This post is part of The Renegade Musician Series.

The journey of a Renegade Musician begins with accurate thinking. Because most artist are not thinking accurately.

Google the best way to market your music, and you’re probably going to come away thinking you need to be using social media more.

Google PR, and you will find other artists complaining – “it’s much too expensive to be worthwhile.”

Google “touring” and you will read the sob story of a band who barely broke even on their latest 120-day tour across the United States.

It’s not that these experiences aren’t true. It’s not that you can’t learn something from them.

It’s that anecdotal evidence, opinions, and assumptions are insufficient when making up your mind about what and what not to do in your music career.

Anecdotal evidence, opinions, and assumptions are insufficient when making up your mind about what and what not to do in your music career. Click To Tweet

Until you’ve tried something for yourself, it shouldn’t be considered anything other than an untested theory. You simply won’t know unless you try. Things you’ve written off could still work. Things you’re trying now could end in disaster. That’s accurate thinking.

All things being equal, I suggest having a bias towards your personal success. But you’re not rooted in accurate thinking if you think you’re entitled to it, and that failure is not a possibility. Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.

If you truly believe social media is the best way to promote your music, then go all-in for the next five years. Accept no substitutes and shut out all distractions. Show up daily to do the work.

But don’t leave your brain at home. Striving without strategy is an exercise in futility. If you want to be successful on social media, you must be willing to learn, to test, to measure, to adapt, to iterate. Anything less is peeing outside of the toilet bowl.

Striving without strategy is an exercise in futility. Click To Tweet

“Use contests and promotions to engage your audience.”

Really? Why does that work?

You’ve got to be willing to question it. Know why it’s going to work for you. Or try it for yourself and track the results (then you have something to go on). Otherwise, it’s not worth doing.

Name an area of your music career – songwriting, composing, booking, live performance, pitching playlists, posting to YouTube, bookkeeping… literally anything. And I can almost assuredly say you have untested assumptions robbing you of the success you truly deserve.

You have untested assumptions robbing you of the success you truly deserve. Click To Tweet

The good news? You were smart enough to take a moment out of your day to read this post, and now you have an advantage that no one else has. You can unravel the myths and embrace the truth.

Take advantage of The Most Incredible Back to School Sale while you still can.

David Andrew Wiebe

Get on the waiting list for The Music Entrepreneur Code

You have Successfully Subscribed!