Michael Walker: Yeah. Hmm. All right. So I'm excited to be here today with my new friend, Liam James Ward. Liam has driven chart-topping, award-winning campaigns at the cutting edge of music and social media. He's a powerhouse in audience development and digital marketing, honing his craft with major record labels and global superstars.

Tastemaker DJ turned industry leader, Liam blends grassroots credibility with high-level A&R and playlist strategy expertise, and so I'm excited to have him on the podcast today to talk a little bit about the current landscape of social media and audience development. In a world where it's, in many ways, easier than ever to distribute your music, how do you actually cut through the noise and build a real relationship with your fans?

So Liam, thank you so much for taking time to be on the podcast today.

Liam James Ward: Yeah.

Michael: Absolutely. So to kick things off, maybe for anyone who, this is the first time meeting you, can you share a little bit about your story and what inspired you to do what you do now with working with artists, help them to build their audience?

Liam: Yeah, yeah, sure thing. I mean, the thing that's always an important thing for me to say about my story is I didn't really grow up around music. Like, I always think about those people who I'm sure have sent plenty of CVs, internships, and so on, being like, "I've been listening to my dad's collection. I've been playing guitar since I was like a fetus," and just like, that wasn't really me.

I found music when I was probably about 11 years old, and this was the time of like emo, right? So I was listening to Fall Out Boy and Paramore and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. The moment that I kind of clicked with it, it became all I cared about. For better or worse—you know, probably not the best for my grades and so on—but for better or worse, music was all I...

Whether it was venues, whether it was studios, whether it was even music shops and so on, I just did anything to be [00:02:00] around it. And that's kind of what took me on a path for a little while. And from there, worked in venues and eventually got an internship at a record label. Worked at a record label for a little while, and then at some point, at the ripe age of 21,

A bit of an existential crisis as to not really knowing where in this big old music industry I felt like I was making the most impact—especially for artists themselves. And I took a bit of a look over my career and realized social media was the thing that I'd always kind of connected with without really realizing it. Because I think when you're good at something, you can feel like you're just doing the obvious thing.

But actually, I realized maybe I'm quite good at this. And yeah, that took me down a whole path that I'm still on however many years later and still figuring it out.

Michael: Mm-hmm.

Liam: A little bit of something, something.

Michael: Awesome. So yeah, I mean, maybe that's a nice segue as well into Something Something, which is the name of the company. And yeah, [00:03:00] I'd love to hear from your perspective, what kind of the biggest problem is right now that artists are facing that you've really kind of built the company to solve.

Liam: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, you've hit the nail on the head there right away because the company did come about to solve problems. You know, it wasn't like—I've said a bunch of times before—but I wasn't the kind of person who was like, "I'm gonna work for myself one day." Like, I wasn't the kind of guy going on The Apprentice or Shark Tank or Dragons' Den as we call it in the UK. Like, I wasn't that kind of guy.

But after years working in and around other digital agencies, I started to realize a lot of artists—not even just artists, actually—people working in the industry were having the same issues. And the three things that kept coming up were this massive amount of pressure being put on them to generate new content all the time.

The second thing was how—I mean, this would’ve been about four years ago, I guess—we were [00:04:00] even taking it for granted back then. We were like, “Is it just me, or is the social media thing changing faster and faster and faster?” Now we just accept that every two minutes it's completely different. But at that point, it kind of was still a bit of a “daily moment” rather than like—

Social, but you can get very focused on followers and views and likes and all these things—algorithm and best practice and so on. They can be important and can be a metric. They're not—they're just a means to an end. They're not the end goal. The end goal here is to create a more sustainable career for artists, right?

Or at least telling a more rich story and so on. So those three problems—content, constantly moving goalposts, and actually trying to [00:05:00] generate music consumption rather than social media consumption—were the three problems that Something Something was built on the back of.

And I'm sure we'll go into it in more depth in a moment, but yeah, in-house content creation, great young team who are always in the culture, living and breathing socials, and again, always just making sure the important things are what we take seriously rather than the little itty-bitty things that other people can get caught up on.

