The Taylor Swift Eras Tour in Nashville was an insane weekend full of bejeweled outfits and life-long memories.
Read moreAmericanaFest: Artsists We're Most Excited to See
by: Mallory Williams
AmericanaFest recently announced their 2023 lineup for this year’s showcasing artists. The Olivia Management staff is so excited to have three of our own artists, Sam Johnston, Jill Andrews, and Mary Gauthier perform in this year’s lineup!
Buy Tickets for Sam Johnston Here
Buy Tickets for Jill Andrews Here
Find Tickets for Mary Gauthier Here
Of course we are thrilled to support some of our other favorite artists in this year’s lineup, so I asked each staff member who they are most excited to see perform outside of the artists we work with.
Olivia Management’s manager, founder, and CEO, Erin Anderson, is most excited to see The Secret Sisters, Mipso, and Bahamas.
Mackenzie Fey, Olivia Management’s manager, touring, and marketing coordinator is most excited to see Sarah Jarosz, Bahamas and OM artist Sam Johnston. Evan Gilbreath, one of Olivia Management’s summer 2023 intern, is also looking forward to seeing Sarah Jarosz perform.
Maddy Hicks, Olivia Management’s marketing and logistics assistant is most excited to see Jaimee Harris.
Lastly, Grace Carey-Hill, Olivia Management’s touring and marketing assistant, is most excited to see Mary Bragg perform.
Below is a list of the full lineup for 2023. We hope to see you there!
3 Tips for Growing Your Social Media Following and Avoiding Burnout
By Devin Renspie
Whether you’ve just started trying to establish your brand on social media or you’ve recently come down with a case of social media burnout, keep reading for three tips on how to sustainably grow your online presence in a way that’s enjoyable for you.
Focus Your Efforts on What Inspires You
First and foremost, you need to make sure that your social media strategy is centered around the platforms and forms of content that feel most authentic to you and your brand. Growing your following will be much easier if you genuinely enjoy the process. Are you the type of person who expresses themselves primarily through images and aesthetics? If so, Instagram and Pinterest could be where you thrive. Are you good at creating intriguing short videos? TikTok, Instagram Reels, and even YouTube Shorts might be your zone. Whatever your strengths are when it comes to content creation, if you put some thought into it, you’ll find a gap in the market that only you can fill.
As such, the majority of your social media activity should occur on whatever platforms inspire you. If you haven’t already, experiment with posting content that covers 3-5 different topics that interest you, and assess what kind of engagement each topic gets. Adjust the scope of your content as necessary. If you have an idea of which platforms and kinds of content you enjoy partaking in and your audience responds well to, then the next step will be fairly straight-forward, and you might have even already subconsciously implemented some of it into your strategy. If you don’t, it will hopefully help you find your content’s focus! You can also check out my last blog post where I discuss a few other things you should consider when deciding on what kind of content to post.
Seek Out Inspiration
The world of social media moves too fast for you to try to conjure up completely original ideas every time you post. Thus, it’s important for you to look to other content creators to help get your creative juices flowing. Start by looking at what other creators are doing that’s getting a lot of engagement. Specifically, pay attention to a variety of other creators whose brands are similar to yours, general trendsetters of the platform, and content curators. Save or take note of any content they post that you enjoy or that speaks to you.
With the content you’ve saved, try to identify which elements of it make it work. Which aspects can you replicate and include in your own content, and which aspects do you need to change to make it fit your brand? These could be anything from the format, the topic, the tone, or the trend that the content embodies. Searching for inspiration is an ongoing process, so if you find yourself bored of browsing content on a specific platform, that may be a sign that you should shift your focus to a different one.
Make Content Specifically for Each Platform
While you should continue to be primarily concerned with posting on the couple platforms that you identified in the steps above, it is also a good idea to have at least somewhat of a presence on every current platform, as well. That way, you will be able to reach the widest possible audience. If this sounds too daunting right now, that’s okay! Many times, however, content you post on one platform can be repurposed in a way that works for other platforms, so you really don’t have to invest much more energy in this process. For instance, if you make YouTube videos, you can take snippets and post them on places like Instagram or Facebook.
However, take heed, since platforms will punish you for posting content that is not native to them and/or directs users off their sites. For example, Instagram’s algorithm will suppress TikToks that are reuploaded to Reels (side tip: editing your TikToks/Reels in a third-party app and then uploading them to each respective platform can remedy this), and Facebook’s algorithm will suppress your post if it includes a link to a YouTube video instead of a video that is uploaded natively to Facebook. Therefore, make sure to upload content natively to each platform!
