How Music Artists Grow On Social Media feat. Dustin Boyer

Dustin, if you only had 1 minute to give music artists the best advice you possibly could, what would you say? 1 minute. >> I need you to think deeply why anybody would listen to your music or be a fan of yours. When you're posting content and you're trying to decide on a hook or an angle, [music] you need to figure out why would somebody stop? Why would somebody watch this? Why would they care about the song? Why would they care about me? Don't just do some trendy like, oh, you just came across an artist who's small and you could That has nothing to do with your music, so you're not targeting the right audience. Focus on is it about a breakup? Specifically what? Think about it that in-depth [music] and your music will connect with people. It will find people through the algorithm. Don't just throw something up for the sake of throwing it up. >> I've got 10 seconds to spare. I didn't need a whole ass >> makes up for our that nan video where you stalled for 30 seconds. >> [laughter] >> Uh >> to make up the time. >> But yeah, great great answer. I think a lot of people focus on the micro things with their marketing instead of the macro things with their marketing. And And when I when I interviewed Jessie a couple months ago, uh that was He said it in a very different way, but he he was like his his 1-minute advice was stop thinking about like all the little things, like what time of day am I going to post and what color font am I going to use and what hashtag am I going to use. Think about like the big picture, like like is my One is my song good, of course, but then like what what is the hook? Who am I marketing this for? Who's going to find it? Like what part of the song am I using? What part of the song is performing best? Like the macro things, the strategy and like the hook and the angle I think are like experimenting with hooks is much more important than experimenting with like posting times and hashtags. >> Yeah, and I think I think there's just it's hard for artists or it almost feels like a leap that they sit down and they write a song and they're in their fields, they're in their art, but then as soon as they exit that they it almost feels like they undervalue the song itself and they overvalue marketing tactics. Um when you know, if you're selling we're selling songs, but imagine if it was a laptop. How would you sell a laptop? You wouldn't sell it based off of specs. You'd sell it based off of the emotional fulfillment of that laptop. There's a reason why Apple Music crushes because it's not just a [ __ ] computer. It's a whole lifestyle. It's an emotional validation. It's a community thing. There's so many more impactful emotional ways that to sell a product and the hardest thing I mean doing it with a laptop is hard. Doing it with a song is built in. You've got it right there, right? The song is about the time that your ex kicked you out of his car and you had to walk home. That's [ __ ] brutal. Sell that. That's relatable. If you didn't happen to you, it happened to a friend of yours. If it didn't happen to a friend of yours, it was a scene you saw on a movie. It was a Tik Tok you saw. Um that that is what it it it's all there and I and I get it like somehow artists they step away from the art and then they go, well what time am I going to post, you know, and I got to stand there and and and lip sync and um yeah, so that honestly that changed everything for me. Like it changed it changed so much for me. I launched my new agency based off the foundation of that because even my previous agency wasn't thinking about that [ __ ] and I would bring it to them and they would just be like they didn't get it. Um and so I was like [ __ ] it. I'll go I'll go do I'll go do it myself. Um so yeah, that's what I've learned is that like I have been able to be consistently successful with artists because of really that in particular. >> So, like what what How did you get into marketing music in the first place? Like how did you get to venture and then like now what like you know What is the journey from like you getting into music at all, marketing music at all, going to venture and then starting Industry Plant? I don't think a lot of people know like why are you doing what you do. >> Well, it's a it's a it's a tale as old as time. I thought I wanted to be a musician, right? I thought that was the goal. I grew up I mean doing music since I was a kid. And I don't come from a music family, but my great uncle was a a crooner from the '50s named Al Martino. And uh he was in The Godfather. He was a big inspiration of mine. And so I grew up and nobody else was a musician in my family, but I grew up obsessed with his music. And I would go see him live at like 5 years old. I would just go nuts. Uh this is just like >> like what what is a >> Crooner like Frank Sinatra. Like a guy with a microphone. >> Yeah. >> singing you know, he had he would have like a a pit. He didn't have a band. He had a pit, right? Like they would have whole orchestras behind them. Um And so, you know, I I I like playing music a lot. Uh being a songwriter was something that didn't come naturally to me. Um I would obsess over one song for far too long. And uh and then when I got into my 20s, you know, I I would go do rehearsals with my band four times a week. And all I would be thinking about is is growing the band. What could we do? Where could we play? How could we market it? And at one point I would started dreading going to rehearsals. Now, granted rehearsals aren't exactly the most fun thing. And playing live music, there's nothing like it on the planet. Like playing in front of human beings is the greatest feeling in the world. Um and I love every second of that. But getting into that smelly room and arguing with a bunch of other dudes about who's writing the bridge, who's soloing over the bridge or whatever. >> You were the drummer, right? >> I was I was a guitarist. I was like the auxiliary player though. Like sometimes I would play bass, sometimes I play guitar, I'd had a keyboard I'd bring out. Basically like I liked to take my lead singer songs and add all the auxiliary and production. I would have I would if I stayed in music I probably would be a producer cuz that's to me the like give me the bones and I'll flesh out your song. Um in a lot of ways my role's like that with branding and marketing is like I'm fleshing out the world, I'm fleshing out you know, you built the bones but let me build on it. >> Yeah. >> Um but I was a a manager when I was like got out of college, I found some artists that I really loved and I was like I'll manage you. There was a local management company run by a guy named Todd Elmore in Atlanta, Georgia. He used to own a company he used to be Atlantic owned a company called Sixth Man that does all those like festival cruises. And he started a management company and I annoyed the [ __ ] out of him in turn there and I worked for him for 10 years as a manager in Atlanta and I I failed more times than I can count. Meanwhile I was bartending, I was doing sound at shows, I was in bands, I was doing everything I could in music. I I eat and breathe that [ __ ] I didn't do anything else. Um and then um you know, at one