What Platform Should Musicians Focus On In 2025?

Jan 01, 2025

Hi Friends,

Starting next week we’ll kick off our January Branding Challenge, where we will build y’all’s BRANDS. This week a lot of people are still taking downtime, so I thought I’d share a little bonus post with you all. Enjoy!

“So what platforms are we focusing on in 2025?”

Last week on my live call, someone put this question to me.

First, it’s a fair question.

We all want to do right by our music.

And so here’s my answer.

To my knowledge, none of the existing platforms are optimized to help musicians build meaningful careers: i.e. ones that are based on growing and monetizing real fanbases.

If we want to have professional careers as musicians, we do not focus on platforms.

We focus on people.

Platforms are tools.

People are the goal.

So let me ask you a better question:

How many actual people actively support your music?

Seriously take out a pen. I’ll do the same. Let’s really write them out.

Lynn has booked my bands at her venue for the last 20 years.
Ryan thinks I’m a good songwriter and records with me.
JR puts out my tapes.
Kevin has been playing my songs and booking my band for the last decade.
Sjimon writes about it when I release songs.
Roisin uses my music in her films.
Sean holds the most beautiful vision of the artist I am.
Jared has always been supportive of my songwriting.

Make a real list. How many do you have?

How many people bought your music not just to be supportive to a friend?

Who loves what you do so much that they give you opportunities that come their way?

What fans of yours are constantly showing other people your music?

My list is less than ten people long and I consider myself truly well-connected in the music industry. This isn’t about who you know, it’s about who champions your music.

Your True Supporters Grow Your Career Exponentially

I would not be who I am without these eight people. They account for 90% of the meaningful opportunities and experiences I’ve had over the last decade.

Between the two of them, Lynn and Kevin have put my music in front of thousands of people. Real music fans who go to shows. They’ve set me up to sell hundreds of records.

I also want to mention that I got connected with only one of these people through social media and it was because I responded to a music industry question he had tweeted and we got to talking about record releases.

There Are Some Good Tools

Before we get into what we WILL focus on in 2025, (it’s nurturing relationships) I want to mention that musicians do benefit from the use of tools.

I think it makes sense for most artists to have the following:

A website
Somewhere to buy your music and merch
An email list
Somewhere super fans can support you in an ongoing way (Patreon or Substack exist, but you can set up monthly membership payments using just Stripe)

Focus for 2025: Build Your Short List

So how long is the list of people who believe in your music and support what you do?

Maybe you don’t really have anyone on the list. Maybe you just have one or two.

AND THAT’S OKAY! My list developed slowly over the last TWENTY YEARS. It’s been longer at certain points, shorter at others, people have fallen off the list as my work changed and people moved and life happened. That’s all totally good.

If I were you, I’d set the ambitious goal of growing your list to ten people.

And hey, everything we work on in 2025, from branding to asset creation, navigating the industry, booking & audience building, will give you opportunities to do this, so follow along and subscribe now if you haven’t already!

In short, these are the things you’ll want to do to attract your short list of people:

By being really good, clear, and unflinching in what you offer. You’re not going to be an artist everyone in the world cares about. You just need to be you so you can attract your people. (We did a lot of work on this in Dec with the Effective Creativity Workshop, which you can go check out, and we’ll continue to do this with branding in Jan)
Be honest and passionate and open about what you love. If someone out in the world is creating something that means a lot to you, let them know. The other side of this is that you must never, ever, ever bullshit. Never praise someone for something you don’t give a shit about because you want an opportunity from them.
Be clear and direct about the opportunities you’re ready for. Find ways to be organized, impeccable, and consistent in asking for these and never view a no as an indictment. Remember that people will say yes to you when you’re the artist who makes sense for a given opportunity. (We’ll work on this in our email scheduling/organization and release promo months in the spring)
Fall in love over and over and over with the music you’re making and the music of others. Your job as a musician is not to win, but to stay connected to magic so that you can humbly offer it to others. Without that, your work will be that of a worthless hack.

This week on our live call, I’ll lead a discussion diving in deeper on this topic, and of course next week we’ll kick off our January Branding Challenge!

If you’d like to join in on all this and more, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. For just $30/month, you can make the ultimate investment in growing your music career in 2025 with…

Live weekly expert help (from me, hi)
A stacked year of courses designed to grow your career as fast as possible
A small but mighty community of independent artists from across the globe who connect daily on the DYL2M Discord.

Wishing you all a beautiful, beautiful new year.

Love,

Cassidy (me, writing this post from bed on NYE)