you try to build relationships and be a good human being, which is really helpful. Maybe we could talk a little bit about that reach out process, the do's and the don'ts. What's the best reach out message that you can imagine, reaching out to a new potential influencer, someone to build a relationship in the right way, versus the worst kind of way, the most common terrible reach out strategy?

Isabella Bedoya:
I'll start with the bad. The most annoying thing that influencers get is, when there's no connection, and you just approach them like, "Hey, come do me a favor." Right. It's like, "I don't even know you." And not just, "I don't even know you," they have all these brands throwing all these crazy budgets at them. If they have these opportunities, and then you're over here begging to be portrayed, it's going to not be not going to be good. There are multiple ways, you can send out emails or through DMs. I recommend emails, just because you can actually be more professional about it. The first email is your fan appreciation letter essentially, and that way you can get the conversation going, and you don't get lost in the DMs, because the DMs, it's everything.

Isabella Bedoya:
You have your spammers, you have fans, you have brands, DMs are crazy. I would start by sending an email, and in the email, don't have an ask yet. Don't ask them to promote your music. Get to know them, get to see if they have a manager, because if they have a manager, then for sure there's no free promotion. It's not going to slide, their job as to make sure that everything gets paid. You want to look for those people that are independent content creators as well. When you're doing the whole reach out process, it should be a sequence. The first one, your fan appreciation. If you do have a budget, you can go straight into business, "We want to hire you for a post." Another thing too, when you are hiring for a post, it can be more than one.

Isabella Bedoya:
You can actually do, "Let's do three posts and see which one sticks." That's another thing to keep in mind, but the first one, keep it simple. The second email is when you're actually going to, if you're doing the free route, this is where you can say, bring up a recent post that they did about a dance or a song, and say, "I really love how you did this. I was just wondering, I have a song coming out. I was just wondering if you would actually be interested in helping me get the word out?"

Isabella Bedoya:
Sometimes out of their own altruistic tendencies, they'll actually be excited. If you ever want to throw in any incentives, that would be the email to say, "This is what we can give you, blah, blah, blah." A lot of the times, what I've also encountered, these creators have their own special pricing for independent artists, because they support the arts. They'll either do it super cost effective, or they'll give you a freebie. Keep that in mind, use everything that you have in your hand to try to maximize the connections and the results that you can get.

Michael Walker:
Super cool, yeah. It sounds what you recommend is, especially if you're going a free route, because it's one thing if you're reaching out to them to offer to pay them for something, then it's not necessarily, "Hey, can you do me a favor?" It's more focused on providing value or having a relationship. If you are starting out from scratch, and you don't have a big budget, the first reach out should be about initiating contact and building a relationship. One of the best ways to do that is to show appreciation, and try and be authentic with it. Don't make up something because you're trying to flatter someone, because usually people can see through that. If you're intentional and you can express some genuine appreciation, as humans we soak that up.

Michael Walker:
We all want to be recognized and seen, and it's a love/hate relationship. It's scary to be seen fully, but that's one of our deepest desires I think, is to be fully seen and appreciated and recognized, if you can offer that to someone else.

Michael Walker:
There's nothing negative about this at all, but I think generally, if someone is an influencer, there's a reason, and part of it is that they have a little bit of that desire, that drive to be seen, to be heard and recognized. They probably are pretty driven by that, and therefore if you can give them some genuine appreciation, that can be a nice way to establish contact without reaching out and trying to say, "Me, me, me, me, can I have something?"

Michael Walker:
From there you've opened up the gates to build a genuine relationship, and maybe afterwards you can reach out, and you might specifically reference one of their other posts that they've already done, which is smart too, because then it shows them an exact example of what they could do for you. It also keeps things consistent, because it's like, "Oh yeah, I did that in the past." It makes sense for them, to have momentum there. That can be a nice way to make any sort of offer, if there's a way that you can contribute as well, on that type of email.

Michael Walker:
It makes a lot of sense, and I think it's super smart too. You've mentioned, how can I build a genuine relationship? How can I provide value? That tends to be the best way to have any sort of relationship. Do you have any recommendations for a system management to do these reach outs? Do you recommend they have a spreadsheet or a tool that they can keep track of the people that they've reached out to? How do you recommend they actually turn that into a system?

Isabella Bedoya:
There are so many different tools out there now. When I was doing influencer marketing, everything was tracked on Google sheets. There are so many softwares now. HypeAuditor, you can build your list on HypeAuditor. It is a little bit more expensive, because it's an agency tool, but the free trial can get you enough. If you have budget and availability for a tool, that's always going to be your best bet. If you have a limited budget, Google sheets is more than enough. You want to make sure you're tracking their handle for your own efficient purposes. You track their handle, you track their followers, and you track their actual URL, and their contact information. That's pretty much the things that you should have on your spreadsheet.

Isabella Bedoya:
The other thing you want to have is country location, if possible, if you can figure it out. That way, if you're in the U.S., you're not spending all this time growing a fan base in Italy or something. You're going to track country, and while you're doing this research, you can have the last column be something that stood out to you about them, so that when you do go to send out your emails, you now have, "That's what I want to commend them on." It's so important because you're keeping them consistent, but it also proves to them that you're actually watching, and you're not just here for one thing. You're actually keeping track of what they're doing. Make sure you do that little list, the last one being the column of what stood out to you.