point people saw some of the success I was having in marketing and I think it was like I was doing playlisting and people were like can I just hire you to do some playlisting? I'm like sure. And then I'd do it and then I think like most of us it was 2016 2017 I was like >> I was like peak peak playlisting. >> Peak playlisting and it kind of worked back then. It was it was a a real thing back then. It wasn't [ __ ] like it is now. Um but I I I was I was smelling the [ __ ] I was seeing where it was going and I was like what if I ran ads, right? That thing I'll wear that's where a lot of us started too. It's like well, what if I ran my own I think it was I'll have my own playlists. Well, how do I build a playlist? I'll run an ad to it. And then I was like, this ad thing is pretty cool. What if I just ran ads to the music? You know, and so I started building it from there. Meanwhile, Venture was also a management company and they wanted to make the switch. Um so it just made sense. They were they were friends of mine and I joined up as like a small partner over there. And over the years really just fleshed out, you know, we went one service at a time, fleshed out each service. And each one was kind of a leap, you know, especially the content one. They wanted to stay an advertising agency and I was like, what if we do content? And I remember Mhm. Um Uh one of my friends uh from Atlantic was like, hey, I've got Matt Mason. He refuses to make content. Refuse And this was like 2020, 2021. Refuses to make content. Could you sit down with him and talk him into it? And I was like, sure. Like I'll I'll give it a go. And we sat down and we talked him into it. And um we didn't even do it at the time. We weren't making content, so I was making it up as I went too. But I knew what good content looked like. Um but me and um one of my employees, we went out and we shot a bunch of stuff with him on my iPhone. It looked I thought it looked pretty good. We posted it, millions of views. Just everything I posted around him was like [ __ ] gold. And honestly, it wasn't amazing content. It's just that Matt never posted. So when he started posting, people were like, holy [ __ ] Matt's here. Uh I mean, I think it was pretty good content, but um >> It's also kind of a peak. Like TikTok was pretty new at that point, 2020. >> Yeah. >> Not new new, but like new in terms of like the explosion of everyone hopping on. I think was then just around when COVID was happening. >> It was yeah, I think it was like right after like the it was like late 2020, I think it was, early 2021. Um yeah, and uh so I think that helped a lot, but it gave me enough confidence to be like, I could do this. So I just started offering the service, which by the way, I mean, I I feel like it's kind of scary when you dive into new things and start businesses and stuff. And what they don't tell you is that just offering to do something, you don't need to have like it's like, well, what how do I start? And it's like, you just do it. And you do it with a level of confidence that nobody knows that it's your first time doing it. >> I always thought Venture was your company back when I first heard of you because like you you were quite kind of like the face of the whole company. If you go online look up anything, it was like Dust and Um >> That was a problem, too. Um I'm not going to lie, maybe created a little contention between me and the the owner, uh where I think he would go to parties and they would be like, "Oh, you work for Dust and Uh >> [laughter] >> I don't blame him. That would piss me off, too. I'd be like >> I would, but that's really his fault for for letting someone become the face of his company. And there's a lot of YouTubers that that happens to. Like they they they're like a business and they want they want someone else to run a channel to promote their business, but they they let someone else kind of become They never let it known that this is actually some channel operated by this entity. Like it's a very common thing for businesses. >> Well, and it was bringing in a lot of business, too. So I think he was like, we came to terms with it after a while, and it was good. But, um I I mean, honestly, I wasn't super I was getting to a point where I wasn't super proud of the work over there. Um I'm just going to be honest. I just, you know, it was getting it was is a little burger flippy for me, where it was like we had a lot of clients. We had 50 clients when I left, and it was like put output output output. Everybody clocks out at 5:00 p.m. And I was the face of it, and I was just kind of getting to a point where I was like I I want to one, I want to be a part of this work deeply, and I wasn't anymore. I had built myself out of it. Two, I want to be obsessed with it. I want people to look at things that I make and they go like they're you can't There's nothing better than the stuff that Dustin makes. Um that drove me, and it was so frustrating to not be able to do that. Um And so, yeah, we left um July Well, I left July of last year. I departed and took a really big risk cuz I had nobody on my team. Um but I knew once I left, I would There was a few people I was going to offer jobs to, and I was hoping and praying they would come along, and some of them did. Yeah. Some of them stayed, and I felt like I got a good mix of some people. Um But my goal is not to scale Industry Plant. My goal, ultimately, is to become a distributor and a label. Like, to me, that is more fun. I'm going back to Zach Top, you know, Venture was not in a place to sign Zach Top, but I know that the formula is, and I know what I do will take music uh that is destined to be a hit and make it a hit. And so, to me, I want to be able to A&R those artists along the way, take them in, and offer them deals, um especially in this new age where kind of anybody any artist can succeed without the major label system. Um you know, look at Dexter and the Moon Rocks. Now, they're on Big Loud, but that's not a major. That's still an independent, and they've got the number one viral track on Spotify right now. And truthfully, they kind of did it on their own. Really, the drummer of that band was the catalyst behind it. So, >> Yeah. That one is all over is like all over social media. It's kind of like when you when you mentioned them on the pod last week or the week before, I was like, "Who's this band?" And then I noticed it's that freaking trend that's all over social like the the the the like with that that exact hook, I've heard like a thousand times. >> Yeah, and you're like, "Oh, yeah." [laughter] >> Yeah, yeah. I don't I don't know anything about them other than that one part of the song. Um but it's it's kind of wild how everywhere it is. Um the fact that they're not like a big They're a big band now, but they weren't. So, it was it kind of shows the power of if you if you figure out the whole like social media thing, how ridiculously big it can get. And and and we were texting about this artist Maafah in our group chat yesterday. Um I don't know if you're familiar with her thing, but like she does like covers of like metal songs, and she charted Billboard Hard Rock and Hard Rock Songs Sales. So, two Billboard number ones. >> Yeah. >> Off of the cover. >> I think