Moreover, it’s important that you use each platform as intended. While it would be extremely time-consuming to be totally invested in the cultures of every current platform, you should at least know the basics of each platform you intend on using, such as the optimal aspect ratio of pictures and lengths of different types of videos on Instagram. Check out these Sprout Social guides on social media image and video specs, respectively. If you don’t take the time to learn these things, your content will likely look out of place.
Overall, if you’ve grown weary of trying to foster your social media presence, you might just need to rethink the way you go about it! Start by focusing on specific platforms and forms of content that inspire you most, and stay up-to-date with what other creators are posting to add fuel and ideas to your creative fire. Once you’ve got those steps down, start to build up your presence on other platforms while keeping your efforts centered on those platforms and forms of content that inspire you. Best of luck!
The Making of a Great EPK
by Erin Anderson
In the arsenal of tools that artists have at their disposal, EPKs are pretty important. EPK stands for electronic press kit. Years ago, artists would mail physical press kits including paper print outs of bios, full copies of CDs, and full color photos or headshots. Thank goodness it’s no longer that time consuming or expensive to put your music and face in front of managers, agents, promoters, label execs and more. These days, an EPK is a one-page website link that incorporates content and information to help business people get a full picture of the artist, their music, their accomplishments, and their branding very quickly. You can check out an example below.
Here are my top 6 tips for making a great EPK:
Consider your audience.
Your EPK shouldn’t be fan facing—it’s for business people. It’s a place for bragging on yourself, sharing stats that fans don’t care about, and sharing information that is important to the agents, managers, labels and promoters. The goal of your EPK should be to use this one page to give someone, in 30 seconds, an overview of who you are and what you have done.
Bullet points are neat.
We are all overwhelmed and inundated with information. If someone opens your EPK and sees lots of paragraphs, they will immediately close it. Don’t make them work to find information. Create sections on your EPK so folks can quickly sort through your career and understand what you have accomplished. Suggested sections for bullet points: press, career highlights, touring highlights, streaming/sales highlights, and sync licensing.
Get the good stuff above the fold.
I would recommend using the entire width of the website so you can pack in a lot of things before anyone has to scroll. The name of the game here is: don’t make them work for it. Have a stunning image at the top, have your music embedded to stream right there. Put the most impressive press quotes or sales highlights high up on the page. Hit them with the good stuff! You should ultimately include your bio, but put those paragraphs of information towards the bottom of the page so that people intrigued by your images, branding, audio, and career highlights can read on if interested.
Put your EPK unlinked on your website.
Let your EPK live on your website, but don’t have it linked. This means, the general population cannot navigate to your EPK from your website, BUT business people that have been sent your EPK link can choose to peruse the rest of your website if they wish.
Update your EPK often.
Much like a resume, it is helpful to always have an updated EPK ready to go in case the need arises. Every time you get a new great review, release a new song or video, or hit a career milestone, make sure to update your EPK to reflect that!
Do not lie or exaggerate.
More often than you would believe, I am sent an EPK that has a gross exaggeration or straight up lie on it. If you played at 11am at a festival where Radiohead headlined at 11pm, you did not open for Radiohead. If your track has 22K streams on it, it does not have 30K. Do not round up, do not exaggerate. That just makes business people question what else that you have told them is smoke and mirrors!
Okay. Now that you’ve got the lay of the land, here is what I suggest you include in your EPK! This is not an exhaustive list, so get creative with what you include. Just remember: the goal is to put your best foot forward and display who you are to business people quickly.
What should be included in your EPK?
Photos — this is where your branding can shine. Use professional, on-brand photos. Use more than one.
Embedded streaming music — use Soundcloud or Youtube, NOT Spotify because people without a Spotify subscription cannot listen to an embedded Spotify playlist. Make it easy for someone to listen to your music right there on the page and listen while they read more about you.
Embedded music videos — include both live performance videos and regular music videos if you have them.
Bullet point list of career highlights (can including touring, press, streams/sales, sync, awards, etc)
However, if you have enough in one category, you could break this out into further more specific sections.
