Getting Started With Social Media – For Artistes.

Social media, for anyone, is a lot of work. For artistes who already have to worry about creating great music, it is much more than posting and scrolling. It requires consistency and strategy.  Asking yourselves these FOUR important questions could be a step forward in achieving your Social Media goals this year:

1. HOW IMPORTANT IS SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOU “NOW”?

2. WHAT’S YOUR ONLINE PERSONA/BRAND?

3. WHAT CHANNELS BEST FIT YOUR BRAND?

4. WHAT KIND OF CONTENT CAN YOU CREATE?

The answers will be really helpful in creating your social media strategy.

1. How Important is Social Media to you now?

Social media has recently proven to be a relatively cheaper, yet more effective music marketing tool. For most independent acts, social is all they’ve got due to the cost of traditional marketing channels.

Realizing how important social media is to you should inform your behavior towards it.

2. What’s Your Online Persona/Brand?

Some artistes know how important social is to them but don’t know how to express themselves online. Your online persona could be an extension of who you are offline or even a completely different personality entirely. However:

• Start in your comfort zone. Are you naturally funny or witty? Start with that.
• The personality should align with the music. (Think Blaqbonez)
• A strong personality is important for fans to relate with you as a person and not just some robot.

3. What Channels Best Fit Your Brand?

Not everyone will be comfortable dancing on Tiktok and that’s okay. Once you clearly understand your online persona, you can easily choose what platforms will be the most suitable for you. (Davido – IG Stories, Mayorkun – Snapchat, Blaqbonez – Twitter)

As much as certain personalities work best with certain platforms maintain a reasonable presence across all major platforms.

4. What Kind of Content Can You Create?

Artistes are no longer just music makers, they’re now content creators too. What kind of content can you comfortably create?

• Videos? (Behind the scenes/covers/freestyles/LIVEs/Tiktok/Skit)
• Newsletter/Articles/Blogpost??
• Photos/Memes?
• Creating content that is not exactly promotional is a great way of connecting organically with fans and building an online presence.