it was with the Bring Me the Horizon cover, right? >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, and so it's it's like you know, I think uh going you know, now we can pivot into like social more tactical social media stuff as well cuz it kind of flows into like what you're doing with Industry Plant 2, but it's you know, you I've heard you saying on on your um content that like the game really isn't even about going viral anymore. The game it's about like putting out content consistently and it's like like you're not trying to get one big massive viral moment typically. >> And then >> Yeah, and I'll and I'll tell you that what's happening with Dexter and the Moon Rocks, that was kind of the status quo for like two, three, four years on TikTok. Very very rarely happens now. Like what they they able to create is hard to create not well it's always been hard to create but it's not always the path to success and I think it gives artists a lot of anxiety because in their head they're like the only way I can do this is if I create this viral moment but what they don't see and I'll just keep using Dexter and the Moon Rocks as an example what they don't see is all of the work content posting ideas that that band did along like they were already doing fairly well over the last couple years because even though they weren't viral like they're super [ __ ] star status now but a month ago they weren't but what they were was a band that was working doing really well still had you know shy of a million monthly listeners and that virality that they created now is because of all that work like they didn't they didn't go from unknowns to this moment they built this foundation and I think that that's the part that artists don't see a lot of the time it's the part that I study like I want to know what happens right before that virality because typically and I'll take Zach Top we had been building I never lie like the the song that was really a hit for him it was it was out for a year and a half before it blew up and even [clears throat] the label was super smart about it because they went to radio with another song and initially I was like why would you go to radio with that song we know the song is I never lie we just it hasn't become a hit yet and Kate Katie over there she's brilliant she's like their radio promotion person she was like well cuz we're building the foundation she's the kind of the one who was like showing me that early on I was like oh you build the foundation because once you've got people revved up and you really go hard on that hit song, it will it will expose it in a much bigger way and have much more impact. Um and that's how I treat everything now, and it works. Like, I've got a song from an artist named Caleb Sanders. That song, Be a Man, came out um February of 2025. And it's always kind of done well. It goes viral now and again. And I was like, let's run ads around it for a while. Let's keep pushing it. Um and let's just see if it's gaining momentum. And if we keep seeing momentum, at some point, we create a plan, we pull a trigger, and right now we're we're about to do that on that song because we're seeing so much I mean, it's it is like the best performing ads that I have. Um it is it Every time we post it, it goes viral. And when I say go viral, it gets 100, 200, to a million views on a video. >> It's It's like it's an outlier for for him. >> Strong outlier. So, so we go, "Okay, label, how much money do you have?" Uh the label goes, "We have X amount of dollars." And we go, "Okay, here's the plan that would make sense." But then also like um and he's not on a major either. Um they're a small label, a small team. Um but they can do what they They're They've got some people, and we're trying to finesse the song. But to me, that that doesn't I wouldn't have done that a year ago. Like, I No Nobody smart in this business is releasing a song with a $100,000 bet on it. Because there's no reason to. And there's no timetable, either. Like, these songs come out, and even radio Radio used to be this thing where like you get ahead of it or you lose out. If the song drops and you you missed you've missed radio. But now, radio will go back and pick up songs if they're trending and doing well. Um so there's no timetable >> Radio's probably just desperately trying to stay relevant. >> Yeah. >> Times have changed a little bit. >> Well, you'd be surprised. People still very much listen to radio quite a bit. Um yeah. I wonder what the I'm sure there's a study somewhere from Nielsen or whatever, but I have to imagine it's down a lot since Spotify and Apple Music have become a Oh, for sure. But man, this was and I I I used this stat for a while, but now it's probably definitely defunct. But even I think it was like 2018 I read a study where it was like terrestrial radio is still the number one listened to thing in America. And I was like, really? I like I can't imagine that's still true, but maybe. I don't know. >> I can't think of the last time I mean like the only time I'll play radio is if I like I don't know I got in my car and like I don't know for some reason I have no service, my phone's dead. Like something bad has happened to me if I don't have service and I have my car. >> [laughter] >> Something bad has happened. >> Yeah, and then I'll then I'll put on the radio. Um, but like I was on vacation recently and then I had the car at SiriusXM. So we just had um uh what's that metal station? >> Uh, Octane. >> Octane We set Octane on the whole trip. >> Yeah. >> Cuz like that's basically like it's like it's like metal, but it's mainstream enough where both me and my wife dig most of the songs on it. Um, so it was easy just throw on and we don't have to plug in our phones and turn on Spotify. And that was like nice. It was kind of a cool like old school radio experience except without the only major label slop a lot of radio stations have kind of turned into. >> Yeah. >> But now um so when when you guys work with an artist cuz you you're you guys like you're you're full service marketing company for an artist. You don't just do socials, you don't just do ads. In fact, I believe you said you try to you don't really want to be doing just ads for someone unless you're also doing their social. I think you said that to me at one point. Yeah. >> Yeah, so I um to me for what we do I I've I've scaled ads and I'm just not I don't know, it's not work I want to do, to be honest with you. Like, it's necessary to grow artists, but if somebody came to me and was like, "Can you just run ads?" I I don't do that. What I do is a more of a fan funneling service. So, I have one client where they came to us asking that. I'm like, "Well, what do you What do you really want to accomplish?" And they're like, "Well, we are signed with UTA. UTA won't book us until we have They want us." And I honestly, I think this is sounds ridiculous, but it's not. It's clever. UTA is like, "Hey, grow your SMS list. Any market that you grow 300 in, we'll book a show and we'll sell to those people." And I'm like, "Great. I can do that." So, I've set up a whole um uh funnel system to target people, retarget them, get them to sign up, and then I I I write out, like, "Here's how we're going to engage them. Here's