Tag Archive for: promote your music on social media

5 ways to boost engagement on Facebook

Boost Facebook engagement and get more attention for your music

With organic reach declining as a result of more content being shared, Facebook is largely becoming a pay to play platform.

While this makes it harder to reach your fans without using advertising, don’t be too quick to give up on Facebook as a marketing channel for your music.  Facebook is the most popular social network, with nearly 2 billion users, and it’s still possible to increase the effectiveness of your Facebook page by focusing on engagement. 

Here are 5 things you can do to boost Facebook engagement.

Use these social media post ideas to promote your music and get more Facebook engagement:

Show Your Personality

People relate to other people. That’s a simple fact and a big factor that goes into your Facebook engagement. (And a big reason why major brands have a hard time relating to an audience on a deeper level)

So when you post, try to talk in your own voice. This may be challenging at first as you get used to communicating through short social updates, but it will become more natural the more you work at it.

As a simple way to check yourself, try actually reading out your posts and asking yourself objectively, “Is this something I would actually say?”

And don’t be afraid to be polarizing! A lot of people lose their voice and are afraid to speak their mind on the internet for fear of rejection. Now, I’m not saying you have to take major stands on big world issues, but let the little quirks in your personality show.

So maybe you’re a punk rocker with rebellious, high energy, anti-establishment views. Or maybe you’re a singer-songwriter who’s also really into geek culture. Don’t be afraid to let that out on social media from time to time.

Some people may not get where you’re coming from, but some will! And that connection that goes beyond just the music is what will help solidify the artist-fan relationship

Ask Questions

Asking questions and using fill in the blank posts (or even funny Mad-libs style posts) are great ways to get people to up your Facebook engagement.

Why does this work? For the most part, a direct question elicits a response much more than a statement.

I’ve noticed myself that when I post questions on my own Facebook page, friends and followers of New Artist Model are more likely to like and respond to it, often with a great amount of detail, which leads to even more responses.

Here are some questions and fill in the blank posts you can try that could be easily adapted to any audience

  • Looking for some inspiration – What songs are you digging right now?
  • Which t-shirt design do you like best?
  • We’re ordering pizza from the tour bus. Topping suggestions?

Not only will questions drive Facebook engagement, but you can get a better idea of what your fans interests are so you can more effectively promote your music.

Share Engaging Photos (and Videos)

Photos and videos are the most shared type of content on Facebook and are a great way to tell stories in a quick and powerful way.

If you have songs with inspirational lyrics, try creating a nice looking photo with pieces of your lyrics using a service like Canva, and insert your logo at the bottom so those who see the photo and don’t already follow you are exposed to your brand.

Here are some other ideas:

  • Share photos of your gear, pedalboard, drum set up, or home studio with some information so fans can re-create your sound.
  • Create a short video explaining the meaning behind a song’s lyrics (remember to add subtitles)
  • Share a photo of a lyric sheet, lead sheet, or Pro Tools file you’re working on.

Use Your Fans’ Content to boost Facebook engagement

Social media is all about multi-directional communication.  Many larger artists post on social media and let their followers respond to them, but don’t engage with those who took the time to respond.

If your fans take the time to share a tattoo, painting, or cover of one of your songs to your Facebook page, reshare it with your fans.  It’s a great way to show appreciation to your biggest fans.

Not only that, but the excitement you give your biggest fans by sharing their content with other fans can drive valuable word of mouth.

There are a few things you can do to encourage your fans to post shareable content on social media. Encourage them to post photos from gigs, remixes of your songs, or covers and tag you. Maybe make it a regular thing (like “Fan Feature Friday”).

Post More Frequently by Scheduling Your Posts

When it comes to Facebook engagement, scheduling your posts in advance can be a valuable way to continually engage your fans without staying on Facebook all day.

Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer let you schedule posts in advance.  This means that with a little bit of work at the beginning of the week or day, you can continue to provide posts throughout the day for your fans to engage with.
Now, it’s important that you don’t rely too heavily on these social media management tools. Social media is dynamic and it happens in real time, so make sure you block out a little bit of time every day to respond to comments and post live. 

Facebook Engagement: Where to Go From Here?

There are a lot more resources available for you at the New Artist Model blog.  For example, if you want to self release an album, this will help you get started. If you want help with Instagram for music, this post may be very helpful.

The New Artist Model is an online music business school for independent musicians, performers, recording artists, producers, managers and songwriters. Our classes teach essential music business and marketing skills that will take you from creativity to commerce while maximizing your chances for success.

Check out the Music Business Accelerator (MBA) a new program that will help you plan your music projects, promote your music and create a sustainable career.

