In 2021, the Beehive PR team has expanded to meet the needs of our flourishing roster of clients! It’s been an exciting time of development for our music publicity agency. With a new year up ahead, we couldn’t be more stoked to have such a strong team of passionate new music publicists and specialists on deck to propel us into 2022!
Our Head of Social Buzz is most likely a gal you’ll have heard of before, the wonderful Liz Browne. Bringing with her oodles of experience in digital marketing and strategy to Beehive PR, Liz has also worked in both a label and artist management capacity too – as with our other bees, Liz’s perspective is as unique as it is passionate.
Find out a bit more about the ‘Head of Social Buzz’ below!
Tell us a bit about yourself – where did your love for music begin?
A bit about me in a nutshell – I’m an earth and moon worshiping spirit being who drinks too much tea. As for when my love of music began, I genuinely can’t remember when it actually began. I was born into a very musical family. I’m from the Midlands in England, which birthed the likes of Black Sabbath, ELO, UB40, Duran Duran and Judas Priest and my parents were very much ingrained into their local music scenes.
Dad is a drummer, mum is a beautiful singer and still to this day there is never silence in my parents house, there is always music playing. My brother’s first words were legit “Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.” If you don’t know who they are, go and listen to ‘Hold Tight’, it’s an OG pop jam!
Dad played in bands for most of his pre-children life and actually toured with Black Sabbath because he and Bill Ward were good mates. My brother inherited the drumming talent and I loved playing piano and guitar but much prefer being behind-the-scenes.
Mum loves opera and musical theatre and she’s been taking me to the theatre since I was about 8 years old, while my brother and dad stayed home and listened to NOFX and Sabbath haha. My Grampie was musically talented and there is a lot of singing talent in my Granddad’s family, too. It’s honestly just always been a huge part of my life.
Are there any artists who you’ve been really into recently – hit us with your recommendations!
I have a new-found love for Loretta and have them on repeat lately! Hot Milk are a super cool UK female-fronted pop-punk band who I’m in love with. Beth Lucas from Brisbane is uploading some awesome TikTok covers that I’m addicted to, Florian’s new track ‘Seventeen’ got about 200 plays by me on release week and I’m still spinning The VANNS ‘Jules Said’ very regularly since its 2019 release.
Of course, I hold Sam Phay, Lupa J, No Frills Twins and Ainsley Farrell close to my heart, too. Parkway Drive feature on every single one of my playlists, and will do forever more. Also, so do Human Nature and this is a pretty decent summary of how not-genre-biased I am haha. Meet Me At The Altar are another band I am LOVING right now – another female-fronted pop-punk getup from the US.
Was there any one particular moment where you realised you wanted to make a career in the music industry?
From the time I can remember, I wanted to be just like dad and be a drummer in a band, then mum and dad got me a learn-to-play guitar (it had 4 strings and colourful stickers on the fretboard showing where to put your fingers) and I suddenly wanted to be Lisa Loeb. Then I turned 16 and wanted to be Tony Iommi. In primary school I used to make newsletters on Microsoft Publisher and make mum and dad read my long-winded reviews of my favourite songs and decided I wanted to be a music journalist.
Not wanting to learn the political-element that comes with journalism, I studied Marketing and Business and every assignment was music-based, so I shaped my love of marketing around music and here I am. From about the age of 16 – 21 I volunteered promoting gigs around Brisbane working with as many bands as I could to host what I thought were the best gigs ever. That’s a long-winded answer of saying that I can’t remember a time when music wasn’t my direction and I’ve somehow always immersed myself in local music scenes.
You’re based in NSW – how has the last year and a bit shifted things for you? Did you stay in Sydney or escape like a lot of people?
I moved to the Central Coast in 2019 and am very thankful to have been surrounded by calming ocean water throughout lockdown. All my family are in Brisbane and the UK, so the lockdown has been pretty brutal at times. In terms of work, the main thing that shifted for me is realising how much time we all spend (I wanted to say ‘waste’ but that sounds harsher than how I intend it to) in meetings with people when it can really be a call, a Zoom or an email. It’s also really drilled home how remote we can all be.
A lot of the people I’ve been having conversations with have said that working remotely from home has afforded them more time at home with family – and that really is the most important thing. Work life balance is so important. We can’t pour into other people’s cups unless we fill ours first, and in a service-based role, it’s SO important to find that balance.I also learned how to make weights out of saucepans and other random items around the home to make a lounge-room gym so, y’know, creativity was heightened in many ways!
You’ve worked in a couple of different capacities within the music industry: how important do you think it is to keep your eyes open for different opportunities?
When I was really young I was taught to take opportunities, listen to my intuition and follow my dreams. If an opportunity presents itself and it feels right – go for it! I truly believe that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, and if we push ourselves out of our comfort zone to take a new opportunity to learn, we grow in our soul as much as we grow in our mind.
You’re Beehive PR’s resident Digital Marketing guru – digital marketing is a realm that can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming; what is it about forming campaigns in this area that you enjoy so much?
I love how versatile the online world is. I can genuinely say I think it all began with Myspace. Being able to make your Myspace profile look exactly how you wanted it to and have your favourite song playing on your profile was such a show of personality and individualism. I made a Myspace page in high school to promote the local bands I was loving and I’d ask all these bands who were so much older than me if I could interview them for my page.
I’d host the interviews, post it on the Myspace Bulletin page and blast the link to everyone on my MSN Messenger haha. When I started helping to promote shows, I’d use Myspace to promote the shows and create different ways to sell tickets and honestly, this is where the spark of digital marketing began for me.
I love that the online world is literally evolving and innovating itself every single day and there’s SO much to stay on top of. It keeps me on my toes and feeds my inability to sit still and my dislike of having too much routine haha. Digital marketing is like having a ball of playdough that you can mould to make it whatever you need it to be!
What’s the one thing a lot of people may misunderstand about what it takes to execute a successful digital marketing campaign?
It sounds simple, but the biggest misunderstanding – or perhaps, the thing that most people don’t know – is that content is king and engagement is queen. Yes, you need solid content, but you also need to engage with whatever platform you’re using to get what you want out of it.
Algorithms aren’t super new – going back to the Myspace days, your newsfeed would be in chronological order but Bulletins were generally ordered by popularity or what friends you interacted with most to determine what Bulletins you’d be most interested in seeing. You can have the best photo and the slickest video, but if you’re uploading and not interacting with your newsfeed, it’s goin’ to the bottom of the pile!
If someone is looking to get a digital campaign off and running, what is the easiest thing they can do to make sure they’re prepared before pitching an idea to you?
Have a solid idea of how you want the release to look. Start with a mood board and plan out the visual aspect to the song. What do you want people to feel when they listen to the song?
Emulate that in visual form, and then start creating all your assets (press shots, video, teasers, lyric video, artwork, Spotify Canvas, social media banners etc.) with this mood board and overarching theme at the centre.
And finally: you’re stuck at the end of the world with only ONE album to see it all out with. What are you taking down with you and why?
Why would you ask this? It’s so cruel! Hahahah. Far ouuuutttt. I need to go make a cup of tea for this one.
*six hours later*… Hanson – Middle Of Nowhere. The first album I ever bought, and honestly, my first true love. It’s pop, it’s got little elements of rock in it with the boys playing their own instruments and Taylor’s vocals. I can’t. Perfection.