Last week I wrote an article on the introduction phase of marketing for musicians.
It is located here.
If you have read last week’s article on making good introductions then by now you should have somehow realised what you gotta do.
I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do, about know-how.
Now that my impulsive use of that horrendous song is out of the way, let’s get down to brass tax…
If you read our last piece you will have:
Ceased to post me-centrically on groups and realised that the path of least resistance leads absolutely nowhere of value (In any facet of life).
You will also now understand that you actually have to make content specifically for each individual platform.
What next?
Well that depends on who you are, where you are and where you are….wait?
Why did I say “where you are” twice?!
Who you are: are you a band or a solo artist?
Where you are: geographically!
Where you are (2) : which platform are you on?
It is wise to utilise multiple channels in the way they were intended because the algorithms on these platforms work with their creators intentions as their actual functioning parameters i.e. Instagram’s AI will push out pics and short form videos.
Certain types of content make for better introductions than others, for instance a big rant about not getting a gig at the local festival is a terrible introduction – if people don’t know you then they can never know why you think you deserved it in the first place and if they do get introduced to you this way then they will just think of you as a dickhead.
Another woeful, terrible introduction to a band is when their lead guitarist adds you on Facebook, invites you to like his page and never says a goddamned word to you outside of that.
Making an introduction can be best achieved by video because this way you can make an up-front display of your talents, your personality and a variable – how good looking you are. Even if you look like a foot do something creative with your appearance, the best music is made by the least good looking, generally speaking.
WHO:
If you are on Instagram and are a solo artist it is a lot easier to make a video of you performing on your own as there are less annoying band-members to deal with and far less variables that can go wrong.
It is important to follow people that you actually care about and also hashtags, meaningful ones with which you are prepared to engage on a daily basis, make sure your posts are engaging and inspire comment – ask questions from time to time. People love answering questions.
WHERE:
It’s good to indicate to the algorithm where you are geographically as this way when you send out posts about where you are playing and so on instagram will push your content to the hashtags or location tags that pertain to these places – for instance if you are a folk musician playing somewhere along the Wild Atlantic Way tag #wildatlanticway and #irishfolkmusic. This way you will appear in the hashtags for that area. It is a good idea to do a sweep before doing this, a sweep being that you search these hashtags for your competition and avoid the competitions hashtags. Or live dangerously, depends on what your reach is.
WHERE (2):
Heed my words, on Instagram/ FB/ Twitter DO NOT use more than 5 hashtags – you can get away with it from time to time but, if you do it continuously, you will get what is called “shadowbanned” this means that instagram will limit your post reach for two whole weeks. It is an in built anti-spam filter. I see a lot of older folks do this on instagram and it is cringe.
You can get out of shadow banning by buying a 1 euro ad on instagram, it’s handy enough but its a pain in the ass in the first place.
General Hygiene
Basically a good thought experiment is as follows…
No matter which platform you are on) imagine you are your out of touch family member who doesn’t have a clue about technology and do everything that you would expect them not to do.
Also, the next time you get added by some sexy bot account on facebook, look at their profile and see what they are doing then do what they aren’t doing forever.
Quick little tip: you can link your Instagram and Facebook accounts together so that you can post IG stuff to FB automatically (for some reason it doesn’t go the other way). It is ill-advised to constantly post IG Content to FB though because it makes you look lazy and also the algorithms will simply push you down.
It is best to post specific things to specific platforms:
Big sappy text posts do well on Facebook
Short captions with good pictures work really well on Instagram
Being a fucking dickhead with too many opinions works perfectly on Twitter.
Heres another thought experiment:
Imagine you are Facebook – you love having people on you and you want to keep them there cause it feels so good. Then these people come along and try to take your friends off Facebook by posting links to other sites! You don’t want to look like a complete dick, in case people stop using you completely, so you let them link people to other sites but you will tax them – you show less people these links because your business model depends on people being on you. You also sweeten the deal – you let them upload this content to you and show it to more people.
FB Video does better on FB and the same goes for every other platform. I know I’ve already said this but it just really needs to be said. I don’t like this myself obviously – I think it is tyrannical – but unfortunately thats how it is.
Our next article will be on how to combine all these concepts.
If you have enjoyed this information then don’t forget to subscribe to Not Bad’s mailing list. if you like my writing here you might like my band Tuath (For fans of Ween, Deftones, Primus) and my other band Lunch Machine (FFO Breeders, King Gizzard, Psychic TV). We’re on all the socials.
I will also be doing Ableton tutorials for N00Bs from Tuath’s YouTube channel and marketing tutorials on Not Bad’s channel so hit up both of those.
Peace.
