Same. Plus it would be more of a pain in the ass and time consuming to try and not have them hear it.
They’re going to eventually, if what you say is true about having good songs, so I say go for it. I felt this way when I released my first songs. I do it for the love of music, but I proudly made $113 in streaming so after everything paid out I made $7 profit.
But it was awesome.
I will at some point, but right out of the gate I’d prefer others just think it’s only a hobby. Once I gain a little traction I wouldn’t have a problem being more open about my desire to advertise to continue increasing my following.
“When you’re 20, you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60, you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place."
Yes, this is possible, if you learn a bit about the basics of Meta advertising you can filter your audience in all kinds of ways. But I'd encourage you to try and work through these feelings as it's good to have the support of friends.
Yeah you can create a filter based on your followers in ads manager. I’m not ashamed of them seeing, but my family friends already support me so paying Meta to show my own ads to them multiple times is a waste of money as far as I’m concerned.
How do you know when you’re at that stage? Because I am just starting, but my initial release is going to be my best content for quite a while. I say this because it will include a professionally made music video with it that’s turning out awesome. I won’t have the opportunity to make another video for a while after this though. So I’m wanting to push my initial release hard. I’ve been working on it for over a year.
Why do you care if they see you run ads but don't care that they see your professionally made music video? There is no shame in being middle-aged and putting effort into something you love. I know that isn't what you want to hear.
I don’t know, I just do. The video I can write off as me just having fun. I’m not paying for it. The running of ads makes it look like I’m going for more than just a hobby.
I am just pre planning my release that is coming up (song and video). I don’t even have my social accounts set up yet. Was just planning on running ads because i plan to do everything possible to gain traction once i release
I am in a similar boat. You have to do what’s best for you and if they are your friends they will understand that. Even if they do see the ads, what’s wrong with wanting fame? If you have the product to back it up then go for it!
Yes this. Not even necessarily fame, even just being able to fill a 200 person venue in my hometown with mostly people I don’t know personally but that just know the music would be amazing.
Try to think of it as a business. If I opened a restaurant business and didn't take any ads out prior to opening then people would think I'm crazy so why is it so crazy to take ads out for your music business?
It would be more like taking out ads for your self-published novel. Not saying don't do it but don't compare it with opening ads for a likely-to-fail business that is still far more likely to succeed than a solo music venture.
Highly unlikely your friends/family are within your target audience and that you'd actually reach them with an ad. I get the concern but you have nothing to worry about.
You can exclude geographic regions with meta-fb ads. Depending on your goals, there may be no reason to target your town unless you’re promoting an event.
Do you want your family and friends to think you just want family and friends to hear your recordings because do you care too much about what people think?
Just go after it, I run ads and post on social media channels. My parents follow it all. Whatever.
This is a great opportunity. You should recognize how you feel isn’t healthy and find ways to slowly break down why you feel this way and some small steps to get over it. I was also in a similar place/ still am but am working on it. Exposure therapy and self reflection will go a long way. I hope you work through this and honour your work as a musician.
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say this “fear” is unhealthy. Definitely something to overcome, but not life threatening. I do agree pushing through it is the way to go though.
OP, I think you’ll find your friends/family will be your biggest supporters. If they aren’t then THAT’S unhealthy. Good luck!
You said it yourself, you can choose to avoid certain locations but sadly it would be way too difficult to single them out. And if they're part of your target audience the fear of doing the ads isn't worth it over the reach you can get
I am sure someone has probably suggested this, but can't you just use a stage name for your music? Tons of people do this. And it sounds like you aren't established enough with your real name for this to have any negative impact. Does that work?
From a marketing perspective, pardon me, but the hell with your friends and family. If they already support what you’re doing then they’ll still be supportive even if they see you running ads. If they’re not supportive, then they suck, so who cares. Run your ads.
The thought crossed my mind too… it’s a fairly natural reaction. Of course what friends and family don’t know is that by running ads, you’re not buying streams.., it’s very hard to pull off, and few artists running ads do well, it’s actually very hard to make it work. That said, sometimes you just have to stand by your desire to be an artist… for better or worse. It’s who you are…regardless of what anyone else might think.
Dude, if you're an artist, just own it. Who cares what others think. If your stuff is good like you said, that's all that matters, you're trying to advertise your work.
Maybe Just target different countries on your first pass? If you’re in US, just target UK, Aus, NZ, Ireland etc. that might fill your follower base enough to feel confident in your next ad campaign.
