Michael Walker: Yeah. All right, I'm excited to be here with my new friend, Brianna DeMayo. So, hey, hey. Let me give you a quick intro. So, Brianna is a powerhouse in artist development and marketing, equipping artists with the tools and strategies to help them build thriving, sustainable careers. As the founder of Taste Creators, she works hands-on with artists and their teams, helping them transform passion into profit through branding, marketing, and community building. And she helps artists do this in a way where they actually own the fan data that they're building to have a better connection with those fans. I'm excited to have her on the podcast today to talk a little bit about what are some of the best ways that you as an artist can build a real relationship with your fans and take your community off of social media and onto platforms where you can actually have better communication with them. Thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast.

Brianna DeMayo: Thanks for inviting me.

Michael: Absolutely. So, to kick things off, maybe we can start with just a quick introduction. I would love to hear your story and how you started Taste Creators and how we found our way here today.

Brianna: Oh man. How much time do we have? Well, I mean, I'm in my thirties now—my late thirties. I'm almost 40. And I grew up in music. So, my dad played the keys, the drums. He was a singer-songwriter. He knew a lot of the older groups that were coming out of Philly—like the Delfonics and things, if you're familiar. And my aunt owned a dance studio that my mom taught at. So I couldn't escape entertainment since I was a little girl. I grew up in studios, singing and dancing.

And then I formed a little singing group. It was me and my nephew and a few of our friends. And this was like—I was, I don't know, 13 or 14. My dad taught us how to harmonize. So imagine like the Jackson Four, you know? We were able to perform—this was before social media, so everything was grassroots. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Apollo Theater in New York—like Showtime at the Apollo, Amateur Night at the Apollo—but we won that three times in a row. I was 14, and it was like the wildest, coolest experience ever.

By the time I graduated high school, we were getting presented with weird contracts from managers, from labels. I don't know—I was young. But my mom was like, “I'm not signing these. I'm not getting you into this stuff.” So at that point, as cheesy as it sounds, music broke my heart. I was like, I'm cool. I'm not doing this anymore.

I started going to college for a bit, and then I got my real estate license. I started working in real estate. Then in my early twenties—once music is in you, it never leaves. My family and friends were still making music. I would still go to shows and stuff. And then the business side piqued my interest because I'm like, “Wait, you guys are all gonna get screwed—like I almost did—because you don't know the business.” You're great performers, great musicians, but you don't know the business.

That really motivated me to learn the business. Facebook was a thing. Twitter was a thing then. Social media started actually being very popular. I would spend my days at my real estate job researching the music business. I would simplify whatever information I was taking in and I would share it—I would tweet it.

Then I was like, man, this is really coming pretty naturally to me. I kind of enjoyed this just as much as I was enjoying real estate at the time. Everything happened really organically from there. At first I was like, “Hey, let me find some really dope artists around me that I can try to help however I can.”

Then that led to me doing a monthly show—a networking mixer in Philly—called Philly Sound Sessions. We did that for, I don't know, three years. It was really, really awesome. That built my network a lot in the city. Then Taste Creators came about a few years after that. It started off as a music blog during the blog era, when everybody was like—that's where we found music. Everybody wanted to be on blogs.

I was upset because I was finding all this amazing indie music and you guys don't want to post about it because it's not Drake. I was successful in getting some of those artists on those big outlets, but I started Taste Creators as a music blog literally because I was coming across so much really awesome music, and I just wanted to have a platform to be able to share this amazing music I was coming across that just wasn't really popular yet.

I had another company at the time—I had started a brand called Exclusive Public. That's where I was doing some PR, branding, consulting, coaching with artists. But it got to be too much trying to build two brands. So I just merged everything together, ran with Taste Creators, and I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out, but it happened very naturally.

One thing that I did notice is that a lot of artists were coming to me for the wrong things. They would come to me and they would want to get press and all these big things, but I'm like, “Wait, you don't have a bio,” or, “You don't know how to market yourself. You don't know what to post tomorrow.” So it's like, what's the story? We have to build this brand. We have to build this audience.

That led me more down the artist development path. I was always kind of coaching and developing artists, but I'm like, wow—there's a real need for this. When I was little, we used to have to run around football fields singing, then work out, then go to our basement setup and rehearse our live show for hours. So we had crazy artist development—training, performance coaching—and I'm like, wow.

It really happened naturally. I started just giving the artists the things that they actually needed. And it's a struggle at times because they're like, “I just want all this big, cool stuff,” and it's like—but it's the little things. It's the foundational things that will get you there.

But yeah, long story short, I guess.

Michael: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. That last part you just shared—I totally, totally can relate with.

Often the things we think we want—or the things we think would be good for us—are actually not. It's kind of like the “eat your broccoli” kind of thing.