Those are all three things that make...

Michael: Hmm. I like it. Yeah. So it sounds like the three kind of core challenges that you've discovered is sort of like the content creation piece of it—the actual, you know, part of how do artists express themselves? How do they share their unique voice and actually have something to say in the first place?

Then, two, how do you connect with the right people in a constantly changing landscape? How do you actually find and connect with people on social media?

And three, once you build that connection, how do you actually make it sustainable? How do you actually generate a real return and build a career from it?

Awesome. Mm-hmm.

Out of those three, I'm curious if there's one that kind of speaks to you right now that you think either has, I know, the biggest myth around that you'd like to—that you can—kind of speak to, that currently exists in the market? Or if there’s something that in particular out of those three challenges you’d like to speak about, which one you think you’d like to start with?

Liam: Yeah, I heard. I mean, myths, that's a question. There's myth. One of the biggest around content creation is this idea that short form is everything. Now, I think that there's a big problem with our industry at large, and therefore a lot of artists who are kind of just following what they're told, thinking that if you just do a really killer short form content campaign, that's enough.

And it can definitely be enough to kind of get more people in, more eyeballs, whether that's more trendy content or things that are really intending to go viral, or whether it's things that are more storytelling or trying to drive people towards something specific or whatever. It can't be all of it.

I talk a lot about this kind of traditional marketing funnel, right? Which I'm sure you've probably spoken about with a bunch of your guests over the years. Like this idea that at the top you've got a vast amount of people who are aware of you. And at the bottom of this funnel, you've got a bunch of people who are super engaged. And essentially, social media is simultaneously driving them down and also making sure these people at the bottom aren't getting bored and they're feeling engaged all the time.

I think right now we're still in a bit of an epidemic where people are so focused on this top layer and trying to get people in and go viral and so onwards that then you're hitting a bit of an impact. It's very shallow, and you're actually not letting your own fans get... And then they're expecting or wanting the super hardcore engaged fan base.

Everyone's talking about the term super fans now with Discord and OpenStage and Laylo and Medallion and all these tools that are helping you really harness the power of those super fans. Great. But if you've got this going on down here and you've got this going on up here, you've gotta be doing stuff in the middle—pieces.

Whether it's music videos where everyone's like, "Music videos are dead," but it's like, well, no, because those people who are a little bit through the door, this might be the thing that invites them in further. Whether it's long-form studio vlogs, whether it's live streams, whatever it may be—things that are gonna feed your fan base to come further down that funnel from the top to the bottom—they are really important.

So I guess to kind of recap, that myth is just this idea that if you do the top stuff, that's all you need. And you might get a really, really, really wide funnel, but if you're not bringing people down, you're still playing to empty rooms, even if you've got a million followers.

Michael: That's so good. Yeah, so it sounds like what you're saying is that if you focus on just one of those parts of the funnel and exclude the other parts, then on the top end you might have something go viral, but it may or may not be the right people, and you're not actually building a real relationship with those people.

Versus if you start with like, all you have is a Patreon, but you have no top of funnel—like, you have this cool thing, but nobody knows about it because no one's seeing it in the first place. So you need to have a way to kind of bridge the gap between those new people and building a deeper connection with them. And a bridge to kind of go from discovering you to actually building a deeper relationship and becoming more of a true fan.

Liam: Yeah, that's it. You've nailed it, Michael. I think the opposite myth of that right now is this idea that if you just do the bottom, that's all you need. If you just serve your super fans or whatever it may be, sure, that's gonna maybe help you.

Also, [00:10:00] I don't think the metric of the super fandom should be how much money they spend all the time. But I think this idea of cost per fan or acquisition per fan or whatever the term is that people are using nowadays—sure, you can squeeze more money out of those individual fans, but even if that is your intent, if you're not growing that fan base, that reaches a point where you've hit terminal velocity.

So your fan base—yes, super-serving that bottom of the funnel—is really important. But as you've just said, if you're not pulling people further down, it's gonna hit a bit of a dead end eventually.

