148 – How to Get Media Coverage as a Musician – with Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR

Ariel Hyatt is in the house! Are you looking to get more publicity for your music or band? Do you wish a major media outlet would cover your story? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, we learn from the best. Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR sheds light on the current state of publicity in the music industry as well as what she’s excited about creating. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 01:30 – What brought you to this point of helping musicians and music related brands? 03:51 – Dyslexia 04:50 – How long did it take for you and your company to get established in your space? 08:39 – Creative projects are closed loops 09:41 – The dangers of comparison 12:29 – How important is publicity for musicians and what is PR? 14:13 – FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened 15:40 – The media will cover you if you have something newsworthy to share 19:11 – The grind 23:05 – How effective are press releases? 25:53 – Copywriting skills 26:57 – Why write books? 35:39 – Is there a project you’re fired up about working on right now? 37:58 – Am I on track? – An assessment of The Music Entrepreneur HQ business 45:35 – Concluding thoughts Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with founder of Cyber PR. Ariel Hyatt. How are you today, Ariel? Ariel Hyatt: I’m fantastic. David Andrew Wiebe: Great. Glad we could finally talk and have you on the show. Now, I've been blogging about the music industry since 2007. But in 2012, I invested in music industry startup and ended up creating a position for myself as a blogger and digital marketer for the company. And that's when I started taking it more seriously. And in those days, it was people like you and Derek Severs, and Tom Hess, and Andrew Dover, that provided me with a lot of inspiration. So, thank you for being one of the giants whose shoulders, I could stand on. Ariel Hyatt: My pleasure. Those are all names that just brought me so much warm and fuzzy. That was amazing. David Andrew Wiebe: Oh, I know. I mean, Derek Severs I'm sure is many people's favourite human being. He's just smart and knowledgeable. What an incredible guy. Can't really say enough about him. So, you have a tremendous amount of experience in marketing and PR. What brought you to this point of helping musicians and music-related brands? Ariel Hyatt: I guess the real honest answer is my mother who is an amazing career coach. That's what she did my whole life and continues to do. She pointed out when I was pretty young that I had a knack for communication. I started really young interning at a PR firm and realised that that was actually true, I did have a knack for communication. Although even though that was my knack, I had a passion for art. That was my interest. And so, I guess my whole career is a combination of the thing that I'm really passionate about, which is art, not only music but I love visual art and all types of art. And then, you know, getting to support artists with what I'm really good at, which is communication and simplifying things, I think is something that as a dyslexic, which is something that I have, you look at the world really differently because everything feels confusing, especially when you're young and you can't read and everybody else can. You don't see the world the way other people see it. You start filtering things in a way to make it easier for yourself to understand. And so, I think part of why I'm good at what I do is, I understand that artists don't see the world, especially the business world, the way that most people do. And so, I've kind of made it my journey. Like, if I could break down the world so that I could understand it when it didn't make sense, I certainly could help other people do that. David Andrew Wiebe: Wow, that's really cool. And a couple of things by way of comment. When I first got started, or really, after I was born, the first thing I got into was not music but rather art. And so, I did a lot of arts and crafts, and a lot of drawing and painting. That was sort of my first expression of creativity, which later evolved into music and writing. But I think it's so common that people in this space also have a huge appreciation for other types of art. The other thing was what you said about dyslexia. I had a backing singer in my group who is also dyslexic, without revealing too many details, but it was just one of many things she seemed to be afflicted by and struggling with at times. But you know, she's still a great singer, which is why I work with her. Ariel Hyatt: Yeah, it's a lot of people that have dyslexia have an excellent year. Most a lot of really famous artists like Carly Simon, James Taylor, they're dyslexic. They have this like, perfect pitch. And it's like, “Well, why is that?” Well, it's because they can't read so it comes out in other ways. David Andrew Wiebe: Right. It's almost like you're just compensating for what doesn't come to you naturally, right? And then instead, using your ear or using your other senses to really fine tune what it is you're doing. So, I could see that. They would be better pitch than probably most amateurs. I'm not sure who originally came up with this but in the entrepreneurial space, we often say everything takes five years. So, how long did it take for you and your company to get established in your space? What was your experience like along the way? Ariel Hyatt: I had a really interesting and very cool thing happen. So, I guess if we counted the painful journey from getting out of university and getting into the music industry, where you realise that you're just young and one of many, many people trying to get your foot in the door, if we counted that as year one, I think this is actually going to make a lot of sense. Let's see. So, my journey was struggled a lot trying to find work. I found some really small unpaid internships. And then, parlayed those into a job at a small record label. Worked at the record label for a year. So, that would be two years out of school. And then the third year, I worked. I got a job at a concert promotions company. I worked there for probably about two years, year and a half, two years. And then, I started my own business. I had some luck in that I was living in a small town at the time, I was living in Boulder, Colorado, which is a place that at the time, I mean, the music scene is rich there, but the music industry is not. There was not a lot of people. There was like two record labels, and you know, a couple of music venues. That was it. So, there wasn't a lot happening in the town. It was very easy to get known pretty quickly. That was a huge benefit. So, I was working at the only record label there, one of the only concert promoters there. And then when I started my own business, very early on, I got a very amazing gig, which was I became the PR director for the Fox Theatre, which is this fabulous music venue that's still there. And so, I would say that, in a way, my curve was a little shorter because I had this incredible venue. But you know, I don't have that story where all of a sudden, I was working with one band that had a meteoric rise. I've had much more of a slow burn in my career, which has been interesting. And a lot of major label record industry types have said to me over and over, “Well, you really just need a big star to attach your name to.” which is one way that you can look at success. And there are many people that have that. They worked with one particular person that is massively huge. That's a great thing to rest your laurels on. I don't have that same experience. Although I have worked with a lot of people, some very famous, many are not. That's not how I viewed my career. Let's see. I started my business in ’96. ’97, ’98, ’99, 2000, 2001. Five years as an entrepreneur, I was, you know, I was in a groove. I would say I was in a groove. I didn't write my first book until 2007 though. So, you know, it's been a journey just like you. It's been… Although I was blogging. I don't feel like there was. I guess when I look back, 2020 hindsight everything, isn't it, I can see that there was like a really… there was a time where things were really accelerating. But I didn't realise it until much later in the game. David Andrew Wiebe: It's very relatable. I love that. I think I heard somewhere recently that creative projects are almost always like closed loops. Whereas we think, you know, if we were to look at a bar graph, it just continually goes up over time. But that's not always the case when you're in the creative industry. It's like you take on one project and you complete it. And then, you start a new project. And the process looks much the same as the last. Ariel Hyatt: Yeah. And especially in our industry. And I think this goes for artists as well as people that are supporting artists in any way. It there's no white-hot moment. I mean, there are once in a while these crazy outliers like Maggie Rogers, where Burrell heard her song, and then now she's playing Coachella. And it's a year later. I mean, you see that and you're like, “Oh, wow.” But that's really not how it happens for most mere mortals, as we know. It's always astounding when I do see an artist like that, it's a Marvel to look at but it's not realistic. David Andrew Wiebe: I've been in this seminar since January where every participant starts a community project, which has been really cool. But the other temptation there is to compare your project and how it's taking off to other people's projects, because inevitably there's a few peoples whose project is just exploding. You might still be sitting here with 27 likes on your Facebook page or something like that, going like, “Huh, I wonder if I'm going about this the wrong way.” But everybody chooses a project that's a reflection of them. And of course, depending on the niche and industry,