 

how to not waste time promoting your music on social media
 

Let’s talk about promoting your music on social media.

More specifically making the task of promoting your music on social media not suck. I mean, who has time to spend hours coming up with social media posts to promote your music on Facebook and Twitter?

The secret is NOT doing more to promote your music. It’s about working SMARTER – making the most out of everything you create.

Of course, there’s a lot more to promoting your music than social media. But for today, I’m going to walk you through a quick approach to making your social media efforts more efficient and more productive (so you can save time and get your music heard).

Keep in mind that implementing a music marketing strategy on social media like the one I’m going to give you today takes TIME. There is going to be very little instant gratification here, so get yourself in that mindset.

True success on social media is like a relationship (a relationship with each of the hundreds or thousands of fans you have on the platform). And like any relationship, it will take some time to develop.

That being said, I do have a jumpstart guide for you that includes 3 social media checklists that will give you the music promotion tips that the most successful indie musicians use online:

Think long term with these tips, be consistent, and after a few months, you’ll start seeing more activity.

Use Content You Already Have to Promote Your Music on Social Media

If you think you need to create a whole new set of content for promoting your music on social media, you’re wasting a lot of time and effort (time that could be spent playing gigs, practicing, recording, writing…).

Instead, think about how you can repurpose and adapt all the great stuff you already have. This is called content marketing

As musicians, we create A LOT of stuff. You know – riffs, songs, lyrics, covers, jams, live performances, albums, tones, beats, effects, and the list goes on and on.

BUT, a lot of musicians I see out there promoting their music online don’t actually use half of the stuff they create. And that’s a missed opportunity.

I know, there is a bit of a balance to find here. Especially if you’re working you way up to a big album launch you don’t want to give everything away before the actual release date. But giving away little pieces here and there can actually get fans more excited for the release as you build up the anticipation.

Today, take a few minutes to look at all the creative work you do every day.

  • How much of it are you actually sharing with your fans on social media?
  • How can you start weaving the content you’re creating into your music promotion strategy?

If you want our free guide on How to Promote Your Music with 3 Social Media Checklists (CLICK HERE).

Music Marketing is All About Frequency and Consistency

Okay, one quick aside before we get into how to actually create your social posts…

A lot of musicians have this mindset that their work can’t be released until it’s 100% perfect and finished. And that it needs to be released in its entirety or not at all. The result is often long periods of radio silence on social media followed by frantic promotion of the new thing.

At the most basic level, success on social media is all about balancing frequency and consistency. The more you post (as long as it’s quality, interesting posts), the more of a response you will get over time. Fans will start to expect and anticipate your posts.  

Which means that radio silence is actually hurting you when you get around to promoting your album or next big thing. (Especially on Facebook where the algorithm favors posts that get more engagement.) Less fans will see your promotions, less fans will respond to your promotions, and you’ll start feeling that social media is a waste of time.

So try to focus on getting some kind of posting rhythm down. After some time you’ll be in a much better place to promote your music (and have your fans actually notice your posts and respond).

Before you move on, look at your social accounts and figure out how often you’re posting.

  • What does your schedule look like?
  • Are there any gaps?
  • How can you be more consistent?

Splinter Your Content

Now we’ll move a little deeper and start talking about how you can actually take something like a new song, a new video, or a live performance, and turn it into multiple social media posts – posts that will get your music heard by more people.

I like to call this “splintering” your content. Think of it like taking a big thing – like a song – and breaking it down into smaller pieces that you can post on social media. Each of those smaller pieces will lead fans back to the full song.

So for a single song, here are some “splinter” post ideas:

  • Take a quote from the lyrics. Post as is or create an image with the quote. You can probably get a lot of quote posts from a single song
  • Open up and share the meaning behind the lyrics. You could create a post, a blog post, a short video, a live stream, or all of the above.
  • Create a short video (or do a live stream) walking fans through the tones (or beats, or pedal board setup…) you used in the song so they can recreate the sound
  • Share photos of the lyric sheet or lead sheet
  • Do a playthrough or tutorial of a certain riff or beat
  • Create a “making of” video series for the song
  • Post a lyric line you’re working on and ask your fans to finish it with their own words
  • If any of your fans cover the song you could share that too

See what we did there? That was just one song and we got a ton of social posts. Individually, these posts don’t give away the full picture of the song. Many of these ideas can be used in the days leading up to the song release to create hype.  

Exercise: Splinter the Content You’re Working on Right Now

Try to do this exercise for something you’re working on right now. Make a list and brainstorm everything and anything you could splinter off from that main piece of content. You don’t need to use all the ideas you come up with, but write down everything that comes to mind and proceed from there.

