Build to Be Seen: How SmashCamp Brought Artists Together to Get Real About Marketing

Oct 19

If there was any way to spend a Saturday afternoon, it would be sitting in a virtual room with artists and songwriters from all genres, places, and backgrounds. Even better is spending an hour with powerhouse women who know the meaning of supporting one another.

That’s how I spent mine recently, alongside Amelia Robinson, Grammy-Nominated Producer and Founder & Chief Joy Officer of Happy Media, and Jazz Jackson, Digital Marketer, Artist Manager and Founder of Unearthly Studios, with the legendary multi-platinum songwriter and music entrepreneur, Michaela Shiloh, moderating our Build to Be Seen panel for SmashCamp 2026. We spent an hour with campers to get real about building your audience and marketing yourself as an artist, songwriter, and creative business.

What we covered

We didn’t stick to the aerial view that so many panels tend to do. We got past surface-level branding and marketing advice to talk about what it actually takes to build a top artist brand from the ground up. The prep alone covered how to build and grow your audience as an artist or songwriter, marketing yourself without losing your authenticity, positioning your brand and business for industry opportunities, and social media, content strategy, and fan relationship-building.

On the day of, the questions we expanded on were about branding vs. marketing, knowing your story, starting from zero, the rebrand, audience vs. community, no budget/no team, consistency, AI, and artists to study. And, the day-of takeaways were even sweeter.

Here are the gems I hope every artist took (and will take) away from us.

Artists are the business

It’s something we all three agreed on: if your goal is to make music full-time, then you have to treat yourself like a business. That sounds super boring from the get-go, I get it, trust me; after eight years working in music publishing, I absolutely get that that sounds like the last thing you want to think about yourself. You’re an artist! That’s how you want to be known. But, in order to do that full-time, you need to set yourself up for whatever your version of success will be and that requires a different lens.

You, as the artist, are the business. Your music, and all the ways you choose to monetize it, including your artist brand, are the products that flow from that. Understanding and accepting that opens a whole world of resources to better help you get to your goals than if you focus on just being someone who creates music.

So, what does it mean to look at yourself as a business? It means educating, advocating for, and building for yourself.

Educate yourself about the music industry and how business is done. Get your main functions in order: distribution, publishing, etc. Don’t sleep on the things that seem complicated or boring. There are so many tools out there to help you figure out what you need to know. Remember that knowledge is power, and it’s the best way to protect yourself from people who might be out to take advantage of you.

Advocate for yourself and others. Supporting the artists and songwriters around you is how you make it in this business, whether mainstream music wants you to believe it or not. That doesn’t mean you have to collaborate if you’re more of a solo act; it means showing up for them as you’d want to be shown up for and not looking at everyone as competition. You’ll learn more from someone than simply assuming you know what their strategies are.

Build for your own version of success, and all the milestones that go along with it. Success for you may look very different than someone else's, and that’s absolutely okay. Think about all the stepping stones you’re going to have to take to get there and plan for those just as much as the ultimate goal. Actually, go ahead and start looking ahead while you’re at it. Because you don’t want to be building a whole new strategy as you’re hitting your peak.

You already have a team; you just haven't named them yet

This was one that stuck with me (& with the campers too, thanks for the shout out @tnsoofficial!) the most: you already have a team in the people already showing up for you.

It’s the friend that likes and comments on every social post. The fan that shows up to every gig, big or small. The family member that’s been there from the beginning and always offers support.

Too often I see artists consider “building a team” as some sort of evolutionary step as they have success, and because of that there innately comes this expectation that you have to invest more to have people around you. But the reality is that, at any stage, you’re going to have people in your life and orbit that are already there and you’re just not leaning on them yet. That friend that engages with every post? Ask them to help you with your content or getting people to engage with you. The fan that’s always there? Ask them to be your street team and help promote your music and shows. The family member? Ask them to host or help host your next show.

You’ll be surprised who you have around you and how much they already want to be involved. Leverage their talents, use their skills, and be grateful for them being a part of your team before you ever have to start paying outsiders to come in. (& to be clear, if you can compensate your friends & family, do it! But remember there are lots of ways to show gratitude and sometimes you just have to ask)

Here’s the important thing: you can’t know what you don’t know. So if you only go based on what you think you need, you’ll keep yourself in a small box. Educate yourself on what you might need now and as you grow as an artist. Understand what some of those services cost so you can be prepared for what budgets you might need. Understand and ask questions about the services they provide so you know exactly what you’re getting and why. More knowledge means a business or brand shaped around your own decisions, and handling the admin up front frees you to focus on your craft.

Community over quick wins

The slow fade that so many artists encounter is being preoccupied with chasing follower counts and going viral as a form of success. We invited campers to shift their thinking towards community marketing. The goal is to build interpersonal relationships with fans through shared values and experiences.

This builds trust, which is a stronger currency than anything else in the market right now. Trust leads to long-term fans, more opportunities for direct-to-fan relationships, opens doors to different ways of monetizing your brand and music, and overall gives you a less fragmented brand.

One way to do this is with personas. These are fictional, research-backed profiles that represent a specific segment of your target audience. There are many ways to consider personas with my favorite being through an emotional approach. I lean this way because of my background in psychology and my work as an industry advisor for Thomas Jefferson University’s Strategic Customer Experience Design program.

The approach asks you to consider the emotional story of the person(s) you’re trying to reach, not just their demographic and professional background. It looks at how situations make them feel, the behaviors they take under different emotional circumstances, and asks you to consider how they’ll be different after interacting with you.

Once you have those, which are meant to evolve over time, the community building and marketing is so much easier and fruitful. In practice, this looks like replying to fans in your comments, showing behind-the-scenes content so they can emotionally connect with your process, and going for raw over polished content.

Be human first, and fit the algorithms by understanding how they work and what tweaks you need to make when repurposing the same content. Go for quality over quantity, but don’t miss the chance to share because you’re too worried about perfection.

One thing this week

There was so much worth sharing, that we could’ve gone on for hours, honestly. And maybe one day, we will (seeing some AMAs in our future…). But if there’s one thing to take away from each of those insights, choose one of these:

To get yourself into a business mindset, remember to not take it so seriously. That sounds counter intuitive but remember that art is subjective, and you won't make everyone happy. The goal isn’t to either; it’s to connect with the right people, in the right way. Everything else will come.
When considering a team, list what you know you need and what you think you need. Research average costs and, more importantly, what those services include. Then, book free consultations to understand what people actually do.
When building community and consistency in content building, remember that consistency is about how you show up, not how often. Avoid content creation burnout by planning around one long-form piece a week that you cut into smaller pieces, and repurpose when relevant.