What Does a Music Publicist Do?
Welcome To the PR Particulars, a series of informative posts designed to educate artists on the process of public relations. Written by experienced music publicists, the series is specifically covering best practices that leading music PR firms use in their day-to-day strategy and execution for clients.
If we’re looking at the role of a music publicist from a 30,000 foot view, their position on an artist’s team is to secure earned media coverage to generate awareness around an upcoming release. Earned media refers to publicity gained through promotional efforts, other than paid advertising. The scope of a publicity campaign can encompass securing interview features for their clients, news items, reviews for singles or albums, performance sessions and more. Generally, working the full spectrum of the media landscape, this includes — but often times is not limited to — blogs, websites, print publications, TV, podcasts and specialty social media scenarios.
A music publicist is an essential asset to the marketing efforts on an artist’s new single, album, tour or their special events.
A great publicist is the filter between their client and the media. They’re crafting a strong narrative on behalf of their client and pitching their contacts to find media opportunities. With that, publicists are on the front lines of a new release, vetting media opportunities and making sure they make sense for a client’s goals and positioning.
As you look closer into what a publicist is doing, it becomes more complex. The PR team is finding the stories and angles that are newsworthy. They’re analyzing and strategizing how these stories and angels tie into an artist’s current project and how they can get the media to commit to coverage.
An experienced publicist brings years — or decades — worth of relationships they’ve built with the media; journalists, editors, bookers and producers.
They know the musical tastes of these media players and exactly who might connect with a particular story, style of music or interesting anecdote around a project. They’re leveraging these personal relationships to bring in the best possible media looks during a campaign.
Most PR professionals are educated— and hold degrees — specifically in communications. They know exactly how to craft a captivating pitch through email that effectively outlines their client’s story and details. A skilled publicist can pick up the phone and call a journalist and capture interest in the first two sentences. Day in and day out publicists are immersed in the art of the pitch.
A PR professional knows how to articulate to a TV segment producer the talking points that need to come across during the segment. They posses the know-how to walk their client down a red carpet for in-person interviews, and above all, they know how to mold a media scenario that is skewing negative and get it back onto a positive track (sometimes known as “damage control”).
The music PR team you’ve hired should be effectively assisting in creating a strong digital footprint for you via media coverage. When someone Google’s you or your band’s name, you should own the first page of results.
The role of a music publicist is ever expanding, but these are some of the core pillars to their work that will never change.
