Marketing music by means of social networking has become the number one way emerging artists communicate with potential fans. This is a good thing, actually a great thing! But it can also be bad, very bad. Music Marketing through social networking is good because it's cheap, easy, and in many cases your marketing message reaches far beyond what traditional music marketing has been able to accomplish in the past. It's bad because there are so many artists and groups who have adopted social networking as their only form of music marketing that it has become watered down and over saturated. Meaning, there are so many artists and groups using social networking to get their music in the hands of potential fans that it is hard to stand out and be heard.
Using social networking as a means of music marketing is about directly communicating with people and personally asking them to listen to your music. It is not about how many friends you can get on your myspace.com page in a day or how many "blind" twitter messages you can send out shouting for people to listen to your music. Social networking is exactly that, being social and networking among like minded individuals or groups. The following three tips will help you get the most out of music marketing through social networking.
Tip 1 - Social networking is about being social
The number one way you can stand out on a social networking site is to be social. You have to interact, leave comments, take time to learn about other people, and reach out and talk to people. Marketing music on social networks is about making friends. You will never make friends if all you are doing is sending friend requests and never visiting your "friends" until you want something from them. Think about social networking like the real world. You have to build friendships. You have to be interested, you have to contact friends from time to time and ask them how they are doing, and it has to be a give and take relationship. Meaning, you have to be willing to give your friends your time, effort, and devotion in order to get any of these things from them.
Tip 1 - Solution:
Do not send "blind" friend requests. Take the time to go on each profile page you visit and learn something about the person you are asking to become your friend. If, once you learn a little about them, you feel this is someone you would actually like to be friends with then send the friend request. When you send the request make it personal. Talk about something interesting you found on their profile. What you are trying to do is show them you took the time to learn about them before asking them for friendship. If you do this you will see a huge increase in CD sales and fans attending shows. Why? You are actually finding friends that have similar interests as you instead of trying to get anyone out there to agree to be your friend!
Once you become friends with someone cultivate the friendship over time. Make sure you comment on their page at least weekly, ask them to take a look at your page and give opinions, etc. Simply be a friend more than long enough to get them to add you as a friend!
Tip 2 - Be consistent with your branding message
Marketing music through social networking is about getting your name, music, and brand in as many social networks as you can possibly find. We all know of the three or four "big boys," MySpace.com, YouTube.com, and Facebook.com. But there are hundreds of other social networks that are used daily to market music. One of the biggest challenges an emerging artist faces when setting up his or her user profile is what to say, what pictures to use, and what is the best way to promote music within the social network. It is very easy to think, "I want to be creative and show all my different sides so I will make each of my social networking profiles different." This is a huge trap!
Do not confuse your potential fans with many different images, songs, and sales pitches to buy your music. You want one message, one song as a single, and one "brand" carried across all your social networking sites. Why? Momentum. Momentum builds naturally when one song or "brand" is being offered to the masses. Think of it this way - Let's say someone hears your song on one social networking site and tells a friend how cool the song is. Then that friend goes to their favorite social networking site and looks you or your band up. When they land on your profile and search for the song their friend told them about but can not find it, they are confused. They will automatically think, "Is this the right artist or group my friend was talking about? Do I need to search again?" This is not good. Momentum can only build from one person to the next if the same "brand" is present on all marketing outlets.
Consistency in branding will help you stand out within the over saturated social networks. When your potential fans keep seeing the same message over and over on different social networks they will remember it. This will drive them to investigate who, what, where, or why they keep seeing the same thing no matter where they are online. It will make them click on your profile and listen to your music.
Tip 2 - Solution:
Pick three songs from your CD and upload them to each social network you use for music marketing.
Pick three pictures and place them on the front page of your profile in each of your social networks. You can add as may pictures as you want to the pictures page of your profile, but make sure you use the same three pictures on the front page of each profile.
Create an eye catching ad that advertises that you have a CD for sell. Make sure you link the ad to the page where people can buy your CD. Do not simply link the ad to the home page of your website. You have to make it easy to buy your CD. If they click on the ad, land on your store page, and then want to learn more about you, they will click around. But it does not always work the opposite way.
Tip 3 - Make your profile page clean, uncluttered, and eye catching
If people can not see the trees for the forest they will move on. Meaning, if you have so much meaningless clutter all over your profile page that a potential fan can not find real information about you in less than five seconds you have already lost them. The worst thing you can do is have a video player automatically play at the same time your mp3 player automatically starts playing your music. Do not make people search for what is playing in order to stop all the noise!
Tip 3 - Solution:
Create a front profile page that has pictures, music, video, and bio clearly visible towards the top of the page. If you want to be an individual, by all means do so, but move any non press kit material towards the bottom of the page. Remember, you only have five seconds to grab their attention!
Never have your videos auto play. Let your music speak for you. Create an mp3 player that auto starts as soon as a potential fan lands on your profile. This way they can have a look around the profile while listening to your music instead of hunting your page to find out what all is playing! When they find the video, and if they want to watch it, they will stop the music and hit play on the video.
Backgrounds that are too busy make it extremely hard to read text on a page. Try to find a background that fits your style but is based around solid colors or graphics that stay out of the way of the body of your profile page. Potential fans will not try to read through graphics to learn about you. They will move on to the next artist or group that offers them a better experience.
Conclusion:
The easiest way to stand out in social networks is to be social, offer a clean profile that is easy to read, and create a brand that is consistent throughout all social networks. Music marketing today is much different than it was years ago. You have to give interest to get interest. You have to treat online friends as you would treat your offline friends. And you have to make sure you are always pushing the same message to all your friends so each of them will be able to tell another to look you up and let momentum take over!
Please visit my website for more FREE Music Marketing Tips!
Jai Hutcherson
"Love the Music in Yourself, Not Yourself in the Music!"
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