the automation." So, it goes deeper than just running ads. I'm running a whole funneling system. Um I'm not touching his creatives at all. Uh that that to me is interesting. Uh but I don't do like, if somebody was like, "Can you run some like uh like streaming ads?" Uh By themselves, no. If I'm running creative and they're like, "Hey, can you run some streaming ads?" Yeah, let's do that. Um but my our capacity is 15 artists, and that's the way it's going to be forever. >> Mhm. >> Um I don't aspire to do more than that. I have seven employees. I know how much work I can take, how many hours, and what my max profit margin is. Um and I've locked it in, and that's what it's going to be. Um and honestly, that's more fun, cuz I'm not killing myself. I double down on artists all the time. I'll go out of my way and do some really crazy [ __ ] if I think it's going to help. And you can't do that if you're trying to get to 50 artists. You can't do that, because it's not even a matter of the work, it's the brain space. It's like >> It's true. >> Yeah, 50 artists running streaming ads for 50 artists isn't more a lot of work, but I never get to think about those artists when you're doing that. Like you never get >> completely different type of like you you if you're working artists with like their overall strategy and their socials and you're like really locked in with everything they're doing, it it takes a lot more like as you call it brain space to get into that versus if you're just running the ad campaign. So you have to get into their sound just enough to do what you need to do, but you don't have to like get pulled into their world like with what you're doing. Like there's there's certain artists where I work with them on on everything. Like I I meet with them every single week and I run their ads and we I help I kind of we kind of formulate the release strategy with them and I give them guidance on what they're going to be doing in socials and help them understand the analytics and do all the little things. Those people I like I know their brand. Like I I could almost like be kind of imagine myself being them if I were to take over there and do my other stuff. That's how sucked in you get with it. And that's what you have to do to do what you do. You have to effectively be get in the artist's head to to know >> Yeah, dude, we we do a branding service that the if the artist has a strong brand, the question is, okay, are we doing an album? Cuz then we'll do like an era for the album. Um but unless they have a strong brand, like some artists come to us and they're like, it's baked and we're like, oh, this is great. We just need to learn it. Um but a lot of artists come to me and they've got really no brand and um we build that out. And I think um when it comes to branding, there is a really antiquated archetype system that I you hear it and it sounds so smart at first. You're like, there's 12 archetypes. There's the magician, the rock star, the lover. And you'll be like, the lover is Prince. You know, the magician is blah blah blah. And you you you you hear it and you're like, that's brilliant. And it's this idea that every genre kind of has archetypes and it's like, "Oh, Olivia Rodrigo is already the rock star. So, we've got to be this because nobody's this." Um and it it has made sense up till about 6 years ago with the advent of and you could say even longer, but social media has kind of destroyed it. And it it has because of the exposure and the overexposure. And so, it's this antiquated thing that it sounds smart and people who have never done brand work will talk about it. But when you try to actually apply it, you're like, "This doesn't make any sense." And it starts to make everybody uncomfortable, right? Because you'll be like, "Hey, uh you're going to be the lover." And you start to frame that up and the artist is like, "Yeah, but I don't want to do that." And well, you have to do that because you're the lover. And so, you'll push on it, they'll get uncomfortable, it'll get weird, then you'll lose sight of it. Uh and I'm like, "This doesn't [ __ ] work." Like, this doesn't practically it doesn't work. Um so, what we do instead is we just try to understand what the artist's vision is. Like, sit down, what do you what do you want this to be? And sometimes it's deep. Sometimes they talk about [ __ ] Sometimes they don't and they gum up and then I just want to talk about them and their story and who they are and their lived experiences because the reality is is that if you want to make content for them and you want them to make content and you want to people to live in their world, they also have to live in their world because they're going to be so overexposed that if they get online and just post about their life and it doesn't fit their brand, then you've lost because you've got the team posting high-level content that's all branded around the lover and then meanwhile, they get on there and they're talking about video games they like. Right? Like, that's not very lover archetype. Um so, it you know, all of a sudden you're like, okay, this doesn't make sense. Um, and so we focus on understanding their vision and then we ask the question, well, what's valuable about their vision? Like, if they love like if let's say they're a bunch of indie kids from Nebraska. I'm working with an artist right now. A bunch of indie kids from Nebraska. They're anywhere from 23 to 30. What is their experience? How has it been? And what's valuable about them? What makes them interesting that somebody would see them and be like, that's me. That's that's who I am. And we paint that picture. And we go, here's why it's valuable. Here's the narrative that makes sense around that. Here's what this brand makes people feel. And most importantly, here are the other artists that they're competing with. Um because if you can pinpoint here's where the archetype thing kind of comes back a little bit because it's all about competition. It's like nobody's the lover, so we got to be the lover. So instead I look at it and go, okay, who are the contemporary artists? Not ones that blew up 20 years ago or even 5 years ago. I want to know right now who's on their way up, who just got to the top, and what is their brand values? Because if they're doing something really well and we come out and do the same thing, then you're tied to them. And if you focus, okay, we do that, but we're not going to focus on that. We're going to do this instead because nobody is doing this thing amongst these artists. Um and that research is really easy to do now, honestly, with AI because you can simply say, hey AI, here's why I think my my brand is valuable. Can you do some research to tell me who I might be competing with? Here's everything to know about my band. And instead of us having to dig through a bunch of like, you know, charts and things like that, it'll just pinpoint artists for us to research. We still do the research, but it'll give me like 20 artists that I can go and listen to. >> [clears throat] >> starting point to to narrow down your search. Cuz before I'm assuming maybe even still you probably use like Chartmetric and and >> Yeah, I pay for that service. Yeah, that expensive ass service. You pay for Chartmetric, too? >> I