We all use social media. Honestly in this day in age, I only know a hand full of people that don’t use Facebook or Twitter. What does this mean for us as artists? This means that we can find other people with the same interests and have our music heard by them. But now the question is; how?
When most artists on Facebook or Twitter do make time to promote a project, they do it in the least effective way. I only see a few artists online do it the correct way and the key word here is “few.” Some of these guys make a budget to hire management and their managers have connections to PR’s and marketers in order to advise their client what to do. These same guys are working men just like us.
Right now I will show you ways we can promote in the same fashion without having a manager and without having to dedicate 5 hours of our free time spamming random people. But before I can do that, I have to emphasize that you should at least have 1-2 hours set aside for promoting. This is where your time management skills come in.
You will need to schedule your posts. This is where the 1-2 hours you set aside for this comes in. You will want to create posts to your music and schedule them during peak hours. According to Socialmediatoday.com and Forbes.com, the best times to post are early morning around 9am, evening time after work and before dinner, after dinner, and weekends. A lot of these sites suggest that the worst time to post is after midnight.
Now a link alone with your scheduled posts won’t be enough. The key now is the pitch. You have to promote your music in a way that does not come off as spammy. There’s no one way to do this so you’ll have to be creative and go through trial and error. If you come off spammy, people will view it like any other spammy post and just ignore it. Try to be as humanistic as possible in your scheduled posts. No one wants to see “CHECK OUT MY NEW SONG AND FOLLOW ME ON IG” What’s worse is that it just doesn’t look professional.
There’s still more. Now you have to give people a reason to check you out. I’m not saying give them something in return for listening to your music but you will have to do something to get listeners to WANT to follow you. The way to do this is with content. You will be hearing a lot of that word (if you haven’t already) because that is how marketers are getting people to become interested in whatever they are pushing.
Content here can be anything from a blog, videos on YouTube, sharing stories, writing good posts and tweets, etc. Just think of what your target audience usually reads or watches and think of ways you can do emulate those same things. By doing this, you create interaction and if your posts intrigue people enough to follow you regularly, they will be more conscious of what you have to offer. By building relationships with people that follow you, it gives them a reason to check out anything you would like to offer.
As an artist, you should think of yourself as a brand and people like it when brands have personality. Think about that metaphor for a moment and see if it relates to you as well. Time management plays a role here as well since you will need to take time to create content.
Three easy steps to give people a reason to check out your music. All this cannot happen without proper time management. One of the things great marketers do is write down a weekly plan. From there, you can easily allocate time to promote.
By doing this, you are working smart versus working hard. I always emphasize this philosophy because time is our greatest resource and there is no point in wasting it by spamming random people who have don’t have the slightest interest of checking you out. That is why it is crucial to create interest with your content.
One piece of advice before attempting this, you have to be real. What I mean is that you cannot post content for the sole reason of getting people’s attention. Everyone can smell inauthenticity from a mile away which is why you have to love what you do and believe in what you share with followers and friends. Always remember that real recognize real so forced content will be of no use to anyone.
