Social Media
To be a successful online artist these days, mastering social media is essential when connecting with listeners and gathering fans. Social media platforms are ideal platforms for making that connection between artists and listeners. It is also very easy to connect to other artists but there are many reasons why you might not want to do this.
Social media is a common place for indies to promote a music release. Often the only place they. Regular activity is the name of the game. Much of this is in the pursuit of engagement when they feel they have little to talk about. Especially their own music.
Because of the need to keep talking, they push themselves to put out music too quickly. Often it is ideas for songs, drafts, below below-par performances. In addition, they talk about their lunch, what they did at the weekend and anything else they can think of, as they struggle to look relevant.
In the big push to release music they post early releases to the public, of tracks, even simple ideas, drafts, rough versions, asking for feedback. Don’t do this. See “Make A Great First Impression”.
Table of Contents
Why Follower Count Isn’t Everything for Artists
In today’s digital landscape, having a robust social media presence is often seen as a sign of success. Many artists are tempted to focus on growing their follower count as a measure of their popularity and influence. But here’s the catch: not all followers are created equal.
When artists focus solely on numbers, they risk building a mixed audience—an audience that might be large in size but lacking in genuine interest in their music. This can be detrimental to an artist’s goals and long-term success. In this article, we’ll explore why chasing follower numbers can harm your career and how you can shift your strategy to attract and engage with an audience that truly cares about your music.
Mixing Audiences
It isn’t a good idea to mix your audiences (see The Problem With Mixed Audiences) in all circumstances. From a music marketing perspective you want as much control as possible and when promoting your music it is good to know exactly who your messages are going to, and usually, when.
In today’s fast-paced digital world, indie artists have more opportunities than ever to connect with fans and build a loyal following. But with so much content out there, standing out can be tough. To help you navigate the noise, here are 10 content suggestions that will boost engagement and help you make a lasting impression on social media.
Mastering Social Media
Set The Narrative, Control The Narrative
The main person on your side is you. There are enough people out there waiting on you tripping up, and falling flat on your face. Plenty of people are only too willing to boost their online following by ridiculing and laughing at you. You don’t need to make it easy for them.
You do not need to join them, feeding things that disrupt the narrative you are trying to establish. After spending so long writing your songs and crafting your tracks, do you really want to feed your detractors? Of course not.
I'm Only Interested In Releasing My Music!
If you post your music online, if you play a gig, pass a tape to your friends… there is already a narrative about you. Mastering social media is to some extent, how well you control that narrative.
You are either active in creating and presenting that narrative or you are letting others create and present that narrative. I hate to tell you that those others will not be anywhere near as kind to you as you would be. They are not interested in nicely framing things, never mind positively. They gather more fans for their channels their podcast, their artists, by presenting you looking at your worst.
To be clear, a narrative will exist for you just by you releasing music. It already exists for you as a person. Multiply that by several times when you are an artist.
We aren’t talking about making up a fantastical backstory. While that might attract initial interest, you are just making a rod for your own back. The point is you choose what to share, and what to say about you and your music. There is no need to make it hard for yourself. Carving out an audience is hard enough when you are an unknown artist. Why on earth would you make it harder? Don’t.
If you are worried about making it harder for you, just pause for a moment before you share something. Imagine what your detractors might say.
Don’t be complacent. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that saying nothing will stop that narrative from evolving. Even not releasing music can be used against you.
Be active in framing yourself, your brand, and your music. You set the narrative and you continue to lay the ground. Try and keep people talking about what is important to you, framed in the way that you want your information framed.
Messaging
Messaging in music marketing is a way an artist, band, or brand communicates with it’s fans (customers), in order to highlight the value of it’s products or services. This includes words and phrases uses in advertising and promotion, but also the emotions and feelings associated with those words and phrases.
Messaging also includes artist, band, or brand values, the tone of voice used, the line of communication, and the main messages an artist, band, or brand establishes with its audience.
Once you have decided on what you want to say, you have to know who you are talking to, the perspective you are talking from, the perspective they are listening from, and the platform(s) and context you(s) will be delivering that message on. It sounds more complex than it is.
This might be:
- I am an artist releasing a new EP. I want to tell people when it is available and where it is available. I want them to be keen to stream it and to want to join my mailing list. I am a vegan and advocate for animal rights.
- I am talking to my main audience of 18-35 year olds, mainly students and young professionals
- I am a writer, singer and so far, unknown. I want them to be willing to give my music a chance.
- Almost all listeners will know nothing about my music or me. People likely to identify with this EP will put it on to chill out once they hear it and are familiar with it.
- I will deliver this message firstly on YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok and Facebook. I will use a title and hashtags to target an audience interested in my genre and in the places where listeners are most likely to be looking for music that matches the perspective they want to listen from.
Messaging Impacts Many Aspects Of An Artist
Messaging impacts many aspects of an artist, band, or brand. These include:
- Website copy
- Promotional copy
- Social Media posts
- Email campaigns
- Calls-to-action
- Product builds
Artist messaging needs to be consistent. Posting has to have a coordinated purpose that meets a greater need than the immediate needs of the popularity of the post itself.
Don't Smother Them With Promotion
If you want to master social media you have to be more than a promotion engine for your music.
You have your targeted audience. You have your promotion messaging ready to go. So, don’t suffocate them with promotional messaging. You want your audience to feel you want them for more than just promoting your music. You wouldn’t welcome that kind of relationship, why would they? When a company only hits you with promotion you need even more rewards to make it worth opening one of their messages because you know that it is going to be sell, sell, sell. Your audience is no different.
You want them eager to open your messages, so they need to be more than sales messages. From a sales perspective, you don’t want your actual sales messages to be distracting, taking customers away from being interested in your new music. So that means making sure that not all messages you post are about promoting your music.
Final Thoughts
Mastering social media for artists is not something to be taken for granted. It is more than “just be yourself”. It is more than knowing how often to post. It is more than knowing where to post. It’s also about the clarity of knowing what to say to your audience. It’s about being able to balance how often you talk about your music, how often you promote your music, about the other subjects you talk about and about the balance you achieve in talking about your music versus other topics your audience will be interested in.
The bottom line is you have to know how to feed your audience, when and where, but also you don’t want to make your audience sick by feeding them just one thing. They need a balanced diet. They need variety.
There is so much to say to your audience beyond talking about your music. There is so much to say about your music that does not involve promoting a release.
Don’t be so desperate that you ruin your reputation before you have begun.
Related Articles
Do you want to find out more about independent music artists here on Songstuff? If so, you can find articles and interviews on our Indie Music Blog page.
You may also find the following content interesting:
Independent Artists And Social Media
10 Suggestions For Artists On Social Media
The Dangers Of Comment Pods For Musicians and Better Alternatives
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