One of my mentors has this phrase: “Sell them what they want, but give them what they need.” That’s something I feel is a helpful frame for what you’re describing right now.

Brianna: Yeah, because I often say, “Hey, we're actually selling artists what they need, not what they want.” But I actually frame it as, “This is what you need—it's you.” Yeah. Maybe I should try that.

Michael: Well, and I didn’t mean to frame it like you should change. I think what you're describing right now is perfect.

This is the reason why we have the podcast—so people can learn what's actually important and what they actually need, versus what the myths are, or what they think is important that actually isn't as important.

So, along that line of thinking, I would love to hear your perspective on what are some of those things that artists feel like are important—or they feel like they need—when they come to you. What are some of the biggest mistakes?

And what is the equivalent of the broccoli that’s like, “Hey, look—this is actually going to make you feel awesome if you just trust me. It might not be the thing you think you need, but it’ll get you to where you want to go.”

What are some of those things you’ve found in your experience?

Brianna: Yeah, I think a lot of artists come to me and they're like, “I wanna get on these big platforms,” right? The On the Radars and, you know, just the big platforms. They think that they need that to grow an audience.

And one thing that I like to preach is, like, you are enough. You know, the artist—you are the platform. And I want artists to understand that, because while these other platforms are amazing, you don't need that to start. You need to start building your own platform by having awesome music, branding yourself properly.

Make sure that when people are searching for you, it makes a great first impression. Make sure that your profile photo is a picture of you and we can actually see your face. Make sure that your @ name—your handles—are your artist name. You know, stuff like that.

Making sure that you are posting consistently about your music and yourself. Showing up consistently for your audience. Making it a point to truly connect with the people that are engaging with you. I think those things matter first.

Because I think with artists, it's like, now you want to get some organic traction before you start paying for things, right?

I manage an artist right now. His name is Dario Amont. And it’s been wild—the growth has just been amazing over the last four months. And it's because he's so consistent. I mean, the music is great, he looks great—so of course, all of those things play a factor in it.

Yeah, it doesn’t hurt at all.

He went from like 2,000 followers to 48,000 followers, and like less than 10,000 monthly listeners to—I think he was at 65,000 monthly listeners. I think he's in the 40,000s right now, but we're getting ready to drop some new music.

It wasn't paid for. A couple of his videos hit over a million views organically. No ad money. No playlisting. No influencers. None of that.

Now we're starting to run ads on the things that did the best, and do interviews and set up shows and all of that stuff. But to build the foundation that he has and actually start to build a real fanbase—because now there’s so many people commenting anytime he posts.

We’re doing his second headlining show—it’s coming up in May. He did a brand deal with L’Oréal back in February. And all of this stemmed from his content and his music. Now we have multiple deals on the table.

So it's like, build it and they will come. So I think that's the biggest thing—artists need to understand that they are the platform.

Michael: Mm. That's super helpful. You know, what that reminded me of is—one of my favorite analogies, and it sounds like this is exactly what you're saying—is that before you “make it rain,” like in this example of getting exposure, getting on a platform, it’s like it starts to rain. There are all these fans discovering you.

If you're not prepared for that, it's like you can kind of hold out your hands and the rain passes through and goes into the ground. But what you're saying is, you should focus on building a rain catcher—building something, building a platform, or building a foundation so that when it does rain, you're actually prepared for it and you can actually capture the rain as it's falling down.

Brianna: Well, think about it, right?

There’s a few things. Number one, you want to go to these platforms with a song that has a proof of concept. You don't want to do the wrong song on a huge platform and now you just wasted that platform.

So it's better to test out the records and have something that is getting a little bit of traction. That way now you know, “Okay, if I just expose this song to a bigger audience, people are going to love it,” because already—organically—people love it.

So that’s one thing.

Another thing is, like, I've had an artist hit me up wanting to get on these big platforms, and I go on their Instagram and they have two posts. So it’s like, if we got you on this platform tomorrow, and people actually love it—they're not going to have anything else to dig into on your page. So you're only going to half-build the relationship.

You want to get on these platforms so people can now follow you and have a whole world to dig into. They can scroll for an hour and watch your other videos—whether it’s music, behind the scenes, whatever.

So, it’s got to be the right time.

Michael: Mm. Awesome. Yeah. So it sounds like, even if you do have a big hit or you hit on a platform and it starts to rain—if you're just kind of holding out your hands, and you have two little tiny posts on your page—those are two little tiny rain catchers. They're going to fill up kind of fast and now it just spills over. And now it's just, again, wasted.

