It’s not impossible to make a living in music without a social media presence. Without social media today, it’s like fighting a battle one-handed or playing the piano with just your toes. It makes your job a LOT harder. Read on to find out ways you can boost your music career with social media.
When used well, social media can get you more fans, help create a brand that exhibits your unique personality and increase your chances of being discovered.
Here are the main four ways you can use it:
It can put your music in front of a huge audience
The numbers on social media are staggering – Facebook has over two billion daily active users, which is nearly a quarter of the entire world. Let that sink in for a second or two…
Instagram is catching up quickly with over a billion active users. Twitter is another popular platform where you can interact directly with artists, labels and your fanbase. And then you have streaming platforms like Youtube, Spotify, Soundcloud and more.
If you’re not using those platforms, you’re automatically limiting your music PR and plugging reach, making it harder and harder to get your music in front of the right audience.
It’s such a powerful tool that London club – Fabric, has recently used an innovative technique to promote their 20th birthday. They temporarily shut down all of their accounts and people immediately took notice and started speculating … on social media.
You can connect directly with bands, artists and labels
Where once you’d have to physically post your demo off and wait weeks for a reply – if you even got one at all – you can now upload your track and send it directly to your fanbase in the same day, getting it out to sites like Spotify, Bandcamp and Youtube where you can start making money instantly.
And taking the importance of social media a step further, by using sites like Twitter and Facebook and tagging the artist or label in your post, you can reach out directly, instantly getting a conversation started. Don’t overload them with posts and comments, but a short, polite and informative private message or post can often break the ice and get the ball rolling.
Connect with your followers & build a brand
One of the best ways to use social media as an artist is to connect directly with your fanbase.
By showing your human side and engaging in conversations, your followers can feel more involved and committed.
At the same time, you can keep your followers informed about upcoming gigs, releases, new remixes, videos, interviews and all the other fun bits you’ve been up to.
Importantly, by connecting with your followers and creating engaging content, you’re boosting your chances of going viral. As a loose rule, the more personal, engaging, current, amusing and well-delivered your content, the higher the chances.
And yes, we do know that’s an enormous list of possibilities that you need to look at – if going viral was easy, everyone would be doing it!
Show off your skills
Social media is a form of voyeurism – people love to gawp and stare at your content including videos and photos. So give them plenty to look at by posting photos from your gigs or rehearsals, videos from your signing your latest contract or behind the scenes footage on tour or at a big gig.
Don’t be afraid of over-sharing. As long as it’s relevant to your brand and you’re comfortable sharing, it can really help engage your followers. In turn, helping grow your brand acting as vital digital music PR.
Bonus Point:
Tag, tag and tag some more
We mentioned it earlier, but it’s worth repeating – don’t be afraid to tag bands, artists, labels etc in your posts where appropriate. If you’re playing a gig, tag in the support acts, the name of the venue, the support DJ. You can even tag in bands if you’re covering their music for your show.
By tagging in acts and bands on Twitter, you could get a re-post from them opening you up to a new following. Likewise, when you’re using Instagram, Twitter, Soundcloud and Youtube, make sure to have the relevant data tags and hashtags to help bring your content to the right audience.
Likewise, you can piggyback on current and popular hashtag trends to make sure your content is relevant and up-to-date.
Another good way to use social media for your music marketing is to create a network of like-minded acts. People and bands who share and comment on your posts, helping boost your profile and marketing reach.
Gather together bands, producers or acts of a similar stature and reputation and agree to all like, comment and share on each other’s posts. This will help your get shared to a new audience and create a family-like environment where you all benefit.
Conclusion
It’s hard to overstate the importance of social media in 2019 for brands, bands, acts and musicians. It can be easy to get sucked into a social media spiral where you spend hours mindlessly scrolling. By focussing your time and energy on the right sites, tagging in artists and creating engaging content, you can grow your social media presence and help grow your brand.
And generally speaking, the bigger your brand and the more involved they are, the more they’ll spend on tickets, shows, music, merchandise and more.
We would love to hear your comments below.
Did you enjoy these marketing and music promotion tips? Then, sign up for free insights and resources from the Ma’ana team. Or join our Facebook group
