Wondering how to get more exposure for your music career?
Then you’ll want to learn how musicians can benefit from social media.
Having a solid presence online is crucial for any artist to reach their target audience.
Not only is social media a way for you to advertise your upcoming shows or promote your new album — it’s how you build a lasting relationship with your supporters.
Always keep in mind that people are more likely to support musicians they have a close bond with, so this should be a key focus for your marketing efforts.
With this article, we hope to show you how social media can help grow your overall audience and strengthen your relationship with your existing audience.
Contents
What is social media?
I’m sure your first thought is — why do I need someone to explain what social media is?! Although I’m sure you’re familiar with using social media, have you ever thought about social media from a business perspective?
Before social media, advertising was pretty costly for anyone trying to make it within the music industry.
The budget for billboards, TV commercials, and advertising campaigns, cost labels and brands millions of dollars every year — but now, with social media, things have changed.
In today’s world, a social media advertising campaign with a small budget has the same potential to go viral as one that costs thousands of dollars.
Since social media and other online tools hit the market, it has never been easier for anyone to build an international presence through the internet.
However, since these tools and platforms are so accessible, this has also made it much more difficult for emerging artists to stand out unless they have a firm plan in place.
Along with your branding and visual aesthetics, the way you present your artistry on social media is an extension of your music.
There are many ways to approach social media today. Still, it is essential to stay true to yourself every step of the way, staying patient, and focusing on building relationships with fans.
The role of social media in helping your music career
Your identity on social media is arguably one of the most essential factors to upholding your reputation — other than your music, of course.
When someone comes across your music for the first time, many will want to learn more about you and who you are as a person.
Using social media is a great way to promote your music and offers you an opportunity to build your reputation and forge a loyal relationship with the people that listen to your music.
How Musicians can benefit from social media
In this section, we’ll discuss why social media is beneficial to your music career and some tips for growing your presence online.
Helps you grow your overall brand
After spending some time developing your brand, these decisions should be consistent throughout your social media presence.
Across your platforms, you may choose photos with specific colors and tones, advocate for certain causes you support, or start to build a reputation for making funny videos.
Whatever you end up doing on your platforms, staying true to your brand throughout your posts will enable you to strengthen and grow your brand over time.
Reach more people (Access to a broader audience)
After you have successfully reached a niche audience and built a loyal group of supporters, social media can be used in various ways to reach even more people.
Whether it’s things going on in your community, causes you support, or a new collaboration with an audience, actively diversifying the content you are posting will help you reach like-minded individuals who may have never heard of you or your music.
Create stronger relationships with fans
Once you have established a relationship with your fans or supporters, it’s up to you to keep up that relationship.
People are more likely to support people they feel like they have a strong bond with, so nurturing the relationship you have with your supporters is so important.
There are many ways to stay connected with your fans and communicate with them throughout the day. Do you reply to your YouTube comments and Instagram DM’s? Do you shout out your supporters when they tag you in a post? Do you follow some of your fans back? Do you go live with them and answer their burning questions?
When communicating with your fans, aim to keep the interactions genuine and positive. Some of these people may have been deeply touched by your music or really look up to you!
Helps you network and collaborate
Social media platforms help you to be more resourceful and open the doors for connections to be made.
Platforms like LinkedIn are not only reserved for business people. People with jobs at Spotify or other important companies within the industry are human and aren’t as hard to reach as you may think.
They have LinkedIn profiles detailing their jobs within the industry or are active on other social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Connect with them and build a relationship! That goes for industry professionals, other artists, producers, promoters, designers, etc.
Helps you generate more income
If you start raking in thousands of views, your social media accounts could become pretty lucrative. You can monetize your content on apps like Twitch, TikTok, and Youtube, for example, meaning more money in your pocket at the end of the day!
Furthermore, artists have been leveraging these platforms to ask for donations or drive their merch and music sales. With a little creativity, artists can leverage their audiences and generate an income from their social media platforms.
Paid advertising opportunities
Once a musician reaches a certain level of success, they may influence the people who consume their music. Like modern-day influencers, musicians are often approached by big brands to promote products and collaborate with them.
So if your profile catches the eye of another company, you may have to field an upcoming collaboration request to promote a product to your millions of followers.
You can learn more about your target audience
The more people you connect with on social media, the more you’ll learn about their interests. You’ll know where your audience lives, how old they are, and what content they engage with the most.
Besides the analytics these platforms provide, social media is a direct line to the people supporting you every step of the way, so it’s essential to utilize these tools to learn all you can about your audience and help you better market to them.
Your 24-hour business card
As a musician, social media is your virtual 24-hour business card and resume! Your profiles should display all of your achievements and clearly showcase what you’re all about.
Your profiles should be easy to find and drive people to learn more about you. Think about the impression people get when they come across your platforms. Is it reflective of you and the image you are trying to project?
The best place for you to share your content
All of your social media platforms work differently, but all serve the same purpose — a curated dumping ground for all of your content that will live on forever.
Remember, the impact of these profiles will vary depending on your following and audience engagement.
Once you know which platforms work best for you, start by optimizing content for that platform and go from there. There is always room for improvement and expansion later on!
Helps grow and promote your other platforms
Once you have cultivated a loyal following on one platform, you can diversify your audience by promoting your profiles on other social media platforms.
For example, if you just had one of your songs blow up on TikTok, you can follow-up that success by posting more TikTok’s promoting a YouTube video showing your audience a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of that song.
This makes your social media content more lucrative by growing your reach across both platforms. Another excellent example of this is when artists are trying to reach a milestone on a specific platform.
Typically, they’ll use one platform to ask their fans to support them on another specific platform, which usually helps drive engagement.
Analytics to help with business decisions
As you become more successful, your analytics will broaden across your social media platforms.
You can access information about your growing audience to make better decisions about things like when to post content, the type of content that works best for your fans, what merch to develop, or even the cities you should play on your next tour.
All of which is valuable information for any artist to use and leverage to their advantage.
Final Thoughts On How Musicians Can Benefit From Social Media
Now that you understand the importance of growing your social media platforms, it’s essential to know that this is always a work in progress.
You’ll always be testing and refining what works and what doesn’t, but eventually, you’ll find your rhythm. Create a plan, keep your branding in mind, be consistent, and always engage with fans.
Kevin is the founder of Music With Flavor, which joined Whipped Cream Sounds in 2023. He is a seasoned musician turned industry expert. His passion for music goes beyond melodies; he delves deep into the intricate world of music marketing, striving to unearth the most effective strategies for indie musicians. However, Music With Flavor isn’t just about Kevin’s knowledge; it’s a network of industry experts handpicked to provide the most trusted advice. Kevin’s role is to pose the right questions, not just answer them, as he and his team tirelessly research trends, connect with artists, and gather valuable insights.
