As with any business, strategy and marketing will be the key to successfully promoting your music on various social media platforms. Viral sensations are the exception, not the rule, and it won’t be enough to simply put your music into the digital universe and pray it resonates with the right people.
Much of success in the music industry won’t be about talent, but about promotion. Being able to adequately promote yourself requires a clear picture of who you are, your content/platform strategy, and a high engagement ratio.
Brand Development Should be the First Step of Promotion
Many of your favorite music artists and the most successful musicians stretch much further than their music alone - they are a brand. Developing a brand presence is necessary for any business and yours is no different. Your brand should identify with you as a person, as well as your passions. Being your authentic self, consistently and with gumption, will bring the people most fit for your music to you. Especially in this world of algorithms and personally curated feeds.
You can find a quick 3-step strategy for zeroing in on your brand here.
With your brand identity in place, you will need to make sure that your vibe, your persona, your portrayal, is consistent and clear across every platform you’re on and immediately identifiable by all those that stumble across you.
Repetition is the key to memory and brand strategy is no different.
Develop a Content Strategy that Aligns with Your Brand for Better Results
It’s often thought that you need to be anywhere and everywhere. While this is true in a sense, you don’t need to promote yourself across all platforms until you’re blue in the face.
Identify the platforms that your listeners are likely to use the most and focus your content strategy on these platforms. Yes, you can make profiles everywhere for representation, but save the heavy lifting for the sites where you audience is most likely to spend their time.
Across your platforms, ensure that your brand is recognizable and even use the same profile photo for quick identification. Once you’re clear on where you want to show up, begin to curate a plethora of content that your fans would enjoy - not just music content. People may like your music, but they’ll continue to have interest in your brand if you’re filling their spaces with other content that relates to their interests. It’s a good idea to have a content rotation of sorts, from meme’s to personal insights about your life, to music, even to education.
This content rotation will keep your profile fresh, relatable, and better set up for promotion when you’re ready to drop your next song.
Once you know what content you want to rotate, use a social media scheduler that will allow you to plan ahead and schedule content so you don’t have to worry about actively posting every single day - you do have music to make afterall.
Interact with Your Followers, Fans, and Similar Social Profiles to Boost Your Engagement
So much of how these social media platforms push the content you create is based on engagement. It’s not enough to have a lot of followers. It’s now more important to see how many of those followers are actively liking, commenting, sharing, or saving the things that you post.
The big statistic now is that only 10% of your followers will even see the things that you post. That’s why engagement is so crucial. The higher your initial engagement, the more platforms like Instagram will show it to your followers or on the Discover page.
You can increase your engagement by being a real person on the platform. Comment back when you get comments, follow accounts similar to yours (and engage with them), and make connections within the app that will help drive your engagement and entice the algorithm to share your posts.
Doing this will help set your profile up for success when you’re ready to share your latest and greatest creation.