Use Automation to Promote Your Music on Social Media

Okay, so now we have all these social media post ideas. You probably don’t want to post them all at the same time. (Remember – consistency is key). So that means you need to space things out over time.

And that’s where automation comes in.

Automation tools help you pre-schedule posts on many different social media platforms so you don’t need to be constantly remembering to post on social media. That way, you can get your promotion over with and allow yourself to focus completely on music.

Check out these tools:

  • Hootsuite – this will allow you to schedule posts for multiple different social platforms. The free version allows you to post to 3 different social channels
  • Facebook (there’s a scheduler built right in. Instead of choosing “post,” choose “schedule” and pick a date and time you’d like it to hit your page)
  • Tweetdeck – this is a great free platform for posting, scheduling, and monitoring Twitter
  • Buffer – the free version allows you to schedule and manage 1 account from each social platform (so you could have a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc). You can schedule up to 10 posts at a time per social account
  • SocialOomph – the free version only allows you to schedule and monitor Twitter, but the paid version covers multiple different platforms

Be Relevant and Authentic

A little word of caution. Automation can be overdone. The very purpose of social media is to be able to connect with your fans authentically and in real time. If you’re pre-scheduling all your content out weeks or months in advance, you’re totally missing that real-time connection with your fans.

So, here’s what I suggest… Create your posts by splintering up your content, schedule them out for maybe a week or two, and then make time each day to post something relevant that you’re working on right now and respond to comments and messages.

If you take the time to implement these steps over the next few weeks or months you’ll start seeing major changes. And not just in how much attention your music attracts online.  But also in how much time you’re spending promoting your music on social media.

If you want more concrete examples of social post ideas, don’t forget to download your free social media guide and checklist! Here’s the link again:

If you want our free guide on How to Promote Your Music with 3 Social Media Checklists (CLICK HERE).

New Artist Model member Matt Powell

New Artist Model member Matt Powell

By Dave Kusek and Lindsay McGrath
Sponsored by the New Artist ModelTurn your passion for music into a rewarding career.

On His Own — And Loving It

Canadian Singer songwriter Matt Powell isn’t a big believer in conventional wisdom.  Especially the old saying that there is safety in numbers.  After spending most of his musical career as a member of two different bands, Matt recently stepped out on his own as a solo artist — and is loving it.

The Ottawa-based musician will drop his newest album “Year One” this fall — the title chosen to celebrate his first anniversary as a solo artist.  The songs on the CD represent a journey back to his musical roots inspired by the likes of John Mayer, The Strokes and The Black Keys.

Matt is using a strategy that combines a strong social media presence and lots of gigs to generate buzz for his upcoming release.  He put together his plan with help from the New Artist Model, an online business school for indie musicians.

Currently, Matt has 10,000 followers.  He communicates with them using email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and other social media channels.  His videos on Youtube have captured more than 20,000 views and 80,000 on Facebook.

“If you want to be successful online, it is important to respond to every person who contacts you,” Matt says.  “It is also good to “turn the tables” on your fans and give them star treatment.”

“What you want to do is treat everyone as if your favorite artist just responded to you on social media,” Matt says, adding that enthusiasm helps create superfans.  “When I consistently started responding to every single fan, I went from 200 followers to 1000 followers in three weeks.  My fan base grew from 300 to 5700 in 6 months.”

“If they (fans) feel you are their friend and treat them with kindness consistently, they will stick with you and be really, really loyal.  So I am going to continue to be engaging and follow them back even as the numbers go up, up, up.”

Matt communicates often with the people who follow him often.  He also reaches out to the super fans of other artists in his genre.  Matt posts weekly clips and asks his audience what they want to hear.  If enough followers urge him to cover a certain song, he will.  Once the cover is up, Matt engages with the original artist’s following.  He never asks them directly to follow him — rather he simply engages.  It is a strategy that works, he says.

Matt says his success on social media has taught him never to underestimate how significant your reach will be.  You never know you will connect with.  One thing Matt is passionate about — in addition to music — is fashion.  Recently, he had the chance to connect with Anthony Bogdan, a style blogger he’s admired for years “My jaw hit the floor when I got the request,” he says.

“I have people who are happy and eager to share my content,” Matt says.  “The networking and the decency I have been inspired to use have taken my first year as an independent artist and propelled me forward.  I wouldn’t have believed myself at this time last year if I knew where I would be today.”

When Matt is not sharing his music on the internet, he can be found playing at local clubs and bars.  In addition, he hosts a popular open mic event held once a month in the city that is broadcast on Rogers TV Network.  Matt also performs as part of this showcase.

