As an artist, you've already heard of social media music promotion, right? To find your audience, it is fundamental to have an active social media presence. They take such a big part in most people’s lives and directly influences what they consume. This is a great way for independent music artists to begin promoting their music, since it is free of charge and can be done by yourself. One of the most effective ways of approaching this proccess is learning how to promote music on social media. By the end of this article, you will have learned how to promote music on social media and how to talk to users and showcase your art on different platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Reddit. Since each platform has a distinct language and set of tools, we will go into more detail and give examples of how you can maximize your presence and expand your audience in each one of them.
The Importance of Social Media
But first things first: why is it so important to have a strong social media presence? Recent studies show that more than 77% of the eligible global population are social media users. Users spend an average of almost two hours and thirty minutes per day on those platforms. Crazy, right? But it means that social media is definitely the place to be to make yourself noticeable. However, just having an account for your work is not enough, obviously. Your presence must be active and you must update daily. Always remember that not everything you post arrives to your follower’s feeds. So the more you post, the most likely it is that your followers will like, comment and share your content.How to Promote Music on Social Media
To promote your music on social media, you have to use the algorithm in your favor. And since social media is characterized by its fast consumerism, make it interesting from the very beginning. You are competing for users' attention, and the first few seconds are the most crucial ones. If you get their attention, it's likely they will migrate from your profile to your music, for example. Nevertheless, your social media presence can not be tied up only around your music. You also have to introduce yourself as a person or a group of people, depending whether you are a solo artist or in a band. This will keep your followers interested and engaged with your content. This happens because they will feel almost like they know you personally. There is a possibility of exchange between fan and artist, such as answering followers and taking requests, which is beneficial for promoting your music.
Using social media to keep close touch with your public is useful to build the hype around your newest releases. You can use your accounts to tease the audience about what is about to come, and there are many different ways to do so. For instance, you could change the profile picture of each one of your social media accounts to match the visual identity of your up and coming album. Or you can post countdowns until the release date. This will increase curiosity among your followers and therefore they will engage more with your content, helping you promote your music organically.
Create Your Identity
Before diving deep into promoting your music on social media, your identity as an artist must be clearly built up. This will help you find your own audience, your niche. Because though nowadays it may be fairly easy to get your music out there using social media and streaming services, it is a whole lot harder finding people who will stick with you and with your work. Therefore, you have to make yourself identifiable in each platform. Keep in mind that, in addition to being an artist, you are also a brand to be promoted. To do so you must find a discerning visual identity that your audience can link to you and to your work. You must also channel a well established voice and approach to social media users. Your music may be your brand’s defining aspect, but how you present it through social media is the first thing everybody will see. The tricky thing is making yourself noticeable on each platform in order to reach your people. You must create content for those who will care about your work. Everything you post should be driven by your target audience. Your target audience is a part of your identity, it is the people who are going to consume your work. Think to yourself: who listens to my music? What would they want to see me post? These questions can be a starting point to your marketing strategy in social media.How to Promote Your Music on Different Social Media Platforms
To promote your music on social media, you must optimize the use of each platform. This means you have to understand how to approach the users of each social network, utilizing the tools provided by them and using it to enhance your music. You should also think about what type of post is appropriate for each platform. Perhaps one type of video is suitable for YouTube, but would bore TikTok users to death. So always keep in mind that different social networks require different contents.Share Your Work on Instagram
Instagram is one of the most used social media worldwide. Though it was initially a photo only social network, it grew immensely in possibilities — including in possibilities of how to promote your music. Nowadays, you can also update your profile with videos, reels, stories, and even merch to sell. An effective and easy way to grow a following audience on the app is by pumping these same contents using promotion tools available on Instagram. To do so, you will need to turn your personal account into a business account. This way, you will be able to track your growth and use the ads tools. Now that you have switched to a business account, you will choose how you want to promote your work. You can promote your art to the automatic audience and boost your content to users selected by Instagram based on who interacts with your profile. Or you can make it more effective by promoting it to your targeted audience, like we have talked about. You will therefore choose who will receive your ads, which will be the people you are making music for.
The next step is choosing what posts to promote. In summary, you should promote good posts that feature your music and show a bit of your style as an artist, in order to speak to the targeted users. A good tip is to use a call to action (CTA). CTA demands and teases the users to do something on command. For example, adding a link to the post that will lead them to your streaming profile, where they can fully listen to your music.