The Signal – The Blog of Dr. Lexie

Recently, I was asked to write an article for the upcoming issue of The Musician, which is the magazine of the American Federation of Musicians. The article highlights the fact that even though you may loathe social media, if you are a performer or creator, you still have to interact with it to get your voice out over the din of all the other folks in these streets working for a living.

While the points I made in the article are indeed salient- social media levels the playing field, more and more contractors are examining social media landing pages in their vetting process to hire performers, etc…. the more important take away is what was not said: The Musician’s Unions aren’t doing enough to keep its members visible, bookable, or accessible enough to make the money to pay our dues. I can count on the downstairs member I don’t have the number of times I’ve gotten a gig as a result of a union affiliation or listing. However, it would take all my fingers and toes to count up all the times my social media presence has put me on the radar for a contractor or someone otherwise in a position to hire me.

My take away in the AFM article was simply that if you have an established career and/or access to a publicist etc., you probably are making enough money that you don’t worry about any of this social media f*%^&ery. The rest of us in the trenches, who live in places which are not coasts, and who simply are over the hustle-culture bs that is so rampant in all of our media are sadly beholden to algorithms and self-produced content to get the word out about who we are, what we do, and where we do it.

That said, shortly after writing said AFM article, I was asked to teach a 2-day seminar on developing a vibrant studio online and in person. I have done this many times and I’m delighted to report that it is my teaching studio which keeps my bills paid in the lean months these days. It was during this seminar that I sat down and boiled down sort of a “best of” to-do list for folks to use to improve their online footprint. Even if you hate social media, you should use it to boost your signal. The numbers alone speak for themselves with google handling about 14 billion searches daily and 7 billion of those being “how to”-based. Even the tiniest fraction of that traction would likely result in positive returns for the creator who engages with it.

So, if you find yourself in the “working stiff” camp of musicians as I have over these last few years, I hope you’ll enjoy and get some good use out of my latest addition to my digital media library: The Self-Promotion Sneak Attack. It’s a 25 step list of tasks to be done at a pace which you choose in order to streamline and rev up your social media presence. You can find it here: https://lexiethetrumpeter.shop/products/self-promotion-sneak-attack-ebook?variant=53538286338347

I hope you enjoy it and find that it assists you in getting your voice up, out, and over the din of the rest of us shouting into the void that we exist and we are awesome!