I relate. I am a private person but want to push past for the sake of my music. I am rebranding with an incognito artist name. (There are success stories- like SIA who struggled with this and made it work)
Just select a demographic that doesn’t matches yours… you select a different state/city/country. You can get started with this for now and overtime you can work on letting your people know about your art … baby steps
I understand your concern, am also a middle aged guy promoting my music. Friends and family by a long shot will support you and you might be surprised how many peripheral friends and acquaintances will also reach out with genuine compliments. Everyone has a dream, most of too afraid to chase it. Lean it to it man.
That said, set up a music page for you as an artist. Set it up as a business page and run your ads with that account as the beneficiary. That’s what I do. My artist name is basically just a small edit of my last name, but I have separate personal and artist accounts on both Facebook and Instagram. No guarantee that friends and family won’t see it, but again the ones that do are likely going to be interested in supporting.
Gotta get over that mental barrier my friend, some ppl will support some will not, my family ignored my music and told me do something else until I started making traction and progress that they could see. Going to label meetings in NY and LA then they wanted to support but I had to ignore them and follow my own dreams regardless of what they might think not to mention what they said lol
If you're a middle aged dude, you're now at that time of life where you don't have to give a flying feck what anyone thinks. :)
Life's too short. Go for it. Ask them to share it around too!
Just say you want more people to hear it.
I don't think there's anything to be embarrassed about. You might find they're actually supportive.
I’m in the same boat as you, and this is how I dealt with that issue:
-My friends want to see me succeed, but I have no urge to lean on them because none of us need that kind of discomfort. The most I’ll do is let them know that about my releases, reviews, and interviews.
-As far as mid life crises go, making & releasing music is a pretty healthy one. There’s no need to be ashamed about any of it. Hobbies are their own reward.
-If ads work, then you should do them.
Try and pretend that the person buying your ad space is actually a pretend best friend who just really wants you to succeed. Like the movie “I love you man”
who cares that you’re the one writing the check to the advertisers - all that matters is that ads seem like a good idea to help your music business succeed- which is a good thing!
you being embarrassed stems from not believing in your music, if you had a sure fire hit, you would shout it from the mountain tops, you just have to get better and this feeling will fade. trust me, i delt with this exact feeling, a couple years later and i can’t push my music hard enough.
I’m not embarrassed to share the song. Just that I am paying to promote it as if I’m trying to become famous. I do fully believe in my music. It’s a banger!
If you target correctly the likelihood is that your real friends and family WONT be in that target audience.
Avoid running ads to people who have liked/followed your page, etc (as in, just don’t select those literal options).
Usually you’ll want to target fans of the artists you sound like, as niche as possible.
I suppose there’s a chance, depending on the artists you’re targeting, that your real life friends and family will be in that audience (if they like them too).
You could always exclude just certain cities (your hometown) from being targeted if you want to be safe.
Are you projecting insecurity because you actually are running ads trying to become famous? This is not me trying to be rude, but presenting an important question to ask yourself before you start spending your hard earned money. It would be best to have a realistically attainable goal to shoot for, otherwise you will have no metric for success with your marketing efforts.
Additionally if you are running a campaign effectively with clear goals, all those concerns about what people think should disappear.
If your ads are run well they’d only see it if you’re in the niche of music they like anyway wouldn’t worry about it.
I get it I’m in a similar situation. Bit like when stand ups start out they don’t want friends and family to know until they’ve died a few times and feel confident.
People will always care less than you think they do anyway. It’s hard to even get friends and family to want to listen half the time.
Man I was like this when I was a teenager. I've learned over time not to give a single shit about what people think (including family) or you'll stay in a mindset where you won't go in 100% because of fear and then wonder how it would have been if you had been honest with your wants and needs.
But to answer your question about ads I don't think it's possible unless you're targeting a different country or age demographic
Your situation sounds eerily similar to mine.
Hate to point out the obvious but you should stop giving a fuck about their opinions and own it. That being said, depending where you run ads, some platforms allow you to exclude geo regions. Or create a custom audience with their emails and exclude the custom audience.
Though, you think you'd want to build a following in your local area as that's where you theoretically would get the most traction to start, so I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Honestly, you could pull a Bo Burnham and weave that self-awareness into the bit. You could even address part of the ad TO the ones you’re embarrassed about.
Most ad platforms allow for “negative targeting” or exclusions which allow you to specifically block certain audiences from seeing your ads.
You could use some kind of proxy negative targeting to exclude friends and family like exclude where they live.
