Music Tips from a Community Manager

MUSIC TIPS

Hi there, happy December to all who live and breathe the joy of this month only!

Just kidding, just kidding, a happy December to you too, who struggled to make it out of bed this week! You deserve a happy day today and we know that.

So to solve that, we’ve come here with another refreshing article, a new episode of Music tips! (Woohoo!)

Dearly beloved, We’ve crossed the boardwalk and in our journey we’ve seen all the people that make the magic happen, the men in black, the shadow guys behind the scenes, the brain boxes

But as we’ve seen so far, there’s always more people who are responsible for making all the magic happen, for turning dreams into something bigger. Some directly and some a lot less directly but all, impactful.

At CiDAR, there’s a deep and major concern about artiste welfare, when it comes to building that sense of community and growth. It’s more than just distribution or management for us, it’s consistency, information, care for the people we work with.

And today we have someone precious in our midst. The one who grows our community, building up the name and building up your fame! So walk with us down the halls of holly, as we bring to you another special CiDAR Aficionado from far and wide (touching the north pole) to bring us music tips.

Ladies and gents, give it up for our very own COMMUNITY MANAGER

1. Hi Precious, It’s so lovely to have you! In a fun nutshell, tell us your Job Description and what it entails

Precious: Hi, thank you for having me. So My Job description is the role of a Community Manager, which is a person responsible and well equipped with the skillset, knowledge (relative) as well as people skills, to oversee the welfare of a particular group of people with one or similar interests, to harness and provide the space which the community exists, grows, and maintains it’s primary purpose.

2. What’s a day in your life like? Both work and leisure. From DMs to emails

Precious: So, from my perspective, the role of a community manager morphs into many types of responsibilities. On some days you’re a therapist, sometimes a teacher, a Hypeman, a content strategist, you’re even an AnR, you can be anything, man, so a day in my life is a day where I get to be anything as the day determines. Mostly, my day includes being an active representative of CiDAR through my inquiry responses, Email, and social media management.

3.  What would you describe as your ideal day? What would it entail?

Precious: My ideal day as a community manager is when I’m able to start a task and finish up in time. Being a source of motivation and support to my community, to coming across other community managers and just constantly finding out how to make the most of my day!

4. If your job had a soundtrack what would it consist of and why ?

Precious: Hmm it would most definitely be the intros to the last 3 albums of Wizkid; Recklessss, Money & Love, then Troubled Mind

5. Interesting choice: So what one artist do you think has the best fan base energy and what do you think makes their crowd special (let’s pretend like we can’t already tell LOL!)

Precious: The Wizkid FC Community is the standard to what having a community should look like or have some semblance to. For me, it’s their resilience and intentionality with how they consume, defend and intensify their love and support for Wizkid. It’s gone beyond him just being a great artiste and putting out exceptional music, he’s a beacon of hope to everyone especially the creatives and youth generally.This fanbase serves as reference point to every fan and artiste seeking community or building one

6. You must be in the perfect place because I can see you’re quite passionate about community, so what’s the most community manager thing you’ve done unconsciously in real life?⁠*

Precious: Unconsciously as a Community manager (CM) and someone with many experiences in the entertainment industry and marketing, on few occasions I have had to be a consult for a few of the artists seeking simple guidance on how to navigate their way as well as making them aware of the ways and psychology of a creative and how they can do better without necessarily doing or expecting much, starting from their immediate environment

7. How do you decompress after a chaotic day of emails DMs and human beings?

Precious: It’s probably not the healthiest way for most people, but I try to entertain myself with video content from Apps liks TikTok and Instagram. From true crime, to music based content, mythology, history, memes and politics

8.  What’s the most challenging client experience you’ve ever had,the one you solved a problem and felt like Omo I deserve an award for handling this well(funny requests, wild DMs, rude) and what did you learn from it. Tell us the best too (heartwarming messages, peaceful conversations)

