How To Promote Your Music On Facebook & Grow Your Career

Repurposing and Reposting Content For Facebook

While Twitter is for news and text, Instagram is mainly for photos, and YouTube is for all types of videos  — Facebook has brought all of those mediums and integrated them into one platform. 

Facebook has grown to become the largest social media platform by supporting a variety of mediums and types of content — in some ways, Facebook is a one-stop-shop for digital media. 

On Facebook, musicians can post photos and videos to their Page, share relevant links, create events for their tour dates, and write long messages in the form of a text post up to 63,206 characters in length! 

So while you may have to create specific content for your other platforms that are optimized to meet specific requirements, most of that content can be granted a new life on your Facebook Page after making a couple of tweaks.

Repurposing Photos

A photo can convey a lot of things, which is part of the reason why humans have become more fascinated with digital photos as social media continues to permeate the way we live our lives. 

It may seem like a lot of work to be consistently posting photos on your Facebook Page, but chances are you have more content to work with than you think. 

Taking the time to capture high-quality photos to share on your social media platforms is a simple and easy way to keep your audience engaged, and your Facebook Page can serve as a dumping ground for all of the photos you have posted on other platforms. 

Whether you are posting photos from a recent photoshoot on Instagram or debuting the cover of your latest music release on Twitter — always remember to also post it on your Facebook Page. 

On your Facebook Page, you can organize your photoshoots into albums and even throw in some extra outtakes that didn’t make the final cut! 

For special announcements and music release information, posting a single photo along with some info about your release can be a great way to bring even more attention to your music. 

And since Facebook owns Instagram, you can link up your Instagram account with your Facebook Page — this will automatically post any photo you post on Instagram to your Page.  

The thing with Facebook’s algorithm is that sometimes more is better — the more frequently you post, the better your chances are at reaching your audience. 

So if you ever post a photo on any of your social media platforms, make sure you also post it on Facebook.

Reposting Videos

While most people prefer YouTube for watching video content, there has also been a surge in the popularity of Facebook Watch for watching video content since the feature was launched in late-2017. 

Uploading videos to Facebook is a great way to either launch new content or keep the momentum going with content that is already published elsewhere.

These videos can be your music videos, behind-the-scenes footage from photoshoots, recording sessions, or videos of you speaking about something you are passionate about. 

Whatever it might be, always be aware of Facebook’s strict copyright guidelines as you can run into issues if you don’t own the rights to what you are posting. You can read more about those guidelines here and here.

Edit Your Text Posts Before Reposting

Your Facebook Page is a perfect place to share links and news articles about your content or about issues you are passionate about. If you are active on Twitter or have a blog, some of this content can be taken from there!

If you are considering posting a portion of an article written about your music, don’t just copy and paste it directly. Think of ways you can optimize the post by adding hashtags, tagging people mentioned, and adding a couple of relevant photos. 

The same goes for reposting a link or the text from a tweet on your Page — before posting, tag any publications or relevant Pages on Facebook and add any hashtags that may increase your post’s reach.

Promoting Your Page and Content With Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are an effective way to increase public recognition on the platform and could lead to organic reach overtime if people share your advertisement with their friends. 

By purchasing ad space on Facebook, you can target your posts to be seen by a specific demographic as well as your existing followers — but before you decide to invest in Facebook ads, take some time to consider a few factors:

What is the intent of your post?

Before deciding to purchase ad space on Facebook, why are you purchasing the advertisement in the first place? 

Take a moment to jot down the outcome you hope to achieve with the advertisement. An outcome could be to gain more followers, encourage more people to listen to your music, or drive concert tickets and/or merch sales.

What is your advertising budget?

Establishing and sticking to your budget can also help you track your return on investment so you ensure that the money you spent on Facebook advertisements is justified. 

Who is your target audience?

Have you ever come across an oddly specific Facebook advertisement? 

You speculate that your phone is probably listening to you — but in reality, this was made possible thanks to the features Facebook offers to businesses to target specific audiences with their ads. 

When you create an ad on Facebook, you have the option to reach specific audiences with your advertisements based on their interests, age, location, and how they use the platform. 

There are countless ways to customize the audience you want to reach with your targeted advertisements, so take some time to familiarize yourself with how you can use these features to your advantage.

Tracking your metrics and growth

One of the biggest pros of growing your following on your Facebook Page is being able to have a more accurate representation of your audience through accessing your Insights. 

The more data you have collected through your Page Insights, the more accurately you can track the growth of your Facebook Page over time — and the same goes for when you purchase Facebook ads.

After creating the ad, you can track the performance of the ad through Facebook’s analytics manager called Insights in real-time! 

The Insights manager will keep you up to date on how your ads are performing, and how users are interacting with your posts. 

Tracking your analytics through Facebook Insights will show you who your audience is, and will help you identify what worked with your ads, what didn’t work, and what type of posts your audience preferred.

Branding Your Profile

You have the potential to reach millions with your Facebook Page — so you want to make sure you make a lasting impression from the start. 

This can be achieved by ensuring your branding is cohesive with your other social media platforms and making sure the visual elements of your Facebook Page is up to date with your music releases. 

The two largest visual elements of your Facebook Page are your profile photo and your cover photo. These visual elements are the first images that someone will see upon viewing your page, so make sure they are consistently updated as you release music. 