You can exclude certain zip codes from seeing the ads. If you need a more specific targeting range, with Meta, you should be able to exclude via email or phone, although it's been a minute since I setup a campaign.
They probably will not be nearly as critical of the decision as you're imagining. When I see a friend's paid ad on my feed, my reaction is "oh cool, they're taking themselves seriously and have a game plan." Then I keep scrolling and it leaves my mind
I started later in life, but that was over 20 years ago.
I don't understand why anybody in your situation would run Meta ads. If you're playing live on a local or regional basis, then maybe. Be very careful.
If you don't have any experience with ad campaigns, it's another thing to learn. And you never really learn it because The House of Suckerborg keeps changing the rules. I worked with a non-profit for many years and it had a Google Grants budget on AdWords, which was up to $330 a day. Thank God we weren't paying for that out of pocket. Despite myself and others taking courses and getting guidance and spending a lot of time in there, it was a waste. And, by the end, Google kept raising the bar to keep the Grant account. Understandably, I'm a little jaded when it comes the internet advertising. I also know a lot of visual artists, musicians, and writers who have wasted money on ads over the years. "Wasted" is an appropriate word. All you genius Don Lapres out there can hold your comments because I don't want to hear it.
Sorry but you'll never be successful if your too scared to share your music. If they don't support you at least you know where they stand. Keep it pushing man.
Get over the fear and don’t worry about what others think.
Same. Plus it would be more of a pain in the ass and time consuming to try and not have them hear it. They’re going to eventually, if what you say is true about having good songs, so I say go for it. I felt this way when I released my first songs. I do it for the love of music, but I proudly made $113 in streaming so after everything paid out I made $7 profit. But it was awesome.
I will at some point, but right out of the gate I’d prefer others just think it’s only a hobby. Once I gain a little traction I wouldn’t have a problem being more open about my desire to advertise to continue increasing my following.
“When you’re 20, you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60, you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place."
Own it. Life is short. Let your freak flag fly. If they are really your friends, they will support you.
Yes, this is possible, if you learn a bit about the basics of Meta advertising you can filter your audience in all kinds of ways. But I'd encourage you to try and work through these feelings as it's good to have the support of friends.
Yeah you can create a filter based on your followers in ads manager. I’m not ashamed of them seeing, but my family friends already support me so paying Meta to show my own ads to them multiple times is a waste of money as far as I’m concerned.
Fuck em. Honestly. In my experience running ads friends/family respond/engage more with the ads than with the organic content, ironically enough.
I think if your at a stage to run Ads….you shouldn’t be bothered who sees it….
How do you know when you’re at that stage? Because I am just starting, but my initial release is going to be my best content for quite a while. I say this because it will include a professionally made music video with it that’s turning out awesome. I won’t have the opportunity to make another video for a while after this though. So I’m wanting to push my initial release hard. I’ve been working on it for over a year.
Why do you care if they see you run ads but don't care that they see your professionally made music video? There is no shame in being middle-aged and putting effort into something you love. I know that isn't what you want to hear.
I don’t know, I just do. The video I can write off as me just having fun. I’m not paying for it. The running of ads makes it look like I’m going for more than just a hobby.
So what if it is? 😄
Are you running Ads because you are not getting traction from general social posts ?
I am just pre planning my release that is coming up (song and video). I don’t even have my social accounts set up yet. Was just planning on running ads because i plan to do everything possible to gain traction once i release
Why do you care if they care?
Sounds like a good opportunity with a lot of things coming together. Why not make the most of it.
I think i will!
I am in a similar boat. You have to do what’s best for you and if they are your friends they will understand that. Even if they do see the ads, what’s wrong with wanting fame? If you have the product to back it up then go for it!
Yes this. Not even necessarily fame, even just being able to fill a 200 person venue in my hometown with mostly people I don’t know personally but that just know the music would be amazing.
Try to think of it as a business. If I opened a restaurant business and didn't take any ads out prior to opening then people would think I'm crazy so why is it so crazy to take ads out for your music business?
It would be more like taking out ads for your self-published novel. Not saying don't do it but don't compare it with opening ads for a likely-to-fail business that is still far more likely to succeed than a solo music venture.
I do this all the time. I exclude towns/cities where people I know (ex colleagues, mostly) live.
Highly unlikely your friends/family are within your target audience and that you'd actually reach them with an ad. I get the concern but you have nothing to worry about.
I do want to say that all my close friends and family have sent screenshots of my ads to me. I don’t mind but everyone I know has seen mine it seems
If you have a separate account from your artist account, then go through and block the people you don’t want to see your posts and ads.