Artist Bio
Small Business Saturday
By Erin Anderson
My favorite thing about working with independent artists is helping them think about their music career as a business. I have been teaching entrepreneurship at the college level for 8 years now, and I love incorporating entrepreneurial concepts into managing artists. It's exciting to build new revenue streams, identify new opportunities, and optimize their businesses.
On Small Business Saturday, consider the ways you can support small businesses and independent artists that you love. One way you can support us as a small company that’s been in the business of helping artists for 8 years now is to check out our artist’s online stores that offer apparel, vinyl, cameos, handwritten lyrics, and more. Shop small, y’all! Click the links below and scroll down to see some of our other favorite small businesses to check out today!
Ruthie Collins
Smooth Hound Smith
Hush Kids
Derek Webb
Jill Andrews
Local businesses we love
Backslide Vintage
Our favorite Nashville vintage shop is owned by our very own Smooth Hound Smith! Check out their unique stock and their Yelp page here!
Thistle Farms
Treat yourself or a loved one to candles, essential oils, lip balms, and more while also benefiting women survivors. Click here to shop.
Friendly Arctic
Friendly Arctic has been our longtime favorite company for merch AND they have a Small Business Saturday sale going on now! You can purchase beautiful screen printed posters and more on their website here.
5 Social Media Tips to Build Your Artist Following
By Devin Renspie
If you clicked on this article, you’re probably an artist just starting to try to establish yourself on social media. If this is the case, you’re in good company, and hopefully the following tips will make this process feel a little less daunting!
Have a Cohesive Presence
The first step in building a social media following is to make sure that you have accounts on every relevant social media platform. Even if you’re not as invested in some platforms as much as you are in others, this assures that you already have your profile claimed in case you decide to use it more and that you reach the widest possible audience.
Moreover, it is essential that all of your accounts look and feel the same so that fans of yours can easily find you across all platforms. While a big part of this is ensuring that things like your username, profile picture, and bio are the same (or at least similar), it is also important that you have the same content on each platform. Software like Later allow you to easily schedule content that will automatically be published to your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest accounts, or any combination of the four (and there’s a free version!), so you don’t have to worry about remembering and scrambling to post on each platform simultaneously.
Do More Than Promote Yourself
While there is a time for self-promotion, that time is after you’ve given your audience content to connect with. If you’re like me, you like to have a game plan before you dive into something as expansive as building a social media following, and luckily, the 70-20-10 rule exists to help you do that! The 70-20-10 rule is a general guideline concerning how much of each type of content should appear on your social media. As such, 70% of your content should build your brand, 20% of your content should build your network, and 10% of your content should be self-promotion. For more information on the 70-20-10 rule, check out this sonicbids article. If you still aren’t sure what to post, the following two points will give you some more insight regarding how to create content that your audience will engage with.
Focus on an Area of Content
Going back to having a cohesive presence, in order for your social media content itself to feel cohesive, it’s important to focus your efforts on one area of content. These main areas are documentation, education, and entertainment. When choosing an area, be sure to think about how it will fit into your brand, since whatever area you choose will be the basis of your brand-building content (the “70” in the 70-20-10 rule).
If you choose documentation, your content will mainly focus on the journey of your music career and what it looks like behind-the-scenes. A great example of an artist with this type of content is Jon Bellion, who posts a lot of “making of” videos, such as The Making Of All Time Low. Alternatively, with education, your content will mainly focus on teaching your audience a skill such as music production. Andrew Huang does an amazing job at this. Lastly, the arguably hardest area of content to make is that of entertainment, since your personality has to be the driving force. That being said, it is possible to include aspects of entertainment into the other two areas of content, as well. For more information about how to utilize the three types of content, check out Burstimo’s article.
Connect with Your Audience
Connection is the basis of social media platforms, and it should be the basis of your social media accounts, too. When you’re deciding what to post on your socials, be sure to keep in mind that social media is there to help you form relationships with your followers (and other music industry professionals). Therefore, no matter what area of content you focus on, make sure that you’re speaking to your audience, not at them. That is, find ways to allow your audience to communicate with you. If you’re thinking of focusing on documenting your journey as an artist, consider asking fans what they think of your unreleased songs. If you want to focus more on educating your audience, consider asking your followers what they want to learn more about. If you’re basing your content on entertainment, consider making content reacting to your followers’ questions or submissions. There are infinite ways to connect with your audience, but the bottom line is that your followers need to feel involved in your work and in your life in order for you to have a lasting impact on them.