Since the two photos are displayed next to each other, the colors and themes of the two photos should be cohesive. It’s best to keep your profile photo simple and to the point — stick to a high-quality and recent headshot of yourself or a photo of your logo. 

You can take advantage of the space provided by your cover photo by adding relevant text along with a larger, more striking photo — your cover photo is the perfect place to display a logo, a release date, or even a set of upcoming tour dates. 

The next step to branding your profile is to get your Facebook Page verified with a Blue Verification Badge. While this isn’t something you have total control over, your Page being verified by Facebook will strengthen your overall presence online. 

To request for your Page to be verified, your page must have a cover photo, a profile photo, a name that follows Facebook’s guidelines, and some content posted to your Page. Next, fill out the form to request a Blue Verification badge, which can be found here. 

Posting Videos on Facebook

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a video worth? 

Facebook may have started as a platform to share posts and photos among your friends, but things have changed a lot in recent years. 

Although posting great images is still an effective way to connect with your audience and reach a larger market, can you reach even more people through posting videos?  

A recent experiment done by Biteable found that paid video ads on Facebook got more clicks and drove more engagement compared to paid image ads. 

Therefore, the study concluded that videos are a better return on investment than images for paid Facebook ads. If that’s not enough, 60% of social media experts told Databox in 2019 that video drives more engagement on social media compared to photos. 

So if you’re not already posting videos on Facebook, it’s time to start thinking about how you incorporate the platforms’ various video features into your social media strategy.

Facebook Watch Videos

All videos posted on your Facebook Page are now posted on Facebook Watch, which is Facebook’s main video platform. The content posted on Facebook Watch will be available to view by all Facebook users on your Page and on the Facebook Watch section on the platform. 

You can post a variety of content on Facebook Watch including music videos, lyric videos, short video clips of your day and longer films like a documentary highlighting your creative process — just make sure that you are the copyright owner of all visual or audio content. 

Posting to YouTube or Facebook?

The other thing artists have a tough time deciding is whether they should be posting a YouTube link of their videos or directly uploading the video to Facebook. 

The truth is Facebook wants users to stay on their platform for as long as possible so if you post a link that is sending users to another platform the algorithm won’t like that too much. 

With that said, I wouldn’t opt for uploading only to Facebook as YouTube is still important to your overall strategy when it comes to video content. 

If your goal is just to funnel people to one spot then it makes sense to just post a link on Facebook. However if you are hoping to maximize exposure uploading to both platforms can work too. 

You can also have a staggered approach where you premiere the video on one platform and then upload to other platforms at a later date.

Facebook Stories

Similar to Snapchat or Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories are short-form videos that are under 20-seconds and that disappear after 24 hours. 

Facebook Stories are displayed on your Followers’ timeline and on your main Page. To spice up your audio, you can select some tunes from Facebook’s music library to replace the original audio in your Stories. 

You can also choose from thousands of fun visual filters that have been created by Facebook, businesses, and other independent artists.

The Problem With Facebook Live

During the coronavirus pandemic, you may have seen many artists turning to live streaming platforms to virtually perform for their audience. 

From a simple acoustic set on a bedroom floor to full productions filmed in a theatre, musicians really stepped up the bar for live streaming in 2020 — and the future for the livestreaming industry in a post-coronavirus world looks bright. 

Livestreaming may be the future of performing your music to your audience, but if you decide to leverage Facebook Live you will need to understand what Facebook considers to be a “listening experience.”

This phrase is very vague and leads to confusion for artists. Simply put Facebook does not want its users treating the platform as they would a Spotify or Apple Music, where you open it up and push play, and then go about your business. 

They want content where people are actively engaged, watching, commenting, and sharing.

The article linked above from CD Baby gives you a strong breakdown of what is allowed and what isn’t. However it also explains some key things to make sure you’re doing during your livestream to avoid any issues like:

• During your performance on Facebook Live, you should act as you would at an actual concert
• Throughout the show, make sure you are engaging with your audience and speaking to them throughout your set
• With your surroundings in mind, you should also move around throughout your Live — there are some circumstances where you may end up staying in a static position for the majority of the set, but try to move around a couple of times.
• Since this is a Live audience — engagement is key for the growth and retention of your audience during your live stream. To keep them engaged, ask your audience questions that they can respond to via the comments section or take some song requests throughout the Live.

As of right now, most artists are turning to platforms like Twitch to livestream their shows and also monetize the performance. 

Facebook has yet to make it very easy for musicians to make money off their Facebook Live feature, but seem to be working on this with a program called Stars which is currently in Beta and only open to a limited number of content publishers at this time — we will keep you updated if there is a wider roll-out. 

Final Thoughts on How To Promote Your Music On Facebook

With the rise in dominance of other social media platforms and the lost trust in Facebook from many of the platforms’ users — Facebook’s future remains uncertain. 

The platform may not have the cultural significance and impact it once did, and we can all learn an important lesson from this. 

While I do believe having and maintaining your Facebook Page is still an essential practice for all musicians to have in their social media strategy — I would advise against putting all of your energy and resources into one social media platform.

Instead, work on building each one of your social media platforms individually until you have a steady reach and audience. Then, you can decide which platforms to devote more time to. 

So whether Facebook rises to the top again one day or becomes obsolete à la Myspace — you will be prepared either way.