have an account. >> You >> [laughter] >> You You guys Well, it's funny cuz you guys will be talking. You're like, "Yeah, they sponsor me." Or I got it I'm like, "I never think about that shit." >> No, I reached out to them to do a sponsor, and they they said like they'd only give me an account if I made a dedicated video with them every month. And I was like, "No." That's >> You know what? I would do that. For as expensive as they are, I would do that. I got to reach out to Chartmetric. Cuz I love Chartmetric. I just don't love having to pay for it for so much money. >> Yeah, I paid for it for a while, and then I stopped, and um >> You got a friend. >> I'll I'll leave it at I'll leave it at that. >> Yeah, fair enough. I'll take fair [laughter] enough. That's like Pollstar, dude. I used to use Pollstar all the time, and >> I shouldn't even know what know what that is. >> Dude, it's it's like um all it's like a booking directory. All the promoters, the venues. And when I was managing, I would be booking my bands, and it was like the holy grail of contact information. And so um I worked for a festival, and I got a hold of their login for Pollstar, and I'm like, "Fuck, yeah." >> [laughter] >> Yeah. >> So. >> Nice. But yeah, the AI I think a lot a lot of artists don't use AI because they they see the generative stuff, and they don't like that. And so they a lot of artists I found have kind of like an anti-AI mindset, which I think a lot like a lot of them will point to it when you use it's it's inaccurate. It takes away your ability to critically think, blah blah blah. Right? The list all these reasons. But they're using it wrong. Right? You you use it. You don't ask it a question and then accept that answer as truth. You use it as a way to corral bundles of information and present it to you in a more meaningful way to kickstart your research. Like so when you ask it like to hey, I'm I'm a this and so artist make this type of music appealing to these types of fans. What are the artists that you see talked about online that are and then it gives you a big list of things and you now then go do that as your starting point research. So you're not like you're you're you're not asking it a definitive question and blindly trusting its answer. You're you're using it as a essentially like a very sophisticated Google search and then you're doing research on the back of it. And it can be super time-saving. Um and I'm sure you guys use it for like hooks as well. Um >> No. Not because I if it gave me a good hook, I would use it. It's terrible. It's it's any most if not all creative work I my team is better than it. Mostly because it it seems to pull from a lot of antiquated knowledge on the internet about what social media should look like. So it'll give me ideas that feel 2 years old. It kind of reminds me of working with labels. Labels often, you know, they don't have the time to really spend doing the amount of research that like you and I do. So they often give advice that is antiquated and that's what it reminds me of. Um >> The way I had it if you I thought if you ask it like I'm looking for hooks for this genre song, it's going to be horrible. But if I give it like these are some hooks that I've used and I've like a good amount of information about who you are and what the vibe is, but you're giving it examples of what you've used that worked and then say give me like 30 more. And then And just skim through them and out of the 30 you find like three to five that you're like, oh cool. You know, like that's an idea or you tweak it. But you do have to keep in mind that like there's going to be a lot that suck. I guess that's the thing with with if you don't live in this world, you're not going to know what's bad or not. So, maybe that's part of the issue, but >> I I I think that if if I didn't do this every day, it would be more useful. Um but, you know, I mentioned earlier about the values and understanding why somebody listens about a song. So, like internally, we sit down and we do a song analysis, very creative name, uh where we ask these questions. And we do it so frequently that I do it in my head in real time and it's how we come up with hooks. So, maybe a year ago, if I had used it, it would have better hooks than I can think of. But, if you gave me a song, I could work through an analysis and give far better hooks because they're based on the song. Uh and sometimes I'll do that, like I'll feed it the analysis and I'll be like, give me some hooks on it. But, it's the formatting. It'll be like like if I had a song and I love this is my favorite hook of all time. Um it's um you treat your significant other better than you treat yourself. It's short, poignant, it's specific, relatable. Um it will often like if I wanted to get there, it would often kind of butcher it and it would be like, point of view, you treat your boyfriend really well. Like it'll do it'll like, no, it's yes, but like >> Yeah, yeah. >> it's not there. And it always likes to throw in like the point of view or this is you if like it'll just do a lot of that nonsense. Um But yeah, the the the thing is is that like just like songwriters, honestly, songwriters probably experience the same thing I experience but with songs. They probably use Suno and they go, "Holy [ __ ] I can write way better than this." Because all they do is write. It's their skill set. Um meanwhile, somebody who doesn't write will use Suno and be like, "This is amazing cuz I can't write a better song than this." And it's probably just the same thing. >> Yeah, I know. Yeah, that that that makes a lot of sense as well. And I've definitely found that with with Suno. It's like you you're like, I like there's there's like a cool idea here, but it's it's like kind of half-baked, right? And whereas a one person will hear and because like Suno's so like perfect with its like production. There's obviously the phasing stuff that you can tell that it's AI-generated, but a lot of like to to a layman's ears, they'll hear it as like super polished and tight. Yeah. They're not necessarily focused on like the inadequacies in the songwriting. What do you normally do if you have that song that's that's less like concrete about it's about this exact thing? Like I don't know, like Deftones for example. Lyrics are very kind of they're not like they're kind of vague and ambiguous. There's metaphors and it's not necessarily obvious and honestly, I'm pretty sure if you asked them, they would say it's about whatever you want it to be, man. >> Yeah. >> Um but like you could interpret it five different ways. Do you commit to one angle or do you just try them all out and let people decide >> Oh, it's about the experimentation. But you're I get this question a lot because lyrics that are ambiguous or instrumental music doesn't have any lyrics, what do you do? Well, you still try to think about the value, right? And you could look at this like here I've got emotion, right? Music without clear lyrics still provide emotion or any lyrics. So you could still like Def- Deftones you said, right? Um I'm trying to think of a song that's on my head, but let's say it's a like a high-energy like progressive song, right? Well, the the emotion might still be anger, might be