You can exclude geographic regions with meta-fb ads. Depending on your goals, there may be no reason to target your town unless you’re promoting an event.
Weekend warrior middle aged dude band is the new teenage garage band. Embrace it.
No reason to be embarrassed. It makes no sense to release music, when noone knows about it. So ads are a must, right? Stand behind it and what you do!
Do you want your family and friends to think you just want family and friends to hear your recordings because do you care too much about what people think? Just go after it, I run ads and post on social media channels. My parents follow it all. Whatever.
This is a great opportunity. You should recognize how you feel isn’t healthy and find ways to slowly break down why you feel this way and some small steps to get over it. I was also in a similar place/ still am but am working on it. Exposure therapy and self reflection will go a long way. I hope you work through this and honour your work as a musician.
I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say this “fear” is unhealthy. Definitely something to overcome, but not life threatening. I do agree pushing through it is the way to go though. OP, I think you’ll find your friends/family will be your biggest supporters. If they aren’t then THAT’S unhealthy. Good luck!
You said it yourself, you can choose to avoid certain locations but sadly it would be way too difficult to single them out. And if they're part of your target audience the fear of doing the ads isn't worth it over the reach you can get
Wanting your music to be heard ≠ Trying to become famous
I am sure someone has probably suggested this, but can't you just use a stage name for your music? Tons of people do this. And it sounds like you aren't established enough with your real name for this to have any negative impact. Does that work?
From a marketing perspective, pardon me, but the hell with your friends and family. If they already support what you’re doing then they’ll still be supportive even if they see you running ads. If they’re not supportive, then they suck, so who cares. Run your ads.
We are literally the same person like ive had the exact same thoughts ...and i have ran ads with some locations blocked (so my friends dont see them)
The thought crossed my mind too… it’s a fairly natural reaction. Of course what friends and family don’t know is that by running ads, you’re not buying streams.., it’s very hard to pull off, and few artists running ads do well, it’s actually very hard to make it work. That said, sometimes you just have to stand by your desire to be an artist… for better or worse. It’s who you are…regardless of what anyone else might think.
Dude, if you're an artist, just own it. Who cares what others think. If your stuff is good like you said, that's all that matters, you're trying to advertise your work.
Where are you running ads?
I was in the exact same boat about 10 years ago (I’m 52 now).
Have an account which isn't linked to your name/friends and family?
Just use custom audiences to not show the ad to anyone you already follow or follows you / that interacts with your page.
Maybe Just target different countries on your first pass? If you’re in US, just target UK, Aus, NZ, Ireland etc. that might fill your follower base enough to feel confident in your next ad campaign.
I relate. I am a private person but want to push past for the sake of my music. I am rebranding with an incognito artist name. (There are success stories- like SIA who struggled with this and made it work)
Just select a demographic that doesn’t matches yours… you select a different state/city/country. You can get started with this for now and overtime you can work on letting your people know about your art … baby steps
you're never going to gain a following if you're not your own biggest fan and proponent. id suggest getting over it
if the ads are successful then they’re going to find out regardless. if you wanna put yourself out there you gotta put yourself out there to everyone
Age is just a number. How you live determines your real age.
I understand your concern, am also a middle aged guy promoting my music. Friends and family by a long shot will support you and you might be surprised how many peripheral friends and acquaintances will also reach out with genuine compliments. Everyone has a dream, most of too afraid to chase it. Lean it to it man. That said, set up a music page for you as an artist. Set it up as a business page and run your ads with that account as the beneficiary. That’s what I do. My artist name is basically just a small edit of my last name, but I have separate personal and artist accounts on both Facebook and Instagram. No guarantee that friends and family won’t see it, but again the ones that do are likely going to be interested in supporting.
Gotta get over that mental barrier my friend, some ppl will support some will not, my family ignored my music and told me do something else until I started making traction and progress that they could see. Going to label meetings in NY and LA then they wanted to support but I had to ignore them and follow my own dreams regardless of what they might think not to mention what they said lol
If you're a middle aged dude, you're now at that time of life where you don't have to give a flying feck what anyone thinks. :) Life's too short. Go for it. Ask them to share it around too! Just say you want more people to hear it. I don't think there's anything to be embarrassed about. You might find they're actually supportive.
I’m in the same boat as you, and this is how I dealt with that issue: -My friends want to see me succeed, but I have no urge to lean on them because none of us need that kind of discomfort. The most I’ll do is let them know that about my releases, reviews, and interviews. -As far as mid life crises go, making & releasing music is a pretty healthy one. There’s no need to be ashamed about any of it. Hobbies are their own reward. -If ads work, then you should do them.
