Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Paul Dillon. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Paul, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s talk about social media – do you manage your own or do you have someone or a company that handles it for you? Why did you make the choice you did?
The future is here and which social media platform to be on? I do all my own social media, I love to ba able to have a social media team but in the music business to me it is all about making relationships. And that is probably true for most businesses all the same!! Especially for me anyway, an artist starting out to make a name for himself and try and be a little different from the amazing artists out there. So, I try to be on all the main social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & TikTok. It is amazing how there is very little overlap of followers across two of the platforms, never mind them all. Each post is getting to a different follower, which is great and then I create each post for each platform rather than using the fancy software. I find that it is often extra work to try and tag all the people needed over the platforms as so many shows/radio stations, artists, etc actually have different names for tagging on social media, which can make it difficult to find some at some stages.
Thsi is where I made a special effort to have the same social media name of @pmadtheband across all social media, even though I am a solo artist, but will be a band when touring!!
So lesson number 1…………be consistently known as one name!
Paul, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Covid is the fault of pMad, the pandemic has a lot to answer for!! I finally got time to or made time to piece together all the parts of the music and lyric jigsaws that I had strewn all over the place. Exciting indeed and amazing to me, as to what could be done with todays tech!! pMad is me and my head and making music for me…….. in the hope that some others in the world will enjoy also. We have a band called The Greeting which is a lot more collaborative. Collaboration takes time of course, where pMad gets to do what I do and make all the mistakes that can be made, but it is great fun in learning and hopefully improving!
I wanted to create music that I like and of course when you like Post Punk, Goth, Indie and New Wave Genres, then pMad is obviously going to make music in that form. We all have our influences and people are hearing all sorts of influences in pMad’s tunes, from Simple Minds to Suicidal Tendencies, INXS to The Cure, Depeche Mode to The Sisters of Mercy.
Not sure I created music by being influenced by those bands but people hear what they hear. As each band influenced each at a particular time too over the years. I just arrived in a little later. It is the beauty of music! It is a bit and overall project of music, film, soundtracks. I like darkness, not necessarily dark thoughts or horror or even black & white!! The darkness can hide so much but can also reveal so much too, when you look closely. So, it all comes out obviously in the music then.
It is funny what people hear from pMad, bands I would never have heard of, listened to but they it in pMad. As long as they like what they hear, does it really matter!
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
Basically by being personal. Answering those emails, social media likes/follows and comments. It is time consuming but when starting out, you need to get your name out there and most people are just ordinary living people like myself. They went to the bother of following you, buying from you, listening to you……..it cannot be that hard to say thank you. It means so much to me when it is done to me, so I like to return the compliment. Most of the people I deal with that play pMad are volunteers in shows or radio stations and do it for the love of the music…….and they get so much great music delivered into their inbox, how do I separate myself from that. Granted pMad is not the normal singer songwriter music and I need that luck that the person actually likes the tunes before we can really build a relationship. But when luck enough to get a play, I make sure to follow up, share and thank people.
It is a very small thing to do, but a hugely important thing to do!!
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Following and seeing where other similar artists are being played and how they approach their strategies. Imiatation is the greatest form of flattery. I am sure the other artists are doing it to pMad to. ‘If they are playing pMad, surely they will play my music too!!!’ They are not competition to me, music is not like a lot of the business world, if you treat others as competition you are already on the back foot. I have found, the best response is got, when you support and encourage others in the music business. It can be so cutthroat that people are very grateful to have someone on their side.
We all like support, it is much preferrable to being knocked down.
Lets get out there and support each other not just in the music business, the karma may come back to you from the strangest of places!!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pmadtheband.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pmadtheband/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pMadtheband/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/pmadtheband
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/pmadtheband
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@pmadtheband https://linktr.ee/pMadtheband https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/pmad/fury