6 Benefits of doing a song challenge (for the D.I.Y. Rock Star) ⭐️

This post loosely accompanies Gab & Jam,

259. 6 Benefits of doing a song challenge (for the D.I.Y. Rock Star)

(video: https://bit.ly/259songchallengevid and podcast: https://bit.ly/259songchallengepod )

It is ALSO a followup to a post we wrote when we undertook our very first blogging challenge. (See The Benefits of Undertaking a Blog Challenge: http://bit.ly/blogchallengebenefits)

What do you mean by a “challenge”?

Engaging in any systematic, scheduled creation and distribution of material—for a short time or for a prolonged time—constitutes a “challenge.” —As you KNOW, we are kicking off our yearly podcast/YouTube challenge, where we release a video—which is ALSO a podcast episode—daily for those twelve days before Christmas). (We’re EXTREMELY proud of last year’s Podmas: 2021 Health & Wellness for the D.I.Y. Rock Star: https://bit.ly/blogmas2021playlist )

More Than One Social Media Platform: https://bit.ly/Ep141moresocmedblog

Here are the 6 Benefits of doing a song challenge

(for the D.I.Y. Rock Star):

Why do it?

With ALL the other shit that a D.I.Y. Rock Star has to do that is above and beyond just sitting with your instrument and your feelings, and writing music, here’s why you MIGHT want to step up your game and try to give yourself a songwriting—or a blogging or videomaking or podcasting—challenge every once in a while.

What to do when real life interrupts: https://bit.ly/241reallifeblog

1. Allows you a reason to practice your craft.

We’ve talked about this before, but you NEED to engage in a daily practice of creating. If you’re a songwriter, creating new songs is your jam and what better way to keep the ideas flowing than by engaging in a challenge. –We’ve on song clip 196—so, for about 4 years—we’ve been posting a song clip a week on our social media page. ( https://bit.ly/bpjfacebook )

2. Gives a reason to share.

Let’s face it, if you are feeding the social media beast, you are a content creator. So, whether it’s your songs, videos, a podcast, or whatever you can think of that expresses your creativity as an artist, setting up a challenge as a way to share it gives you a REASON to send your work your followers’ way. It’s not spam at that point; it is EXACTLY what your followers signed up to see from you. So, give them a reason to cheer you on!

10+ Social Media Strategies: https://bit.ly/socmediablog

3. Gives folks exposure to what you do. “Spikes” the algorithm.

That last reason leads nicely into this one. If you are “feeding the beast” of social media, as we talked about in number two, your posts are MORE likely to be shared to more people. –In fact, no social media channels will share what makes their algorithm works, but MOST agree that sharing new work more often will send the signal to the machine that you are worthy of sharing to more folks more often. –So, by giving yourself to a challenge—either weekly, monthly, or daily—you help your chances of finding new people and even with being shared with your own followers.

4. Helps build songs quickly

Sometimes our BIGGEST problem when we have all the time in the world and no real objective purpose to write to is when writer’s block can occur. By setting ourselves a goal—even though self-imposed—forces us to move ideas along the conveyor belt and on to the next stages of creation. –Sometimes, song parts get melded into each other and/or MANY parts of these blog posts are being folded into our first book (https://bit.ly/prejippiebklanding ), so the fact that we have SO much material to choose from when we do these kinds of challenges benefits our future creation, because of the sheer volume created in such a relatively short period of time.

How to Take Better Band Photos: http://bit.ly/betterbandphotos

5. Gives your folks a reason to pay closer attention

We’ve talked about this before, but there’s a chance that the followers you’ve ALREADY collected don’t see your posts, if your posts don’t get engagement within the first few hours. The algorithm simply STOPS sharing that post. With a challenge, you send a flood of fresh material out, which, if you’ve told folks is coming, is likely to get their attention. And the more attention you get from those folks you already have, the more new folks you are likely to reach, which makes your own folks THAT much more endeared to you. –Remember, people LIKE being associated with folks who are confident enough to be making moves. –Help them to help you by demonstrating that you’re strutting your craft far and wide in this challenge. (Hey, we hit 12k subscribers on YouTube in 6 years! Here are our thoughts on that: https://bit.ly/23010ksubsblog )

6. Makes you feel AMAZING to meet the challenge

We don’t know about you, but even when these challenges are hectic and require MORE than we thought we had to meet them, it always makes us feel like we are the Kings of our craft! Within the challenge of it, we find new ways to manifest our creative energy and THAT’S always a blast! And, for us, it’s a great bonding experience. (Secrets to a Lasting Marriage for the D.I.Y. Rock Star: https://bit.ly/250marriageblog ) Since we tweak our topic, songs, art, whatever we’re sharing EACH time, we keep it fresh and it becomes a test of our resiliency and of our creativity, which is a lot of fun—even IF it gets hairy sometimes. [—When we did 90 posts in 30 days (a podcast, a YouTube video, and a blog post a day), we were a little fried.] But the BEST part is that we have now amassed a treasure of encouraging and thought-provoking posts that we love! Quickly!

File Management for the D.I.Y. Rock Star: https://bit.ly/229filemgmtblog

These are the challenges we’re currently involved in:

We have a “completed song a month challenge” (unreleased newly completed songs to SoundCloud; http://bit.ly/prejippiesoundcloud )
We do a podcast challenge once a year. (Here’s a link to the last few year’s):
2021 Health & Wellness for the D.I.Y. Rock Star: https://bit.ly/blogmas2021playlist
2019 Tips for the D.I.Y. Rock Star: https://bit.ly/blogvember2019playlist
We do a song clip a month challenge (to our social media channels): https://bit.ly/bpjfacebook