Please stop self-promoting 🙏🏻
Many artists I know are mentally stuck in the idea that they need to “self-promote,” and most artists hate the idea of self-promotion.
I’m convinced that we need a different mental category for what we do when we share the things we create.
I’ve wondered if we get stuck in the idea of self-promoting because it’s where we all get our start.
If you’d rather watch a version of this blog you can do that here on Youtube
Like most musicians, I took lessons to learn various instruments. When I was young, those lessons often led to recitals where I performed the pieces I’d been working on for my family.
My family made sure to be there. They praised, applauded, and filmed the performance. But my family was present and excited because they loved me, not because they loved the music. The music was pretty boring. They didn’t care too much about what I was playing. They just cared about me.
Years later, when I was 17, I had a growing collection of songs I had written, and I wanted to play them for people. I decided to put on a concert in the youth building at my church. Even though they had no idea what to expect, several of my friends and family came to the concert. But like my recitals, they didn’t come because they loved the music. Many had no idea what kind of music to expect from me. They came to my concert to support me.
All of us who do creative work start this way. We make something and share it with those closest to us. The people who love us listen, watch, and engage patiently in what we’re doing.
But there is a point where we as creatives need to mature if we hope to reach an audience beyond our friends and family.
We have to face the hard truth that most of the world doesn’t care about us, and they don’t care about what we are creating. At some point, we have to stop promoting ourselves.
“Come to my concert.” “Listen to my new song.” “Check out my new painting.”
If you get stuck in self-promotion, the only people who will ever pay attention to what you are making are the people who care about you. And after enough time, even the people who know and love you will engage less and less.
The trick to marketing your creative work is to stop self-promoting and start figuring out how your creative work serves a group of people.
This is something all artists must figure out if they want the world to take their creative work seriously.
You eventually want people to engage with your creative work, not because they know and love you but because they find genuine interest and value in what you are creating.
But how do we do that? How can we share what we are creating with a group of people that just might love it? How can we get out of the mindset that we are self-promoting?
Well, stay tuned next week cause I’ll post another article breaking down the “how.”
If you don’t want to miss it, make sure to sign-up for my email list!