“Doing the open mic is great for networking,” he says, adding that many of the artists he meets during the show ask him to join them at upcoming gigs.

When he plays out, Matt regularly distributes up to 2000 business cards emblazoned with personal email and social media information and asks people to send him a personal message to start a dialogue.

Matt says being an independent artist in Canada requires balancing a unique set of challenges and opportunities.  For instance, radio airplay can be hard to come by.  Most stations are owned by major labels like Warner Brothers, Sony and Universal and play only their signed artists.  

At the same time, Matt says, significant support for indie artists exists in the form of grants offered by the Canadian government.  This is particularly important to Matt who is committed to touring but will keep his home in Ottawa.

“There are lots of government grants available for musicians who stay in the country,” Matt says.  “They can range from $5000 or $10,000 to even as much as $20,000.  Artists can use this money to help record their albums.  This is something I am looking into.”

A typical day for Matt includes communicating with with fans and working on music.  He also takes time, when he can, to review the latest offerings at New Artist Model.

When he wakes up, Matt immediately checks his Twitter Instagram, Youtube and other social media feeds.  He then spends about an hour communicating with fans from around the world including the States, Europe and Brazil.

“I call it upkeep.  I poke and market.  I talk to them in the moment,” Matt says.  After working on his music and spending time with family, Matt finishes his day by checking in with fans again.  “I love interacting with people.”

Matt says that also making time on a regular basis to review material on the NAM site helps keep him inspired and effective.

“I’ve gone back and watched some of the same workshops 4 or 5 different times.  I do that especially when I’ve hit a funk or need some guidance,” Matt says, adding that he has watched some of the video from NAM’s 2015 Nashville gathering 10 times. The Indie Artist Summit was a live mini conference that attracted hundreds of attendees. Top industry pros like Benji Rogers, Patrick Clifford, Barry Coffing, Jay Frank, and more covered topics like building a community of superfans, licensing your music for film and TV, making Spotify work for indie artists, getting your music in front of publishers, and much more. The entire recorded event now lives in the Music Business Guide to Success course.

Matt’s is hoping to reach 25,000 followers soon.  His other goals include playing more big venues, creating merchandise, touring and doing house concerts.  He also wants to open for other artists he admires.

Through it all he plans to continue to stay close to the people who support him — in person and online.

“I will never stop communicating with his original true fans that have helped me from the start.  I have an appreciation and love for them that will never expire,” Matt says.  “The time invested in being personable, kind, and humble, and being appreciative. It comes back to you. ‘The love you take is equal to the love you make.’”

 

To see more about Matt Powell look here

New Artist Model is an online music business school developed by Dave Kusek, founder of Berklee Online. The online school is a platform for learning practical strategies and techniques for making a living in music. Learn how to carve a unique path for your own career with strategies that are working for indie artists around the world. Learn to think like an entrepreneur, create your own plan and live the life in music you want to live. New Artist Model provides practical college-level music business training at a mere fraction of the cost of a college degree. Programs start at just $29/mo.
For more info on the New Artist Model visit https://newartistmodel.com

Social media is a cornerstone to the artist-fan relationship today. With that direct connection you can find a fanbase, and develop a connection with your fans (something that wasn’t possible in the past), and even sell music. Social media really puts your music career in your hands!

But with so many options out there it can get totally overwhelming! Every platform gives indie musicians a unique way to connect with their fans. Twitter is great for fun, little engaging conversations. Instagram gives your fans insight into your daily life. And YouTube is almost like talking with your fans face to face.

But with each new platform comes new rules, formats, and strategies. Image specifications are different on each and every social platform, the optimal posting times vary from platform to platform, and even the people are different! You’ll find that some social channels cater towards fairly specific audiences and demographics.

To help you make the most of each platform you’re using to promote your music, check out this infographic. If you want to promote your music on social media, this is going to be your best friend.

You’ll learn:

  • The best image sizes and formats for your posts and profiles on each social media platform
  • Keyboard shortcuts to save you time
  • The best days and times to post so you get the most exposure
  • Social media tools you should be using every day
  • Easy tips that will help you get more engagement
  • And a quick guide to writing headlines for your posts

And if you want to take it even further and really step up your email promotion as well, download this free ebook. You’ll learn what to send your fans to create more engagement and how to email music industry people to unlock more opportunities. Plus, you’ll get 10 free email templates and examples that you can start sending to your fans today. Just change out a few words and press send!

This infographic is from On Blast Blog.

Promote Your Music on Social Media Cheat Sheet