How to Market Your Music on Social Media like a Rock Star

The advent and immense popularity of social media has changed the way many of today’s musicians market their music to the masses.  In fact, today there are many musical superstars—think Justin Bieber, The Weekend, Penatonix and Ed Sheeran—that  actually got their start on social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and used the wide reach of these sites to catapult their music—and themselves—from obscurity to household names.  However, just knowing how to use social media sites is not enough to get noticed.  For that, you will need a social media marketing plan to promote your music—a plan similar to the one we have outlined below.

4 Steps for Marketing Your Music on Social Media

Below we have listed four of the most important steps for marketing and making money from your music on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  They include:

1.  Set Achievable Goals and Objectives

As with any type of marketing plan, it’s important that you first identify a few goals you’d like to reach using social media, as well as some relevant objectives that are actionable and time bound.  This will help you remain focused on what you need to do.  Here is just one example of a larger goal and the objectives you will need to meet to achieve it:

Goal:  Attract 100,000 followers to my YouTube Channel

Objectives

1.      Increase traffic to my channel by posting at least one new (music-specific) piece of content (video, links, music news, etc.) a day on my social media pages.

2.      Set up links to my YouTube site through my other social media sites.

3.      Contact other music-based social media site owners and ask them to engage in link sharing.

4.  Tailor Your Social Media Profiles

Today there are literally tens of thousands of musicians just like you who are either actively or passively trying to promote their music through social media.  Given this plurality of competition, it is essential that you tailor or customize ALL of your social media pages in a way that will help you get noticed.  When using Facebook and Twitter, for example, choose colorful, yet distinguishable headers, professional images and select background photos that are relative to your music.  Remember to include a captivating bio of yourself that is music-specific, and always fully complete the “About” section and include links to your music channel (s).  Finally, you will want to add some third-party tabs that will allow people to listen to your music directly from your Facebook or Twitter Page—tabs such as Reverbnation, BandPage, and/or YouTube Music.

3.  Post Diversified Content

Once you have customized your social media pages, you will need to develop a content strategy that will help your music and social media sites rank well in search engine results.  This does not mean an endless stream of links, videos and sales pitches, but rather a diversified content strategy that will help you reach the maximum amount of future listeners and buyers.  Here are just a few ideas regarding the type of content you may want to post:

         – Share videos and albums of your music and other music you enjoy. Include videos of local bands you either play with or have a connection to.  Remember to always include a rating system so that fans can tell you what they think.

         – Post recent news and trends related to the music industry.

         – Post lyrics and recording scenes that reflect the character of your band.  This is a great way to engage fans in conversation and keep them returning to your site.

      – Network with owners of other music pages.  This can lead to content sharing and is a great way to learn about, and even land, upcoming gigs.

         – Post pictures related to your music or the shows at which you perform.

4.  Post Often and Consistently

As Internet marketers are sure to advise you, the key to promoting music (or anything else) on social media is to post content often and consistently.  This does not mean you have to post five to ten times a day on each social media site.  In fact, to avoid duplicate content, you may want to integrate some of your social media sites so that a post on one site will appear simultaneously on all the others.  Whatever you do, don’t disappear from sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for months at a time.  The more consistently you post, the higher you will rank in the search engine results, which in turn will lead to more traffic and perpetual engagement with your fans and followers.

Knowing how to use social media as a promotion tool can be the difference between obscurity and super stardom.  To achieve the best results, define your goals and objectives from the onset and customize the various social media pages you will utilize to market your music.  Remember to diversify the content you plan to share and post often and consistently, keeping your name and the music you create in the limelight.

Here’s a guest post from Zac Green, editor-in-chief over at popular music blog ZingInstruments.com.