So I finish dinner with Richard Griffiths, get the latest lowdown on One Direction, hear how much they don't do with old media, how they don't want to overload their fans, and I get into the lobby of the London and check my Twitter feed...
And it's blowing up.
Drake tweeted me.
At 22:43, @Drake wrote: "The Rules by Bob Lefsetz...genius."
I wrote that post weeks ago. In my mind it's already dead. But suddenly it came back alive. Drake stepped on the land mine, expressed his emotion, and brought in his audience, all 9,437,807 of them.
Okay. Some of that number may be fake. Some may have dropped out of Twitter. Some may be overloaded and missed it. But based on the plethora of retweets, I know that a ton of people saw it!
I don't know Drake. Never met him, never got an e-mail from him, off the top of my head I can't even tell you who his manager is.
But somehow he found me.
You can go on late night TV. You can do the usual things. You can make yourself feel good by marketing. But nothing sells like the product itself. When it's great. And despite the supposed short attention spans of the younger generation, they've always got time for great, they're constantly looking for great, they'll stop by and smell the roses of great, they'll tell everybody they know about great.
I wrote that post on October 22nd. Today it's November 7th. It took that long to percolate, to reach Drake.
If you expect instant results, you're dreaming. Or you're paying someone to bop everybody over the head, pissing them off.
I've been doing this for over twenty five years. The best thing that ever happened to me was the Internet, it allowed me to reach the world for free. And if I thought this one tweet were gonna make my career, were gonna rain down cash, I'd be completely stupid. But I do know a credible artist whose fans adore him endorsed me and I end up with a positive imprimatur. Suddenly, a bunch of people I'd be unable to reach in the old world, who wouldn't be paying attention to me in the old world, know who I am. And if they see my name one or two more times, they might check me out further, I might make some new fans.
I don't know where I'm going. It's like someone shut off the lights and I kept walking. And I'm bumping into bushes, stumbling, then other times I run into people and opportunities I could not foresee in the old world.
You can do it the old way. But the old way is dying.
Drake means more than any radio station. Any gatekeeper. The artists are the new gatekeepers. And the way you achieve this is by having an ongoing positive bond with your fans. Not a few old men who say they can break you big. Mystery is out the window. Now you're the guy or girl next door making music, truly Jenny From The Block as opposed to that plastic-surgeried, airbrushed woman using that moniker. Without the machine, J. Lo's got nothing. But those using social media and the new world to their advantage have everything.
As I sit here, the retweets continue to pour in. Nearly a day later.
I did nothing! Other than write a great piece to begin with.
And why did I write it? Because I was so frustrated with a bureaucracy that was failing me, that I got inspired and wrote to blow off steam.
Greatness isn't contemplated. It's not something you think about, hone and perfect. No, greatness is inspiration! Based on years of hard work. You may practice for decades, but you'll only break through when you throw off your inhibitions, trust your instincts and truly capture lightning in a bottle.
If you do this, people know, people find out.
Word spreads incredibly quickly online.
And incredibly slowly.
The key is to be in the game.
If you do something great, it will find its audience. Maybe years later!
-Bob Lefsetz
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