Precious: Full disclosure, no sugarcoating. I’ve had quite a number of intense customer-service moments, but this one stood out. A client reached out to our team with a request: he wanted to change the producer listed on his project. I simply wanted to understand why, so I asked a few questions. Instead of explaining, he became rude, started using curse words, and wasn’t being direct about what he wanted. I did my best to remain patient, but when he became increasingly disrespectful, I had no choice but to hand the conversation over to someone else. Later, he came back again—this time on WhatsApp. He started throwing threats around, saying he would “report CiDAR,” insisting that I’d get in trouble, and demanding that things must happen immediately. I acknowledged him, but my boss had already instructed me to hold off on his request because of the way he was addressing us. His update wasn’t excessive or complicated, but it still required time to process, so we weren’t even able to get it done before he started accusing us.The next day, he went further and threatened to take his song down. Based on the distribution agreement we have—one that spans three years—that isn’t something he can just suddenly demand. I reminded him of this and asked him to check his previous chats. He insisted he never signed anything, even though the distribution structure makes that impossible. I even sent screenshots, but he continued escalating the insults. At that point, I responded as professionally as I could, letting him know that I had been the only one trying to help him, and that because of his language and attitude, I had been instructed not to continue assisting him. I told him clearly that I wouldn’t accept being insulted when I was doing my best to assist. It took a lot of emotional intelligence to stay calm, but I did it. And then—almost suddenly—his tone changed. It was like the fire burnt out. He apologized and said he only acted that way because he struggles to get people’s attention and feels ignored.I explained that there’s nothing wrong with expressing himself, but when he’s given the space and opportunity to speak, he shouldn’t bring trauma from past experiences into new interactions. I didn’t deserve that, and he needed to hear it. It wasn’t the greatest experience, but I’m proud of how I handled it—especially because even my boss didn’t have to step in. I managed it completely, respectfully, and firmly.

9. That’s truly awesome, good job for acknowledging your feelings and also making him feel heard. At the bottom of every escalation, is someone who wants to be heard and it takes a lot to put our ego aside to help people, to see them, even when we owe them nothing. Since you’ve taught us emotional intelligence and empathy, What other skill-set you think community managers need?

Precious: I feel like there’s a lot of skillsets to choose from, there’s creative writing, good communication skills, public speaking skills, research skills, reporting and documentation, Microsoft suites skills, photography, video editing etc so many things, it really depends on the type of community you are building, your audience and plans set in place to sustain that community.

10. What excites you the most about supporting independent artistes

Precious: Asides all the experience, it’s a privilege and a blessing to be a part of such experience and it gives you the insight of how investing in one’s dream gives you confidence to build yours.

11.  Give a quick tip to an independent artiste looking to be promoted

Precious: First thing is believing in yourself, it’s an important factor as a creative. Believe in yourself and be self sufficient enough to not always have to rely solely on people to make a move in your craft, secondly try not to be offended when people don’t support you or are not showing up for you as much, you can’t force support and it’s okay for people to only do that when it gets better, just protect yourself and be more intentional about emotional investments. Another one is, nobody owes you their attention both listeners and exec, let them decide to support you, also money will never not be a factor especially with your current career choice, if you’re doing music with no advance or investor, get a job, pause the music, make the money then decide what works. Talent is not enough. Your music is a brand, yourself included, be intentional, be a market and take breaks so you don’t lose authenticity to your craft.

12. That is super great advice! So who’s an upcoming artiste you think the world should pay attention to ?

Precious: I have a few picks MUST4A, FWFEYI, CHRIS DENNIS AND LUMi

13. What’s your favourite thing about being the bridge between artistes and the company ?

Precious: Being a mediator mostly and the opportunity to sit or both ends meaning having two perspectives which helps in solution building to setbacks

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14. What’s the easiest way an upcoming artist can improve their engagement on social media today?

Precious: Having a community that is set to sample you to a new audience in their own way, content creating and use of trends

15. If an artist struggles with consistency, what routine or hack would you recommend?

Precious: Determine your strengths, distractions, weaknesses, ignition, highlight them take note when you are currently in any of these phases and develop a different creative process for each instance. You can have a 30 day consistency challenge, something inconsistency may be as a result of creative block which requires you to let do the opposite, sleep, eat , excite yourself, find new hobby, find a new inspiration, watch TikToks, be as natural as possible as your creativity is a part of you not a degree you went to school so you need to feed your body as well as your soul with good vibes

16. And for our final question, what’s a mistake you see artists make with their communities, and how can they fix it themselves?

Precious: One major mistake I’ve seen repeatedly is too much adaptation of other people’s ideas, and it stems from a lack of authenticity. What keeps a community is how authentic you are; it’s what makes you stand out from the rest in the same space as the artist. Another one is inconsistency and no community acknowledgement or reverence or recognition to the community and their loyalty to the artist and this happens frequently to artist seeking other validation and neglecting his loyal followers. Then the bombardment of content, especially for a new artist in the community, can tire out the community and cause low energy.

And that’s it for today. Wanna be part our of the CiDAR community? Reach out to us on our social media pages on CiDAR house or CiDAR Africa. Join our newsletter and get all the scoop on all things music. Till next time, Ciao!