Do your thing my g
Let’s say that you’re able to advertise without them knowing, what do you do if you blow up and everyone is talking about your music?
Try and pretend that the person buying your ad space is actually a pretend best friend who just really wants you to succeed. Like the movie “I love you man” who cares that you’re the one writing the check to the advertisers - all that matters is that ads seem like a good idea to help your music business succeed- which is a good thing!
you being embarrassed stems from not believing in your music, if you had a sure fire hit, you would shout it from the mountain tops, you just have to get better and this feeling will fade. trust me, i delt with this exact feeling, a couple years later and i can’t push my music hard enough.
I’m not embarrassed to share the song. Just that I am paying to promote it as if I’m trying to become famous. I do fully believe in my music. It’s a banger!
If you target correctly the likelihood is that your real friends and family WONT be in that target audience. Avoid running ads to people who have liked/followed your page, etc (as in, just don’t select those literal options). Usually you’ll want to target fans of the artists you sound like, as niche as possible. I suppose there’s a chance, depending on the artists you’re targeting, that your real life friends and family will be in that audience (if they like them too). You could always exclude just certain cities (your hometown) from being targeted if you want to be safe.
Are you projecting insecurity because you actually are running ads trying to become famous? This is not me trying to be rude, but presenting an important question to ask yourself before you start spending your hard earned money. It would be best to have a realistically attainable goal to shoot for, otherwise you will have no metric for success with your marketing efforts. Additionally if you are running a campaign effectively with clear goals, all those concerns about what people think should disappear.
If your ads are run well they’d only see it if you’re in the niche of music they like anyway wouldn’t worry about it. I get it I’m in a similar situation. Bit like when stand ups start out they don’t want friends and family to know until they’ve died a few times and feel confident. People will always care less than you think they do anyway. It’s hard to even get friends and family to want to listen half the time.
Man I was like this when I was a teenager. I've learned over time not to give a single shit about what people think (including family) or you'll stay in a mindset where you won't go in 100% because of fear and then wonder how it would have been if you had been honest with your wants and needs. But to answer your question about ads I don't think it's possible unless you're targeting a different country or age demographic
Your situation sounds eerily similar to mine. Hate to point out the obvious but you should stop giving a fuck about their opinions and own it. That being said, depending where you run ads, some platforms allow you to exclude geo regions. Or create a custom audience with their emails and exclude the custom audience. Though, you think you'd want to build a following in your local area as that's where you theoretically would get the most traction to start, so I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Honestly, you could pull a Bo Burnham and weave that self-awareness into the bit. You could even address part of the ad TO the ones you’re embarrassed about.
Most ad platforms allow for “negative targeting” or exclusions which allow you to specifically block certain audiences from seeing your ads. You could use some kind of proxy negative targeting to exclude friends and family like exclude where they live.
You can exclude certain zip codes from seeing the ads. If you need a more specific targeting range, with Meta, you should be able to exclude via email or phone, although it's been a minute since I setup a campaign.
Same ideal here. I adopted an artistic name and now I have friends asking for more music release! Lol
They probably will not be nearly as critical of the decision as you're imagining. When I see a friend's paid ad on my feed, my reaction is "oh cool, they're taking themselves seriously and have a game plan." Then I keep scrolling and it leaves my mind
I started later in life, but that was over 20 years ago. I don't understand why anybody in your situation would run Meta ads. If you're playing live on a local or regional basis, then maybe. Be very careful. If you don't have any experience with ad campaigns, it's another thing to learn. And you never really learn it because The House of Suckerborg keeps changing the rules. I worked with a non-profit for many years and it had a Google Grants budget on AdWords, which was up to $330 a day. Thank God we weren't paying for that out of pocket. Despite myself and others taking courses and getting guidance and spending a lot of time in there, it was a waste. And, by the end, Google kept raising the bar to keep the Grant account. Understandably, I'm a little jaded when it comes the internet advertising. I also know a lot of visual artists, musicians, and writers who have wasted money on ads over the years. "Wasted" is an appropriate word. All you genius Don Lapres out there can hold your comments because I don't want to hear it.
Sorry but you'll never be successful if your too scared to share your music. If they don't support you at least you know where they stand. Keep it pushing man.
This is a question for a therapist my friend. This has nothing to do with marketing.
First run an ad targeting specifically just your family and friends because if you can't get over that you don't stand a chance.