Cool. One thing I'd love to hear your perspective on is around owning the platform and kind of owning the audience in the form of, like, maybe an email list or a contact list—versus something like social media where they have a rain catcher but you don't really own the rain catcher. And it could die—like MySpace.

So I'm curious what your perspective is on artists when it comes to owning their own platform and maybe some good strategies that they can put into practice so they can have more independence and not rely as much on those social media platforms.

Brianna: Gotcha. Yeah. Well, I think the easiest way to put it is—I mean, you've probably heard of the thousand fan rule, right?

Michael: Mm-hmm.

Brianna: Where if you can just get a thousand people to spend $50 on a hoodie, piece of merch—you know, that's a lot of money right there. That’s $50,000.

Minus, let's say $20,000 for the cost of the hoodie and the design, that's still $30,000. And that's just off of one hoodie. So imagine if they bought a hoodie, a t-shirt, and a ticket to a show. That's a lot of money—more than a lot of people are making at their full-time jobs.

So you really have to—as an artist, that's what you need to focus on. Having a million followers is one thing, but if you can't reach them or if they're not going to pay you for anything, then what is the point?

I like for artists to use social media as a net—cast a wide net. But when you notice that these people are really engaging with you, you should have contact info. When someone gives you their email or their phone number, they’re literally giving you permission to contact them. They’re saying, “I want you to market to me. I want to hear from you.”

So I like to create a fan funnel, for instance. You don’t want to ask a stranger for an email, but someone that’s been following you for a little while and they're always commenting on your posts—you can totally get their email address. And there’s different ways to do it.

Not all of them in the beginning are going to click a link in your bio and subscribe, right? You might actually have to send them a message and say, “Hey, you commented on my post and you said that you wanted the new music. If you give me your email, I’ll make sure that you’re the first to get the new music.”

So I like to do that early on. Because if you have 20 people that give you 20 bucks, you just made a little bit of money to now invest back into yourself.

Not saying that you just get everybody’s emails because they’re dollar signs—you really, truly want to build a relationship with them and build a community. But at the end of the day, you're turning this into a business.

All the artists that come to me and want to work with me, that’s their goal. They're like, “Hey, I want to quit my nine-to-five and I want to make this a real thing.” So you have to treat it that way. You have to give people a way to support you that’s not just “go book me for a show” or something.

That’s why another thing we’ve been doing is dropping releases on a platform called Even. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Even yet, but it allows fans to buy your album before you put it on streaming. And you have to train your audience to do that, right? It’s like, “Hey, I want to support you, so I'm going to buy this directly from you.”

And then when it comes out, I’m still going to stream it, but I really wanted to support you because I love what you do. And I have artists that are making a lot of money doing that.

So I think early on it’s really about casting that net on social media—see how many people you can reach, but really pay attention to those core supporters, those people that are paying attention.

I think a lot of artists focus on the growth so much, but you’ve got to focus on the retention. Because those people that are already there—you can’t overlook them. They’re there already. So you want to build that relationship, and they’ll go tell other people about you too.

Michael: A hundred percent. Hope that answered your question.

Ah, it’s fantastic. You’re totally speaking my language. And you might not be aware of this—because this is very new—it was just last week that we launched our software as a service, and it’s called Street Team.

Basically, we built it because of all the reasons that you're describing right now. Basically, if Patreon and Discord and Facebook Groups had a baby—but instead of them owning your audience, the artist owns the fan data. So they can send out emails, text messages, they can build funnels, advanced CRM software to connect with their fans and build a community.

And it’s a free-to-use platform. It's free to use with a 10% commission on revenue generated on the platform.

Brianna: I love that.

Michael: We'd love to connect with you more after the call. Maybe share—

Brianna: Definitely.

Michael: Definitely. But it’s 100% in alignment with everything you’ve been talking about—how important it is to actually own the audience so that when it rains, you can capture the rain. But also, so Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t own the audience. Or MySpace doesn’t own the audience.

Cool. Brianna, thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing some advice for artists to help recalibrate.

Because it’s really important to eat the broccoli. For artists, if their goal is to make a full-time business with their music, then they need to hear what you're sharing. And they need to realize that the end-all, be-all isn't necessarily getting more followers on social media without having that real connection.

So I really appreciate you taking the time to hop on here. And for anyone who is interested in connecting more with you and diving deeper, what’s the best place for them to go to connect?

Brianna: Yeah, my company is called Taste Creators—Taste Creators, spelled exactly like that. So tastecreators.com, Taste Creators on all platforms. Or if they just search for me—Brianna DeMayo—on Instagram.

I don't know if I should give my email, but I’m pretty easy to find.

Michael: Awesome. Like always, we’ll put the links in the show notes for easy access. And Brianna, thank you again for hopping on the podcast today.

Brianna: Yeah.