How to Handle Your Social Media Presence
A well-established social media presence is one of the key factors of successful marketing in the music industry. Aside from a great website, a clear grasp of how social media can work for your brand as a musician is the foundation of a solid online presence.
The oversaturation that is currently happening to the industry means that it is no longer enough to just hand over your EPs and albums to radio stations or just to anyone who will listen. At this day and age an artist must be working his marketing strategy in different angles. This article will focus on the most common way to advertise in this digital age—Social Media.
Let’s face it, MTV no longer plays music and Youtube has replaced The Moonman as the go-to place for music videos. That said, Youtube has become one of the most important places for an artist to be present online. Everything about your Youtube channel will now represent who you are as an artist. Use a branded cover image and use your most recent music video on the featured spot.
As for the videos themselves it is imperative that you include quality content and organize them in a way that is easy for your viewers to use. Put all of your music videos in one playlist, put all of your live performances in another. Basically, make it easy for your followers to access your music and find something they like.
Despite the fact that it lest music-centered than both Youtube and Soundcloud, Facebook remains to be one of the most powerful ways to establish social media presence. Facebook, to be quite frank, is social media as we know it today. It’s just where everybody is.
It is not enough to just create a page and then upload some of your stuff, no. You have to curate your page. You cover photo must be a promotional image with words that explain what’s in the horizon for you. The cover photo could be a picture of you or your band juxtaposed with text laying out the gig schedule for the next couple of months. Aside from posting music or what you’re up to, post content that may be connected to your music or not but that you are interested about. Once you’ve achieved all that, you will want to achieve maximum exposure and the best way to do it on Facebook is to pay up. For a fee, Facebook could feature your page and essentially advertise it in order for you to get more recognition.
Twitter is one of the easiest ways to build a following of targeted users. You must follow all of the people you interact with on a regular basis: friends, fans, musicians, producers, club owners and the like. To increase your network you can also add fans of musicians whose sound is similar to yours. These followers may also like the music you are putting out.
Soundcloud is where artists go to share their music and get inspired by the music of others. This is where you will most likely bump into people from the industry that could make all the difference for you. Having your music on soundcloud will also make it really easy for your followers to share your music in multiple social media platforms.
As an aside, people from the industry (producers, executives, bloggers, talent scouts) who could really make a difference in your career will most likely check you out on social media. There’s nothing like a dead feed that seal the deal like a kiss of death. Feeds that haven’t been updated in months signal that you are not serious about your craft or that you don’t have new material, leaving a bad impression to anyone who visits your pages.