Michael: Good stuff. So the next natural question that kind of comes up from there then is, what are some of the best ways that you found—you mentioned a few of them with maybe having music video content or a little bit longer form. Curious if you have any other suggestions for artists that, let's say hypothetically, they have some artists who are watching this—have really gone all in on TikTok viral stuff.

Maybe they're even seeing some initial exposure. They're getting followers, but they're kind of missing that connection. Or maybe there are some folks who've been trying to build this inner circle or VIP membership or different offers, but they're not finding it actually connecting with people. What are some creative ways you've found to bridge the gap, and how do you take someone who's a listener and actually turn them into a real fan?

Liam: Yeah, I think a lot of the time the strategy can reveal itself in the work. I think that's a very nice buzzy thing to say, but what I mean by that is that sometimes you just gotta get going. And over time, the response of the community, the response of the fan base will really show you, "Okay, this is what's engaging people. This is what people are getting fired up about. This is what's actually driving ticket sales," and so on. And you have to be responsive towards that.

But that being said, as much as you've gotta be responding from a content distribution side to how the fans are responding to you, I also think that the fans are therefore offering themselves up some great meaty bits of how you can amplify that even further.

What I mean by that is some of the most successful campaigns we've had are where people at the bottom of the fan base—we're showcasing them. We're showing how much they are meeting up before shows and making bracelets or the best moments from the Discord community this week or the funniest things in the replies or doing video replies or comment replies or whatever it may be to show to these people up the funnel what's going on at the bottom.

I think that's really gonna bridge the gap. We're then getting into this linear idea of top to bottom. It becomes more of... it's a self-fulfilling prophecy almost, where you're showing how much—I guess the easiest way to say it is you're showing how much fun of a party this is down here. And the people who are maybe walking past going, "Oh, that looks fun," they're actually coming inside. I think that's the really key thing of that.

Michael: That's so good. It is funny how much synchronicity there is with the conversation we're having right now. About a week from now, we're launching a software as a service that we've developed called StreetTeam. Basically, the whole purpose of it is to bridge the gap and help artists connect with their fans.

It's kind of like if Patreon and Facebook Group and Discord had a baby, but instead of Mark Zuckerberg owning the baby, the artist owns their fan data. They can visualize where the fans are on a map. They can send them personal messages, emails. They can create journey email sequences to connect with them.

Literally, I'm thinking about the journey feature that we have right now, which is like a CRM automations workflow kind of builder. One idea that I've been reflecting on lately is about this practice of creating an intentional journey. Creating an intentional journey. It's a map, like a customer journey, for example.

That sounds like everything you're speaking to is really in alignment with this concept of: how do you create a journey that your fans actually want to go on? The idea is—I love what you shared—like showing the future transformation, the future results, which in this case might be having the time of their lives, having this incredible experience.

And literally just using that as a way to say, "Hey, this is the journey that you could go on. If this resonates with you, if you'd like to go deeper and be a part of this community, here's what that looks like. Here's the journey."

I think with any journey, rather than a funnel that feels a little bit like maybe manipulative or sort of like, "I'm gonna funnel in all my fans, come down here," I love this idea of reframing it into creating a journey for fans to go down. The only way for it to work in a congruent way is if the journey's transparent and you're telling them, "This is the journey that you can go down."

I love what you shared—doing that not just by telling people, but by showing them. By actually showing them the amazing VIP experience, showing the bottom of the super fans and what that experience is like. Really smart.

Liam: Yeah. I love that, man. I mean, honestly, that tool that you were describing as well — we've gotta offline about this because I wanna hear more about that. That sounds really great.

And it feels like it could plug in really, really nicely with... something we've been doing for a little while is this idea of identifying fan leaders within communities and enabling them — whether that's giving them assets or giving them access or whatever it may be — to essentially run their own fan pages.

And so onwards, that's become a really big part of our strategy, and it's really working for a great number of the artists that we're working with. Yeah, so there's definitely something we can try and do there together. And I think you're right. A little bit less of an oversimplification of, like, all fans look the same and they all go down the same user journey.