Isabella Bedoya:
A lot of the tools, there's another one, I think it's called Pop Pays, they take it one step further, because you can also pay them through the system. There's another one, I'm blanking on their name right now, but they do user generated content for $100, or something that. There are a lot of ways, and there's a lot of affordable ways to go through with the influencer marketing, but a matter of, where's your budget? And how resourceful can you actually become?

Michael Walker:
So good. Yeah. One head nod I want too, give to in terms of tools as well. Google sheets is awesome, I use Google sheets for a ton of stuff. There's a tool that we just started using called Notion, that is a beefed-up database manager tool that has a lot of flexibility, and open API. It could be a little bit overwhelming when you first dive into it, because it's a really configurable tool, but we've started using it for a lot of our partnerships, and outreach, and podcast stuff, and it's awesome. It's really cool. That's just another free tool that people can check out as well.

Michael Walker:
Maybe we could talk a little bit about, one thing that you had mentioned that's important if you really want to fully maximize one of these influencer marketing campaigns, is making sure that you have a foundation with your own social media marketing, so that when you do a promotion campaign, those people have something to go sink their teeth into. Maybe we could talk a little bit about that, and specifically, if we did a zoomed-out overview of a social media strategy and roll out to fully maximize this influencer marketing, what would you recommend?

Isabella Bedoya:
I think one of the biggest things, if you were to do a whole campaign and actually tie it into your whole strategy, one of the things that I would do is, I would actually consider all of the places, not just influencers, not just TikTokers, but all of the places where your audience could potentially live. One of the things that people forget about is brands and other associations. When you are thinking about, where does your ideal audience live, you want to make sure that you're thinking about everything. When you are working with brands, they don't necessarily have to sponsor you, but if you know your fans, for example, love Bud Light, you can create a video, tag Bud Light, and create. They're going to love it because now it's user-generated content that they got for free.

Isabella Bedoya:
They're going to repost you, or they're going to put you on their story, or something that. That's another sneaky way of getting in front of their audience. You really want to think about every single brand. You want to think about associations, if they're into any kind of movements, any kind of TikTokers they follow, any kind of artists that they follow similar to your music. From there, that's where you now start building your strategy, because now that you know where all these places are, you can then say, "Month one, I'm going to focus on brands." That way you're not always clouding people with all these things. You have strategic approaches to, "This month I'm going to focus is on this brand, and then I'm going to focus with," let's just use Bud Light as an example.

Isabella Bedoya:
You're going to use Bud Light, and then you're going to look for an influencer that's also heavy into Bud Light promotion and has potentially your ideal fans, because now you become, again, going back to the theme of super connector. If you're all of a sudden creating content for Bud Light, and you're creating content with an influencer that's also doing something for Bud Light, you can now leverage each other against each other, and the next round, when you do want sponsorship from the brands, you can say, "Hey, I'm working with this guy too. I'm working with this person." And because you're putting two players that could actually do work together, you're leveraging them on your behalf. That's another really smart way to start tapping into these sources that might feel unreachable.

Isabella Bedoya:
Once you have your theme of the month, you run a campaign with that. It can be for a song, it can be for multiple songs through a month, you decide. You want to be consistent with your own content, because similar with ads, when you have people looking at your stuff, you want people to see traction. It's a landing page of content. That is one of the most important parts of the strategy. Make sure you're showing up with content, make sure you're re-posting other people participating, because that's going to give people social proof to join in.

Isabella Bedoya:
Make sure you're doing duets, be active on the platform that you're doing the campaign on, because you're going to get a massive influx of people, and that's the best way to retain them. You have your audience, you have your way to retain. What you want to do is, all the new people coming in, you can now send them to your email list, they're using the Street Team app that you mentioned, you can send them straight there. Always have that flow of traffic coming in and converting into your actual audience, otherwise it's not maximizing all of your efforts.

Michael Walker:
100%, that's so good. I love the way that you recommended that you don't just focus on one node, but you really look at this network, and you look at who are a few different influences in there, because there is that network effect. When I think about networks, and I think about building relationships, one visual that comes to mind is a brain and our neurons, the way that neurons fire. It's really interesting, they have the little tendrils that connect out, one node cross references a bunch of different nodes.

Michael Walker:
One thing that comes to mind as you describe that is, if you're looking to connect with one of those nodes, and the note is a fan, they might have five different branches that are connected to different influencers that are part of the same network. If you're able to approach it from those different angles, there's all these different network connections, and they tend to stack on each other, and create just stronger, tight-knit network. Really interesting.

Michael Walker:
Isabella, it's been a lot of fun. I love talking about this kind of stuff, and I can tell that you have a great brain, a great mind for doing this. You've been doing this for a while, you have a lot of experience, you're doing it in the right way. Thank you for you taking the time to come on here and to share some of that wisdom with everyone that's listening.

Michael Walker:
For anyone here who is interested in learning more about you and what you offer, and to diving deeper when it comes to some of the things we talked about today, what would be a good place for them to go to learn more?

Isabella Bedoya:
First of all, thank you Michael for having me, this was absolutely amazing. You guys can just go to my Instagram, and I'd definitely love to hear what you guys thought, and any key takeaways or any questions. My Instagram is word I Z Z W O R D.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Like always, we'll make sure to throw the links in the description, everything for easy access, but otherwise, it's been a lot of fun. Thanks for taking the time, and I'm sure we'll have a chance to geek out and talk more soon.

Michael Walker:
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 guests today, and if want to support the podcast, then there's a few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media, tag us, that really helps us out. Third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you, who want to take their music careers to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.