frustration, it might be catharsis. Like you just want to scream these lyrics. You don't even know why. Right? So, there's still people listen to something to an express an emotion for a permission. Right? >> artist kind of popping off lately called Errorzone who makes instrumental new metal because he's still trying to find a vocalist, but I guess he said screw it and he's just like I'm just going to put music out anyways. >> Love that. >> Um and like dropped a song in February 11th and it has 1.3 million streams just off the backs of TikTok and Instagram content. >> Yeah. >> Crazy well. And like his whole angle is like do you miss the music from like the 2000s? And so in his content he kind of he's kind of dressed up with that vibe. It he he sometimes put puts footage from like that era like movies or TV shows or or Anyways, it it to me that when you said the instrumental thing he immediately popped up because he didn't he's not going off of a meaning. He's going off of nostalgia, 2000s, millennials missing music and the culture they grew up with um as the hook even though it's instrumental. >> Yeah, that that that is the value of the song. The feeling is nostalgia, longing. Right? And it's also a bit of belonging. Right? You miss the era where you belong to this Music sometimes creates moments in time that don't exist forever and people miss that as well. Um and that is community as well. So, there's it goes really deep and it's all about experimenting. Like what's the thing that's going to people are going to resonate. Um you know, and sometimes we just ask questions. Like I want to know why would somebody first listen to this song? Why would they leave and go to Spotify to listen? What Why would they add it to a playlist and what kind of playlist? Why would they listen to it again? I've got all kinds of questions. Where what Where would they listen? In their car? In their room? At the gym? when would they be listening? How do you move to this? Is it a we or a me song? Which is, you know, like, is it community or am I alone in my bedroom? Uh is there a cultural connection like tied to political uh frustrations or certain TV shows that you could tie it to? Um we once had this song this amazing song uh and it was just really coincident It was about a daughter protect or a mother protecting her daughter from a bad shitty boyfriend. And at the time, Ginny and Georgia was blowing up. And so we started putting them tracks >> Good show, by the way. >> Great show. Right? It was a cultural moment. So, we connected the song culturally. And uh Dexter and the Moon Rock, I'd say they had one trend. The trend is like, remember who you are, white boy. It's nostalgia. So, culturally, it connected to whatever call And this is why the trend works so well, is it was for whoever you wanted it to be. It could be who remember who you are, baddie, you know, remember who you are, auntie, remember who you are, grandpa. And it's just >> like remember who you are, emo kid, remember who you are, goth kid, remember who you are, metalhead. Like, I've seen people do it for every And And put different songs under it, too. >> Yeah. >> Well, like it's it's it's like most of them are using that song, but like it's kind of like that trend is like gone past >> of its own. >> Yeah. Yeah, cuz I didn't even know it was their song that was that trended initially, cuz I was getting like that same trend with like metal songs recommended to me. And then finally the original one that kicked off that trend started popping up in my feed. >> [laughter] >> Well, once people realized that if you tie like Tik Tok has this thing about sounds that it goes from like being whatever to being advantage. And if you use that sound, it's more likely people are going to see your content in your trend. So, that's like the magic if you can get into that. Um but yeah, we ask these questions and it leads us, okay, yes, the cultural connection is uh uh, nostalgia for that, right? And it's whatever culture somebody's in. So, it's sort of infinite. It's brilliant. Um, it's why it works so well. Uh, my favorite question though is what taboo, petty, or difficult truth is this song saying on behalf of the listener? This is the specific thing that if you can figure out that your song says that no other song says, that people will be like, yes, that. Like for this one, I can't wait to see that those people get what's coming to them. Actually, I I changed it. Before I said, I can't wait to see these people suffer. To me, that's better because nobody wants to admit to wanting to see somebody suffer. But, when you say it out loud, people go, yes, that. And if you can say it and you're answering people's question that that's a little taboo, it resonates a lot. >> Um, social media thrives on uh, well, it kind of thrives on negativity, but like a thing like that, what if something's taboo, that means inherently it's kind of divisive. And so, it's going to spur engagement, I would think, which is pretty brilliant, honestly. >> Thank you. Yeah, that's the uh, I honestly I I stole it from comedians. Comedians do this all the time. They say, they go right up to the line, and they say the thing that almost gets them in trouble. Yeah. Or they'll just say the obvious thing that nobody has ever said out loud. And everybody That's what makes comedy great is the relatability. Is like, yes, that. Or I feel that way, but nobody has said it, and that's [ __ ] hilarious. >> And the classic George Carlin one about climate change, where he's like, guys, the planet's going to be fine. The earth is not going to be hurt. We are [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> You know? And it's like, oh, wow, that's an interesting way of putting it. Like, it's not about saving the planet, it's about saving us. The planet's not going anywhere from our climate change. We're the ones that will be negatively affected by any repercussions of our the way we treat our planet, you know? But like that's You're right. Like that's that is kind of what comedians do. It's they they It's funny to hear someone like present something that sounds so obvious that you've never thought of. >> Well, and the point for me isn't that it doesn't to me it doesn't connect because it's funny. It connects because it's true and it reflects the audience. If he was sitting in a different room, it might not reflect the audience and it might bomb. Right? So, reflecting the audience is is really important and saying a truth that they won't say out loud. And so, the comedy part of it is there. That's that's sort of the thing they're selling. Um same thing with the music. The music's the thing you're selling. The truth that you're saying through the music is how you sell it. >> How much do people post on their main account? At one point does it make sense for people to start having other accounts? And what's the kind of a posting strategy that someone should employ in either of those scenarios? >> I mean, what what we're seeing work now is low lift and high lift ideas combined. Like, we'll go back to Dexter and the Moon Rocks. Um their drummer would have a lot of low lift stuff. A lot of like funny little like a carousel or an image or him just sitting there. And then they would combine it