It's really patronizing, to be honest with you. These are individual people who have their own relationship with music — and your music — and so on. And I think you've gotta treat them in that way. It's almost like that game where you...

I think going slightly backwards in the conversation, though, I think an analogy that I've used over the years really helps sum up a lot of how we treat social to artists who are trying to get their head around it. Because I really appreciate that — like, I've done social media for a long, long time. Social media is like a house party, right? Or it's like your club night. [00:17:00] So the content is almost... Community management and this idea of going outwards and engaging directly with people is almost flyering — it's almost kind of getting people in and letting them know what's going on.

And then this kind of inward community management is almost the people in the club being like, "Hey, have you got everything you need? Do you need anything? Do you need a drink? What's going on?" Making sure they're all happy.

Some of the fan base being part of almost the marketing strategy themselves — they're then going and telling their friends how sick the club night they went to last Friday was, so that next Friday their friends might come with them.

You know what I mean? It's kind of that house party mentality. It's definitely something that I think helps with social.

Michael: I like it. Yeah, I like that analogy. It reminds me of an analogy I've heard before with social media too, in terms of that house party example. If you are aggressively trying to sell stuff on your social media, it's a little bit like you're at that house party and you're just trying to sling goods and services the entire time when it's like, "Hey, it'd be cool..."

This is about just hanging out, connecting, getting to know each other.

But then, when you actually start doing a business kind of deal, you might invite them from the house party back to your office the next day, or you might invite them to have more of a personal or private interaction with you.

And that's a little bit more like an email sequence or something — where social media is good for connecting and then inviting them to come build a deeper relationship with you.

I really like that house party analogy that you shared.

Liam: Yeah, I think you've nailed it. I think that's exactly it. You're right. No one wants to be next to that guy who's just trying his latest business pyramid scheme.

Michael: Awesome. So maybe now we can talk a little bit about that bridge and inviting someone away from the house party. Let's say that you threw an amazing house party — you're the talk of the town, the party's bumping, it's awesome. And now you're looking at building more of a sustainable career, monetizing it — but doing it in a way that you're not selling out or selling your soul. You actually want to provide value.

What are some of the best ways you've found that artists right now are actually providing more value to their communities and making sustainable income while doing it?

Liam: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a really good question. I think there's not gonna be one catchall answer because again, I think to be respectful to the idea of fanbase, you've got to treat every individual as that—as an individual.

And [00:20:00] therefore, every individual artist's fanbase looks so different. There are a lot of people that I think I see—I’m seeing a lot of great things within, say, the bedroom producer or lo-fi hip hop kind of communities, where people are within their Discord communities dropping stems or maybe doing like every Thursday evening they're gonna do a little production demo of how they made one of their tracks, and they're really bringing the community within that.

I actually—I really wish I'd have dug the song name out now, but me and—there was a track where this guy was like shouting out his Discord community. Like, he literally on the track was shouting out by name some of his most engaged people on Discord, which was crazy. Again, I need to go back and find the track somehow, but super extreme example of how you can kind of rule those fans who are coming in. But elements of value—it's like, I think that there are definitely fanbases that are more emotional, and therefore, the idea of having some sort of direct connection with that artist is gonna be really important.

Obviously, the scalability of that comes into play as to how much you can keep that up as you get bigger and bigger as an artist. And that's, again, something to look at. Or, at the same time, there are definitely—if you're some rock band and you just wanna sink some beers on a Friday night and go and watch some punk rock band—like, yeah, like coming down and getting exclusive merch or whatever it may be, that's really gonna bring you in.

So yeah, I mean, I don't think the idea of value looks the same. And I think it's really hard to give one broad answer. But again, I said before: sometimes the strategy reveals itself in the work. I think you've just gotta get moving and get going, and slowly over time it'll just reveal itself.

I think evidently, a lot of people who listen to this podcast are musicians. I think we all know sometimes that you can just get a little bit of a spark of an idea and you start writing, and then that can sometimes happen. And I think if you can take that mindset and apply it to kind of social marketing strategy, it's this idea that sometimes that can happen.

