We live in a strange time. With the internet exploding in exponential chaos, we find almost all aspects of our lives are splintering to take new shapes and forms because of this hyper-connectivity. The music industry-and the artists creating within it-finds itself in a place of constant change. Finding target demographics is now a breeze with the multitudes of analytic software available. Music has changed from primarily physical product to almost completely digital. Traditional marketing has turned to social media marketing and branding for guidance.
Thanks to Spotify and other instant music
Streaming services putting music literally a click away, record labels barely beat out Indies for total revenue in 2014. Now is the perfect time for artists to forgo the backing of a major label and tread through the murky waters of the music industry alone-aside from sometimes hiring out services like social media marketing and merchandise. Indie artists traditionally have much more creative freedom than their major label counterparts and usually get a much higher cut of any income they bring in. If artists are paying out of pocket for these types of services, they will sometimes want to take a stab at social media marketing themselves. Check out our list of 10 simple music marketing tips for indie artists.
Connect with your fans – Fans like to know what their favorite artists are up to.
- This simple concept is one of the reasons why interviews are a huge step in a band’s promo. Take the time to tweet something about yourself or post a quick Instagram video downloader of you in the creative process. One step further: retweet and respond to your fans-it makes them feel even closer to you. Take the time to give your fans a peak behind the red curtain.
Keep Social Media Up To Date
Nothing is worse than going to a band’s Facebook or Twitter page and their tour schedule is from last summer. You should be editing performance dates and venues the day you confirm them. Give people time to work around their busy schedules and allow them to make it out to your shows. Beyond tour schedules, ensure that content is updated frequently so that fans have something to look forward to each time they visit your page.
Connect All Your Social Media Accounts
- You should be utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, and each of them should have accessible links to the others. Don’t bite off more than you can chew, however. There are 100’s of social media websites-you don’t need to use every single one.
Don’t Sound like A Generic Advertisement
- We all know THAT band who has a social media account that sounds like they are selling you something on every post or tweet. Be genuine! If there is something you hate about a band’s social media page, learn from their mistakes.
People get bored of plain text all the time. Pictures and videos stand out and will make visitors stop and check out what you have to say. Instagram’s entire model is based upon visuals, and it’s worth $35 billion. Take a picture in the studio or shoot a video with a quick message to your fans. In fact, photos and videos get a higher organic news feed ranking that pure text posts on Facebook.