with like high-quality footage from the live show, right? And so, he might do two posts a day, maybe three sometimes. And what I have seen recently is that the fan accounts are great for posting low lift ideas, but you don't need a fan account to do it if you haven't maxed out your main account. So, if you're like, I have all these low-lift ideas, I'll post them on this fan account. Sure, but if you're posting once a day and you're doing once a day on that other account, just do it on your main account. And there are pros and cons, but ultimately what you really need to sell is your personality, your narrative, your story, those those brand values we talked about. And it's kind of hard to do one-dimensionally. Um we're working with a band over the last year, made a lot of really good-looking content. It's slick. It's got no personality. It's just them performing. And they weren't really posting a whole lot beyond that. Um and it didn't take a lot to add some personality. Um where we just were like, put put a hook on screen and give a little bit of personality. And then immediately they started going viral. Personality is is really important. I think it was David Bowie that said, product plus personality is how you sell music. Um he should know, right? Uh so, >> It's not personality content. This is not like you talking to the camera about like what you had for lunch that day. This is just adding a bit of personal flair to your music. >> Yes. That's that that is so I'm glad you said that because I I missed that point. And don't get me wrong, if you get on and have a little conversation, um that's not a bad thing, but you just like we talked about comedy a moment ago, they're not doing personality They're not saying the truth and then the comedy's over here. They're combining it. Add Add the the personality, the brand values, those thing to the content about your music. Match them together and then post frequently. Um but you know, if if your account isn't where it's posting enough and you're ready to start a fan account, do the main account first. The fan account stuff I I had one I think I said this the other day on the podcast, but I had one guy ask me. He's like, "Hey, our budget's kind of limited. Are we missing out by not not doing a fan account?" And I'm like, "Yeah, but I could say that if you had 10 times the amount of money and you're like, 'We're only doing five fan accounts. Are we missing out?' Yeah. 'We're only doing 20 fan accounts. Are we missing out?' Yeah. You can do it infinitely. Uh and it it is kind of infinitely helpful. Um I would tell you that every A-list artist management team has three or four people working 30 accounts. Zach Bryan has a team of people working 30 accounts. Um that when you get to that level, you got to think you have to make enough noise to elevate where you're at. If I have 50,000 monthly listeners, it's not hard to get more than 50,000. But if I have 5 million and I want to double that, I have to make way more wait, 10,000 times more noise. 100,000 times more noise? Yeah, I you know, that's I'm trying to do the math. Um and so, yeah, you know, do the fan account. Yeah, it's helpful, but it's not it's not necessary. Um but you'll have >> someone as a main like posting posting once a day is a solid overall strategy. >> Yeah, if you can get to once a day. I also don't think I'm I'm a big believer in consistency and burnout prevents consistency. Um I will tell you like if you were literally a robot, all the things I just said are really helpful, but you're a human being. If you can wake up every day and get a post up, do that. I mean, we talk about Matt Bacon. I can't do what Matt does. I'm already Dude, I'm burned out. I posted every day this year up till like 2 weeks ago and I'm like, I've posted maybe four times in the past 2 weeks cuz I I I I've burned out. Like it it's hard, dude. It's so hard. >> I I usually tell artists post as much as you can while being consistent. So, if you can do once a day for the next year, do it. If you can only do two times a week for the next year, do it. Like it's way better to post twice a week every week than post every day and then quit after a month and then you come back 3 months later cuz I see artists do that all the time. They They commit to something more than they can handle and then it ends up actually being like if you add up all the things they actually pulled off in a year, it's less than if they just did way less per week but stuck with it all year. >> Yeah. >> Whether that's releasing music or social media. >> That's why I like our podcast, man, cuz it supplements my content. I'm I'm pretty sure I get more people coming up to me being like, "I love you on the podcast." I don't get a lot of like, "I seen your content." anymore, which I'm more than happy with, to be honest. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, I've I've had I've had people know me from the podcast, too. That's kind of a cool thing is we're all kind of all of us are feeding in our own people in there. So, we're all kind of like swirling around our audiences into this podcast. >> True. >> Um so, I have people hit me up where they're like, "Oh, yeah, I follow Dustin and then I saw you on the podcast and I really like I really like what you had to say, too." Or like I follow Jesse or I follow Matt. Um that's the nice thing. If If you're watching this you've never seen the podcast, uh I'll link to it in the description so you can go watch the podcast. It's a good time. >> It's It's basically this but also Matt's there. That's the thing. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, sometimes Jesse until Jesse comes back and then >> Yeah. Uh I like our our rotating co-host, though. I enjoy I kind of enjoy that. >> fun. >> Yeah. >> fun like it mixing it up uh all the time. Um but yeah, Dustin, this has been great. Is there anything you want to leave the people with aside from going to your social medias and your website and checking out Industry Plant. >> Yeah, just check it out. Um I'm going to be honest with you guys. We're an expensive We're We're an expensive service. I'm not saying don't hire me. I'm not saying I I'm just saying like if you I don't know what I'm saying there. I don't know what I'm saying. >> [laughter] >> I I I just say that because I get a lot of outreach and I want everybody to know >> Yeah. You also want If someone comes to you and they're like, "We have $500." There's really nothing you you guys offer that's that >> Yeah, that it's But it's also that that level of work. I'm really saying it because of the level of work it takes. And that artists artists expect themselves to be able to do this. We have one artist who's like literally beating herself up that she even has to hire us because she's like, "I should just be able to do this." And because my friends do. And you're like, "It's a lot. It's my full-time job." Um it's all I do. That's what I mean when I say we're an expensive service. Like understand what you're doing for yourself as an artist or even if you're a manager working for an artist is worth three to four grand a month cuz that's what I charge. Right? Like that's that's what it's worth what you're doing. >> You have seven people on a team working all together in