Of course, you've gotta have a plan, and you've gotta have a strategy going in to be able to be reactive. You've gotta have a rough idea. But I mean, we've had entire campaigns where we've had a whole plan and strategy in place, and then something has just happened, or something has just caught fire way beyond what we thought.

So you've almost gotta be simultaneously willing to plan, willing to strategize, but also be ready to throw it all to the wind at a moment's notice. So my point is: sometimes the fanbase itself will show you where it wants value to be given.

Michael: Mm-hmm. I like it. It reminds me of that quote, “Man plans and God laughs.”
 But that's good. And I also appreciate that you're speaking to the truth of the fact that there isn't necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach.

The same way that if you're gonna teach someone how to write a song, you wouldn't necessarily be like, "This is exactly how you write a song and it's always like this." There are some deeper fundamentals and patterns, what goes behind a good song, and you can learn things, but ultimately there's this—

The word that comes out is like "sacred," you know? Sacred about writing these songs. That it comes from a place that's almost like a mystery. Like it's inherently—it's who you are. And that's the part that kind of makes it unique. It makes it cut through. And that's the thing that's missing, you know, if all you do is try to follow a cookie-cutter template, you're missing the most important part, which is you.

Liam: Yeah, sometimes you just gotta jam, man.

I don't wanna be too twee and I don't wanna be too cringey by staying on the music analogies because it's really easy to go too deep into that route. But I just think, yeah, sometimes you've gotta decide what beat you're gonna be freestyling over the top of. But once you've decided on that beat, just let all hell break loose and just go for it, you know?

And sometimes you just gotta jam. And sometimes it's blues, sometimes it's standards. Sometimes you just gotta see what comes out of you.

Michael: Mm.

Liam: Good stuff.

Michael: It also reminded me—you mentioned the access being something that generally is going to be a great way to connect with your fans—is kind of having different levels of access. And as you grow, that access becomes more and more scarce because there's more and more people.

And so, mm-hmm, naturally, that sort of leads to a higher demand in the market as well in terms of, you know, maybe the prices that you charge.

But it reminded me—one of my business partners here was one of Jacob Collier’s first supporters. He was in his VIP membership.

Liam: Amazing.

Michael: And he shared a song that Jacob had created for him where it was—I don't know—like a 30-second snippet.

But Jacob, for anyone that isn't familiar with his music—I mean, he is a multi–Grammy Award–winning—he is like a prodigy.

Liam: Yeah, it's crazy.

Michael: I mean, I listen to that song, I'm like, wow. It's like—no words. But the song that I heard, that Bob shared with me, was like a 30-second clip of Jacob doing his stacking vocal harmonies. "Bob, I appreciate you, Bob," and it was just a nice gift that he created.

Liam: Yeah, it's amazing.

Michael: For his VIP membership. But it was exactly what you're talking about with like having that access or that connection point. And the idea that you shared around shouting out your members in your community and actually including them—featuring them, showcasing them.

It seems like that's sort of a through line as well in terms of—you mentioned just showcasing, like featuring your most dedicated fans is a great way to make them feel special and to kind of show everyone else the journey, and to help kind of—

Liam: Mm-hmm.

Michael: —create gravity that brings people closer to that.

Liam James Ward: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I think you hit the nail on the head once again. I think that...

Forget, and we can sometimes get very swept up in our industry, and I think artists themselves can get very swept up in a baseline normal as to what people come to expect. But let's not forget that the average person—and I feel slightly patronizing in saying that—but somebody who's not within the music industry absolutely would be gassed to get things that maybe we don't.

We either, as an industry, take for granted, or you, as an artist, maybe just think like, "No one would want that from me," but they probably do.

Grab a pint with me before the show. If I just—exclusively for people in my disco—drop a bar before the... I'm gonna pint between sound. No one's gonna hang, but they probably do. I really think that. And I always think back to this time where I remember being in a label board meeting, and I must have been about 22, 23 maybe, and we were talking about this competition driver that we were doing around some album campaign.

