SOCIAL MEDIA FOR MUSICIANS – THE BASICS
3 Common Mistakes
Mistake Number 1: Self-Promotion is the Only Form of Communication (Or, Content is NOT
Varied!)
Research and studies say that mixing up the content is KEY! But sadly most artists are too
busy SELF PROMOTING and they totally forget this. Most artists use text but forget the
whole wide world of photos, videos and other sites to integrate into their strategy!
A good general rule to use is that only 2 in every 10 posts (80/20 rule) should be selfpromotional, with the rest focusing on mixed media content focused on sharing your
interests and passions with your fans and followers.
Mistake Number 2: Lack of Branding
I see this all of the time, artists do not think about how they look across their most
important social channels – your Twitter is red, your website is blue and your Facebook has
no elements that tie into your brand.
Matching your branding across platforms is KEY!
Using your logo is a great anchor to set a specific look, feel and color scheme in place.
Mistake Number 3: No Newsletter!
Every single study you will read still points out one fact.
Your newsletter is where you will make most of your money
I know you either don’t have a newsletter or you have a newsletter which kind of sort of
sometimes goes out once in a while because you are:
1. Too scared to over communicate with your fans and you don’t want to overwhelm them,
making them want to unsubscribe.
2. You don’t feel you have anything interesting to say, for example you have no shows, no
studio time booked and absolutely no “music news”.
3. You feel you have enough to do with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. etc. etc. and so you
don’t even bother with the newsletter.
The only thing you are affecting with this attitude is your bottom line.
What in the heck does the newsletter have to do with social media?
Your social media should feed your newsletter in every way possible. You should never give
away music without getting an e-mail address in exchange, you should always have a widget
for people to sign up to your newsletter across all your platforms (i.e. your website, your
blog, your Facebook fan page, etc.).
Market research
Do you know who your fans are?
Consider who is most likely to connect with your style of music. Be realistic, and put some
serious thought into how old your fans are, where they live, what income bracket they likely
fit into, what other interests or passions they have, and what other musicians they are likely
listening to.
Where do your fans spend most of their time online?
Knowing where your fan base spends most of its time is critical to your being successful. You
may like Facebook, but if your fans are in their teens, you may want to look at integrating
Instagram and/or Snapchat as a part of your strategy.
What kind of content is most likely to connect with your fans?
Take a look at other musicians who are likely to share a similar fan demographic and see
what works: Do videos or photos often get the most shares? Are they receptive to direct
calls to action to join newsletters, buy tickets, albums, etc.? Does humor work well as a tool
to engage fans consistently? Do they express an emotional connection and/or loyalty to
personal entries, be it through blog posts, Facebook posts, videos, Instagram photos, or
tweets?
Your strategy
Set goals
Do you have goals (short-, medium-, and long-term)
Plan your promotions
Social media can be a great way to engage your fans when you don’t have much going on
between album cycles and tours, but you should always have a focus on what’s coming next
in your pipeline so the rest of your digital strategy can effectively work towards this.
Break your bigger goals into smaller steps
It’s likely that your medium- and/ or long-term goals may reflect what project (be it an
album, mixtape, show, or tour) is coming down the pipeline, but it’s important to think
through your goals at all levels to ensure that your social media strategy helps to move you closer
on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis.
Build your list
Do you ask for contact info, or at least an email address, from fans at least once per week
via social media?
Know what you are measuring
Social media is a great conversation and engagement tool, but it’s not always a great a
direct marketing tool. To this day, the best way to directly market (and sell) to your fans is
via email. So while you are focusing on connecting to fans, peers, and influencers on a daily
basis, ask for email addresses so that when the time comes to put up a pre-sale for your
album or announce ticket sales for your next tour, you can reach out directly to your fans via
email where your message and call to action is guaranteed to reach them.
Are you paying attention to the analytics that matter?
With the advent of social media came the obsession with analytics. This has led to such an
abundance of statistics and metrics that it can be difficult to know what you should be
paying attention to. Think through your strategy and look at only the metrics that matter,
and put everything else aside.
• Do Facebook likes really matter as a metric when you are focused on your album pre-sale?
• Do number of favourites on a Tweet really matter when building your newsletter is your
primary focus?
• Does traffic to your website matter when you are focused on ticket sales?
The answer to these may be yes, but not necessarily. It’s really important to understand
how each effort you make (or your fans make) reflects your goals, and to focus in on the
analytics that show growth and progress towards those goals.
While you’re at it, check out your competition’s social media presence and best practices
and copy them. The best artists steal the best ideas and make them their own – even in
social media. Where does your competition post most often on social media? What kinds of
content do they create regularly and share on social media?
Branding
Are your socials all consistent in look, feel, and message?
With the strategy nailed down, you need to make sure that your digital presences work
together, and that each digital property (i.e. your website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
etc.) all reflect the same vision so that your fans can follow you and comfortably interact
with you across these multiple channels.
Do you link to your website in all social profile bios?
If social media is a conversation tool, your website should be the conversion tool. Your
website must always be up to date with your latest focus, be it a newsletter sign-up form, a
way to purchase your new album or buy tickets to your tour, etc. With that said, the bio you
use on any of your social channels must have a link back to your website so you increase
your chances for these conversions to happen anywhere that your fans find you.
Is contact information up to date and available on all social profiles?
You never know when someone is going to come across your music and want to book your
band, help to fund your next project, or simply connect you to someone who can open
doors for you down the line. Making sure your contact information is obvious and available
is the most basic thing you can do – in fact it’s so easy that it’s often an afterthought. In
addition, nothing will turn people off more than a website link that doesn’t work, or an
email that gets bounced back.
Content
Does all your social content maintain the voice you feel best represents you?
It is important that the look and feel of your cumulative digital presence be consistent. It is
equally important that the content you are posting consistently reflects your voice within
your own fan community or within your niche/genre community at large.
Solicit help
Do you offer ample opportunity for your fans to get involved? Are the calls to action strong
enough that you actually seen results? Asking for email addresses is one thing, but you also
want to focus on creating opportunities for your fans to get involved with you as often as
possible. This gives your fans a way of feeling a sense of belonging and an emotional tie to
you and your music, which will help down the line to create super fans – those fans who are
most willing to buy your music, merch, and tickets, and who are most likely to evangelize
you to others.
Be consistently present via your social channels
Not only is it important to create consistency in the frequency of your posts, so that fans
become accustomed and ultimately expect to hear from you, but it’s also critical that you
actually be present. Posting content but never following up with comments is a big no-no as
it doesn’t reward your fans’ engagement with the proper sense of community and
belonging.
Make sure social media is integrated into all your offline marketing activities. For example,
have a business card with your Facebook page URL (create a friendly one!) or your Twitter
or Instagram handle, add “follow @[bandname] on Twitter for band news, concert updates
and special offers” to your show banner, and make sure all your social media links are at
the bottom of every newsletter you send out. Announce that you are on social media at
shows.
Social media the smart way
By using the checklist above, you’ll be able to determine your audience, find them, and
create a winning content strategy that engages while moves the dial towards achieving your
goals. Keeps this check list handy as you may find you want to revisit your direction and
strategy as time goes on.
Of course, this checklist could be added to as well. Let us know what you would add to this
checklist to make it as comprehensive as possible in the form of a comment below.