the US Like that's seven people in the United States are expensive to work on something. And you already said you're capped at 15 clients. So >> Yep. >> I I Like to me when when you when I heard your pricing for the first I'm like, "Oh yeah, that sounds about right." Just based on what it takes and and what you you have to pay like just the labor involved and what you guys have to do. Right? It's just a function of of that. Like you could of course do a have a less involved product that you could have more clients on, but it's just a matter of like if you want to have this specific thing that we do with all this involvement and this help it it takes this many hours which costs this much money which means we need to charge this much money. Um so I don't think anyone should scoff at that. I think and if anything people should find comfort in that that if they work with you uh, you're not you're not just like one of a thousand, right? You're you're one of 15. You're getting a lot of love and care. Well, see I talked to you. I hear how much care you guys put into your work. So if anyone's like serious about working with Dustin's company, um, he cares a lot. >> Yeah, and and there's a lot of and I don't shame any small like any agency that wants to work with 50 artists and do a smaller level of work because they're providing something that maybe is affordable but is at least something. Um, but there is not a lot of agencies and maybe because I'm just I I'm willing to take the risk but there's not a lot of agencies just doing the hardest thing and honestly from a business standpoint it makes sense. It's like, all right, nobody's doing the hardest thing so let's do the hardest thing. That's why I like Chaotic Good cuz they're doing the hardest thing. Like they I don't think people understand how difficult it is to maintain the thousands of accounts that they have and run campaigns. That's It is It is not like but people are comparing it to botting. It isn't botting. They're running these accounts like you would any account. Any any fan account, anything like that. Um, but the hard thing is valuable, you know? It's it's it's Nobody wants to do the hard thing. >> Yeah. I I did the I did the math cuz I like they they mentioned a thing like we're managing a over a thousand Tik Tok accounts. I was like, okay. How I I did the math. Like literally went and I I figured out like, okay, if I had if I had one phone, how much does it cost to buy a phone, amortize that cost over two years, how much does it cost to get a phone plan per month? And then how much does it cost How much you can have five accounts on a phone? How much time does it take >> eight. Eight? >> Max eight but a lot of people recommend five or six. Just have a safety margin. But like so I I did the math with five. Um it's like if you have five accounts, how much labor is it to post on those five accounts and keep the accounts engaged per day? And I came up with per phone, it's about $1,000 per month if you're using US labor. >> So you maintain >> a phone with five accounts. So it's about uh $200 per account. Which is two Right? Just do the math. >> $20,000 per 100. 200 grand per thousand. Per month. >> And I might have done some fudge math but $200 per account times 100 accounts, if you have 100 accounts, about $20,000 per month. Now this is assuming you're posting three times a day per account. But that's like the when I cuz I was just curious like they how do they even like how do you even approach doing this? >> I that's genuinely baffling and I'll tell you that like they work fast. Like I'm doing a campaign with them next week and it's three weeks and they're not cheap campaigns. Um but I I think that that what's funny and then I've learned this about high-end like they're high-end, we're high-end. Um people value it. They can't always afford it. And the music industry is notoriously broke. So um our high-end service, dude, if I were to go into branding in soft drinks, what I'm charging is a joke. Nobody would hire me because I'm not charging enough. These people they charge $50,000 a month easy. Um so it's funny to say that uh but in the music industry, most artists, if they're if they're hiring a service, $1,700 a month is probably where they start to feel real pain. Um you know, a business can't sustain that. And a very few And my point is very few businesses in the industry can sustain what Chaotic Good is charging. So, I even though people probably value it, it's like how do you find that much work that often? Um, you know, that's the tough thing. >> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure it was built up piece by piece very slowly over time. And to but like still it's like how how do they justify maintaining that infrastructure? Cuz you can't if you just stop posting on accounts, they just kind of shrivel up and die over time. >> Yep. >> So, you have to have some type of maintenance >> going. >> maintenance and um obviously I'm I'm sure they figured out the economics of that. I just hope their recent drama isn't [ __ ] them up. >> Oh, I think it's doing the opposite. See, like they're getting so much pushback from fans, but everybody in the music industry >> is like I want this. >> Art artists for sure. The industry, like I've had about a dozen conversations like I want to hire them. Right? Like they're they're they're probably doing [ __ ] great. Like that's it cuz that's how the music industry works. Like we all know that that's how it works. Like we just hadn't heard of Chaotic Good yet. And they offer a great service. So, yeah, they >> Yeah, yeah. Like a lot of artists talk about how much they hate posting on social media and they can't post enough. It's like well, hire us. We'll post a [ __ ] ton of content for you on social media and like you still have to post your own stuff, but now it's like we're taking all this pressure off you to be the sole social media thing. Um, >> I think that's what kind of makes me mad about the pushback from fans because they do not understand how hard it is to be a musician and to just expect artists to be the the curators of all this crap. Like [ __ ] off. Like the fans the fans need to give these artists a break and give them the ability to leverage some stuff. I don't know. I just I get so frustrated in defense of these artists because Geese is a good band. You may not like them. I saw a lot I knew it. Geese suck. No, Geese is a good band. It wouldn't have worked if they There's We do this all the time and it doesn't work cuz it's not good bands. So, you know, I don't know. >> The music's not good, it's not going to stick. I don't I haven't heard enough about Geese's music to know if I personally like but it doesn't matter if I personally like it. What matters is there's obviously a lot of people that do personally like it which means it's good, right? If it wasn't good, people wouldn't like it. You can't like fake If your music's not actually good, people don't stick around. >> No. >> You might be able to get a temporary good result but it'll it'll go away eventually if it's not good. >> Yeah. >> Anyways, man, that was supposed to be a podcast end and then we went on a tangent. So, thanks for coming on the show, man. >> [ __ ] yeah, dude. I appreciate it.