I won't be too specific because I saw the label. But we were going around the table, just kind of throwing out ideas of what the prize could be for the competition. And someone had said, "Oh, what if the fan gets to stand side stage for the London show coming up?" And everyone was just kind of like, "Nah, like, we all know it sounds crap. The view's not very good. You're in the way," all this stuff.

And I remember being a 22-year-old kid in this big, scary label board meeting and being like, "Wait, hold up. I think a lot of fans would love that." Again, without trying to sound too much of a douche here, maybe there's an element of taking that for granted. And actually, going as far as to enter a competition is going as far as to have probably already bought their tickets to a show.

They're obviously a fan. The idea of even just standing side stage for one song—that is like, they will talk about that for years.

I actually don't think I've ever told them this yet directly, but one of our clients—I actually won a competition to have as a... meet them... 10, 10–15.

And it's funny that I’m laughing to myself because I don't think I've ever actually quite brought it up to them because it's not come up in conversation. But like, I've sat on calls with them talking strategy and so on, and I'm not quite pulled together the courage yet to think of how gassed I was.

And I think it's even still live on their YouTube somewhere where they did this kind of fan competition meet and greet. And I still think about that. I still similarly even think about all the way down the rung of the ladder there. I remember it came up in my Facebook memories a couple years ago that in like 2009, Enter Shikari replied to one of my comments on Facebook, and I screenshotted that and posted it being like, "Oh my God, Enter Shikari replied to me!"

Like, it doesn't have to be all the way up to standing side stage or grabbing a beer.
 Whatever the Google Meets thing or whatever else it may be—it can be those time-intensive things—but even just dropping a voice note or dropping a DM or whatever it may be—such an easy way for someone to feel heard and seen, right? And you can bet damn well that if them engaging got them that...

For a moment, you win.

Michael: I love that. The band that you did that for—you should cash that in, you know, like unexpectedly at one point and just be like, "So, when can I redeem?"

On your next meeting with them. That's awesome. Man, I can't tell you how many times I've had that exact experience you're talking about, where there's something I'm like, "This should not be impressive," or "This shouldn't be like a thing," but people get so much out of it. For real, what comes to mind is like every once in a while when I'm on a Zoom call like this, I'll be like the... coolest guy in town. And yeah, I think for most musicians, they're not that impressed by it, but someone who's not a musician is like,

"Oh my gosh, that was magic!"

And it's a great reminder of exactly what you're describing—that what musicians do is so magical. So many people don't understand or appreciate how the music happens.

And so it's a great reminder to show up and just to connect with fans—even if it's just a voice memo, even if it's just a message—to help people feel seen and heard.

Liam: Yeah, agreed, man. I think it goes back to what I was saying before of like, when you're good at something, you can feel like you're just stating the obvious, and therefore you almost don't say it.

But actually, sometimes you can say something—and if I'm being really honest, I've had to catch myself starting to do this sort of thing, like doing podcasts and things like that—I've kind of been like, "That doesn't..."

Someone has messaged me on LinkedIn or something afterwards being like, "Thank you so much for sharing that, because that really connected some dots that I've been struggling to connect."

So sometimes, just do the obvious or say the obvious or do the thing that feels low value to you. I think people may really get something out of it.

So yeah, when we're...

It can be revealing itself in the work, as I've already said. It also can just be something that doesn't feel that valuable to you, but [00:32:00] it may mean a hell of a lot to somebody else.

Michael: Hmm. Good stuff. And that, to your point of discovering it through action and seeing what lands, that's probably a great example of that.

You wouldn't necessarily know that that's valuable to someone until you have that experience, and it demonstrates itself. And then after you've had that experience, now you can be like, "Oh, I guess people do find that valuable, I suppose. Maybe I should do something like that more often."

And so it does extend itself through action and through putting yourself out there.

Liam: Yeah. Yeah. We're also... we're simple creatures. I've seen it more than enough times where an artist has been fairly antisocial, and it's like, the second they get a video that gets a bit of steam, you see them completely change.

