By: Ken Boone I’m sitting here at my computer, going back and forth between typing this blog and checking my social media accounts. How many followers do we have on our Descant accounts? How many likes on my latest post, tweet, whatever? Is anyone out there? Oh yeah, Facebook changed their algorithm. That’s it! These days, social media is part news source, part “long time no see” and part popularity contest. I remember after one my early posts, I got a message from Facebook basically offering congratulations on the success of my reach. They then offered to help me reach 10,000 more people for only $20. So now I’m supposed to be in the business of buying friends? So not to overreach, I set a goal on adding just 100 friends/followers/fans on the platforms I use. Even with modest expectations, it was a challenge getting there. I felt frustrated, disappointed, and abandoned. But feelings aren’t facts. A week after Celia and I married, some musician friends stopped by. After eating pizza, we adjourned to our home studio to record a song or two. That was the genesis of Celia’s CD, “Songs from the Journey.” Making the album was a challenge and then it didn’t sell. Technical issues, (i.e. hard drive failure at the worst possible time!) copious fear and a big old-fashioned case of writer’s block made me seriously consider reneging on my promise to resume making music. At the time, it had been more than two decades since I’d been onstage or done anything of consequence in music. Celia and I were faced with the task of promoting this collection of songs, with no budget or plan. Enter social media. We couldn’t even pick up 200 followers on Facebook. Man, that sucked! We weren’t ready to give up, because music was the thing we would do if money were no object. What in the world were we going to do? We signed up on ReverbNation with much greater success. More about that later. As my Facebook and Twitter followers finally topped 200 on each, I peeked over at ReverbNation and was amazed to see that we had over 5,000 fans! How did we do it? We were nice! When someone “fanned” us, we fanned them back. We engaged by answering emails. We listened to each other’s music. We encouraged each other. And we made friends! These days, we’ve stopped recording albums. We’ve stopped giving concerts and tabled the plans to form a band and tour. Now we do podcasts. We scratch our musical itch by recording soundtracks for the shows we produce. One day we may make those jingles, bumpers, and stingers into complete songs. But not today! Now Celia and I are not interested in popularity contests. We are, however, passionate about our ministry of music, hope and encouragement. We have earned the respect and support of others. In fact, many times we’ve walked into a familiar church, only for many people to ask if we were there to play, or was Celia going to speak. I’ll take that kind of popularity any day! But wait... there's more!
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About the AuthorAs owner of the Descant Music & Media Group, Ken is a creator and producer of several podcast shows. He is also a music producer, as well as a writer and an accountant for small businesses and nonprofits. Archives
June 2020
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