Something To Keep In Mind

Even though social media is a great place to build your career, it is very important to not compare yourself to other people.  As I said there is a lot of competition in music production, and in the audio industry in general.  An interview that I did with Alexander Folonari (who is a sound engineer, producer, and composer) I brought up a question of how he dealt with all the competition we face as producers and engineers.  He told me that he doesn’t pay attention to what other people are or aren’t doing.  Instead Alex says he competes with himself (32:15).  Another interesting point he brought up was that it is important to stay true to yourself and to your own values.  Because then you attract other people that have a similar vision as yourself, and then you are able to build strong and sustainable work relationships that can even develop into genuine friendships.  The beauty of this is that this is the catalyst into a networking chain that can snowball quite easily.  

Now I think it is a good time to mention that relying on social media too much can also be damaging.  It can shift your focus from what actually matters, the music itself.  Now some people literally make songs in hopes of 10 to 20 seconds of it will go viral on Tik Tok.  Personally, I don't think that there is anything wrong with that, but when that is your only goal, I think that is a bit off putting, and defeats the whole purpose of making something unique, and sustainable.  The reason I say this is because that shows a lack of passion for the art itself, at that point it is all about making money, and showing off. The whole point of creating content based around your music, or mixes / masters is to gain traction and exposure.  Through this you can acquire contacts for managers, artists and so on.  At a certain point your music will speak for itself, but in the early stages based on my research it is crucial to grow your social media, as it is also part of your portfolio.

Since the world of audio production is constantly changing, it is important to stay up to date with trends, and industry standards as well as new production techniques.  Studying songs that are trending is a good way to get an idea of what is hot, and what people's ears are adjusting to hearing.