And you see them completely love it, and they really see the value all of a sudden. We are simple creatures. And as soon as you get that serotonin boost of like, "Oh, I said [00:33:00] something and it provided someone value, and I got that reassurance that something I did brought someone value," you'll just keep doing it and doing it and doing it.

So yeah, I think—experiment, try things out. What is it called—spread betting or spreading, whatever the word is?

Try loads of different things out. Do more and more of that.

Michael: I like it. Cool. Well, man, this has been a lot of fun connecting, and thank you for the gentle reminders back to the truth of how important it is to be yourself and show up and to test and see what works, while also kind of speaking to the patterns that you've found through working with many, many artists now—doing many campaigns and actually just seeing in practice what are some of the patterns behind what helps artists connect with their fans.

Really appreciate you being on the podcast.

And maybe you could share a little bit more about Something Something as a company.

Who do you look for in terms of artists that are a good fit to collaborate with?

How does [00:34:00] someone know if they might be a good candidate? And if they are, then how do they reach out and connect with you guys?

Liam: Yeah. I guess a bit of context I probably should have shared at the very beginning as to what Something Something is, because I always think it's funny that the name really doesn't give much away. But we're a content strategy studio. So we work with artists to build the strategy of what their content is online, how they're gonna tell their story online.

We help them create it, and we help them kind of manage their socials as well. We are constantly—and it sounds very similar to what you guys are up to—we are constantly trying to understand: how do we bring more impact, and how do we create a better world for artists (without trying to sound too much of a matter here)?

And I'm really appreciative of the fact that we do obviously look for artists who—they know who they are, but they can't quite figure out how to tell it on social. That's one of the biggest things that I...

Working with artists who don't even know who they are yet—and I'm gonna be really honest—a lot of people think they know, and then you start talking to them and you realize they really don't know who they are. Like, that is really hard. Because at that point you're somewhere between a therapist, a parent, and a marketing person.

Because also, yes, I work within marketing, but like... I'm not a marketing director. I'm a social media person, you know? So social media is just one sliver of this wider marketing play, and I think people have to go away and figure out who they are a bit before they come to people like us, to be quite frank.

But yeah, someone who knows who they are but doesn't quite know how to bring it to the masses—that's definitely what we look for. But we are constantly looking for new ways to support different kinds of artists because... shy away from having somebody manage your content creation and manage your content. So...

Products to artists who are maybe a bit earlier in their careers. And, alongside the fact that I think our content sessions are fairly affordable, we're working on things like digital MOTs—or, sorry, digital audits. Because I found out not too long ago that MOT isn't a thing in America. MOT is when you get your car serviced in the UK.

So I was like, "Oh, social media MOT—that's a great name for it!" And then I started saying it to Americans and they're like, "What the fuck is MOT?" And I'm like, "Okay, we've gotta call it an audit then."

But, whether it's that, whether it's a mailing list that we... we have a free mailer every month. We have a weekly paid mailer.

There are these really affordable, low-intensity things.

Our website, obviously, Something Something Social—and you'll find out all about the kind of paid mailer on there. I think that's a really good place to start. But then additionally, reach out at hello@somethingsomethingsocial. And I think that we definitely always wanna have a conversation about how we might be able to help, even if we come to a conclusion it might not be.

Michael: Hmm. Awesome. Yeah, that sounds great. And I'm sure a lot of artists who are here right now are kind of at that place where they are ready to start sharing their voice with more people. They know who they are, and at the very least, they should reach out and see if it's a good fit.

So, like always, we'll put the links in the show notes for easy, easy access.

And Liam, thanks again for being on the podcast.

Liam: Awesome. Michael, thank you so much for having me—and thank you for having such a great background too, Sarah, by the way. Having it lost in that background a little bit.

Michael: Thanks. Yeah, this is usually the part where I make a stupid joke about like, "Oh, I'm actually on my way to outer space right now and it's crazy I get good reception—and I'm on my way to Mars."

Yeah. Great connecting, and yep, we'll put all links for show notes for easy access.

Liam: Wicked, man.