Love it or hate it, social media plays a big part in your career as a musician and aspiring artist. People spend huge amounts of time online, scrolling through social media feeds and watching videos on YouTube.
When it comes to digital marketing, social media is one of the best tools that you can use to grow your music career. As an independent musician, you can now be your own digital marketer and give your music career the exposure it needs.
Here are some of the platforms to consider and how to use them to take your music career forward:
With 192 million daily users, Twitter is taking the digital world by storm. There are over 500 million tweets on average that are sent out a day. Many artists tend to neglect the power of Twitter when it comes to promoting music and upcoming projects. Twitter is used by many influential people, such as politicians, world leaders, and celebrities. Here’s how to get the best out of this platform as a musician or artist in 2021:
● Publish your best music: Twitter is based on the most popular topics and trends in the world. Incorporate the trendy topics as hashtags on your tweets. This will increase the chances of people seeing your content. Research and find the specific, most popular hashtags relative to your music so that your fanbase can start finding you. When you are sending out a tweet, make sure you are putting out good quality audio and good quality videos for your audience, plus don’t forget to include those hashtags!
● Be consistent and active: Whether you tweet twice a day or once a week, make sure you stay consistent —this will help your audience get used to seeing you, and build trustin you plus familiarity. Create a schedule and stick to it. Fr example, post new music on Fridays.
● Collaboration is key: Interact with other artists. Share other people’s content. By retweeting something from someone else, you can gain more followers and visibility. The more you share other people’s content, the more likely they are to share yours.
● Interact with those who interact with you: It’s not enough to send out a tweet every day. Be responsive to people who are engaging in your content. Make sure to reply to comments and be attentive to retweets. The people who are viewing your content are more likely to invest in you if they receive a response from you. They will feel like they have a “relationship” with you, which is what you want for your fanbase. Send direct messages to those who are showing you support.
● Be authentic and show your personality: Nobody wants to follow someone who is just promoting something to them in every tweet. Think about some of your favorite artists and the kind of content they put out on their Twitter accounts. You need to find a balance between promoting your content and connecting with your fans on a personal level. Let your audience know what kind of music you are into and some of your favorite artists. Let them get a glimpse of your life. Show your audience some behind the scenes of your music creation process. Artists such as Justin Bieber and Dua Lipa do a great job of showing the behind-the-scences parts of music video shoots and award shows, along with a peek into their personal lives (within reason)
Between writing music and playing gigs, managing your Twitter account can become quite tiring. Using a third-party tool such as HUDL Music (hudlmusic.com) will help you be as effective as possible on Twitter without you having to spend too much time on growing your audience on the platform, along with being able to share your latest news with the community there locally within HUDLMusic.com too. All you have to do is sign up and create an account (Power Tip: It’s free!).
As of 2021, Instagram is estimated to have over 1000 billion users worldwide. It is one of the most popular platforms for artists to build a strong following. Instagram’s Strategic Partnership Manager for Northern Europe, Sunil Singhvi said this about megastar Billie Eilish and the power of Instagram, “So Billie’s account launched a number of years ago with an incredibly small following. It was really a personal account before the music got started. But it has always been authentically run by her with very little label input…It’s been silly, it’s been irreverent, it’s been consistent. Which I think is hugely important…I think she’s one that absolutely nailed what Instagram could be for her, at a very early point in her career, and she’s maintained that throughout.”
Not only can Instagram help you grow your following, but it can also help you maintain a lasting relationship with your fans and audience. Here are some tips to help you grow your music career on Instagram:
● Make your profile look interesting: Spend some time creating a compelling and creative Instagram bio. You have 150 characters to express yourself. An important thing to add in your bio is all the links that you would want to direct your audience to. Instagram does not allow you to include links in your posts, so make sure your bio is an avenue for people to connect with you and access your music on various platforms. By doing this, you can reference the “link in bio” on your posts. Your profile picture needs to represent your brand as an artist. Choose a clear profile image that people can easily associate with your brand.
● Create videos. Instagram users are showing more engagement with videos on Instagram over images these days. Upload your content on IGTV and on your stories. Whether it’s an original performance or just you playing around with an instrument, do your best to include videos on your feed.
● Post Instagram Stories: Over 500 million users on Instagram utilize the Stories feature every day. Stories have many useful features that you can utilize, such as polls, questions, and stickers. This is a great way to interact with your followers. You can also add location tags and reaction gifs. Ask your audience about their opinion on different genres of music, your music, or any other kind of question—it’s all about building a two-way conversation with your fans.
● Hashtagging: You may think hashtags are not effective anymore, but they actually do help bring traction to your posts. Most Instagram users use hashtags to search for their specific niche that they are into. Use as many hashtags related to music as possible (up to 30 are allowed). Use hashtags that are popular in the music niche such as #applemusic, #artist, #itunes, #listen, #listeners, #listeningtomusic, #listentothis, #lovethissong, #music and so on
- YouTube
From the likes of Justin Bieber to Shawn Mendes, many famous musicians have been discovered on YouTube. Many content creators and artists use YouTube to get their content out there. The main goal is to get views and get subscribers to your channel. Here’s how to do it:
● Good quality content. Spend time on making sure your video or whatever content you are uploading to YouTube is at the best quality level it can be. People are viewing more than a billion hours worth of YouTube videos a day. Keep in mind that if you upload a poor-quality video, you will not be able to compete with other content creators out there.
● Build anticipation around your video and content uploads. YouTube has a great premiere feature. You can create a countdown for your videos and get people excited about it. Make sure you are engaged in the comments on the first live premiere of your content so that you can engage with those who have tuned in.
● Be responsive: The comment section on YouTube is also a great way to interact with people. Be sure to respond to comments you get on your videos.
● Live stream your shows and events. Take advantage of the live stream feature. Live YouTube events are more likely to pop up on someone’s feed. This could help you reach and engage with new people and reach more new fans. Perform a few songs or do Q&A’s with your audience.
As you can see, social media marketing can be a powerful tool in taking your music career to the next level.
Building a solid presence on social media platforms will help your grow your audience, and in turn, your music career. Start promoting your music today!