Be Consistent in Your Efforts
If you only take one thing away from this article, let it be this. Social media is an art form, and like any art, there is no one way to do it. That being said, consistency is key to getting better at anything, and it is also key to growing an engaged following. To maintain such consistency, try to post on your socials around once a day. If this sounds too overwhelming, consider posting consistently at whatever interval feels maintainable to you, but keep in mind that once a day is ideal. To get the most engagement, check out Sprout Social’s best times to post on social media.
By consistently creating content and making efforts to connect with your followers using the tips I listed above, you are sure to accumulate followers that are invested in you and what you do. Best of luck in your social media endeavors!
10 Tools for Posting like a Pro
By Maggie Adams
Whether you’re a social media manager or an artist, or just want to grow your own personal platforms, it’s essential to come up with a posting system that’s sustainable for you. Consistency is key for any social platform, and there are a plethora of tools out there that’ll help you become more efficient so that you can focus on creating authentic content.
Check out my interview with Marissa Begin of Riss Entertainment to learn about what tools I use on a daily basis to manage our artists’ socials. (Note: the original live video abruptly ended due to connection issues, so this video is a recap of our full conversation.)
Airtable: The Spreadsheet-Database Hybrid You Should Be Using
By Devin Renspie
In times where technology is allowing more employees and companies to work from home (and a pandemic is forcing this remote form of working), it’s especially important that employers implement organized online databases so that every employee is on the same page, no matter where they are working from. This semester, I am interning with Olivia Management remotely, and I feel I owe a lot of my ability to work efficiently while away from the office to the time that my supervisors have spent creating ‘bases’ that contain all the information relevant to our artists and our processes in Airtable. Combined with Asana, another software we use, I am able to jump right into whatever task is thrown my way.
What is Airtable?
As the title suggests, Airtable is a software that combines features of spreadsheets and databases. I like to think of it as a more-intuitive version of Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. In addition to creating records with just words and numbers, Airtable allows users to implement fields with features such as file attachments, checkboxes, drop-downs, and more. Moreover, users can make it so records can be grouped by different criteria and even linked within other records. The best part is, Airtable has apps for every device and supports real-time collaboration and commenting, meaning you can keep the rest of your team or your devices organized anytime, anywhere.
A quick look at the variety of field options that Airtable supports.
How Olivia Management Uses Airtable
At Olivia Management, we have multiple bases to organize information that we need to manage our artists’ various accounts and aspects of their careers. For example, we have a base dedicated to all their (and our!) social media logins, which is by far the most helpful base we have, in my opinion. Other useful bases we have include a catalog of our artists’ releases, a database of all our artists’ upcoming tour dates, and industry contacts that we have obtained over the years.
Get Started With It!
Now that I’ve shared a bit about how Airtable has helped us stay organized, I implore you to think about what kind of bases would help you or your company stay on top of what you do. If you’re not yet totally convinced that you’d benefit from such a tool, Airtable has a free version that contains all of the essential features I covered in this article! Although subscription plans include features like greater storage space, more aesthetic options, and tiered access to bases and records, the free version is a good option if you or your company are just looking for a way to create user-friendly spreadsheets and databases that are synced in real-time.
You can sign up for an Airtable account here!
New Spotify Feature: Songwriter Pages!
By Emma Martin
I have always been a huge fan and supporter of songwriters. They are able to put our thoughts, emotions, and experiences into a three-minute moments. If we didn’t have songwriters, where would we be? Think of your favorite song: Do you know who all wrote the song? Most people don’t know the creators behind their favorite melodies and lyrics. Well, it’s time for that to change!
After reading an article by Variety on February 12th, Variety talks about Spotify adding an expansion on their liner notes! Finally. The New Spotify feature allows users to view the songwriters on the song they are listening to. When the user looks up the credits on the song, it takes them a songwriter page (similar to an artist page) and they are able to see each song that writer as written or co-written. How exciting is that? I believe this is a great way for users to know who the creators are behind the songs they love. Songwriters are such a huge part of the music industry and they can sometimes get overlooked. This is also a great way to discover new music!
Spotify’s efforts to recognize songwriters and creators have increased over the years and this new feature is a great way to showcase the talent that makes up the music industry. It’s important to be supportive of songwriters and give them credit where it’s due! Read the article linked below to get the whole scoop.
