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While the term 'marketing' gets tossed around a lot in the music business community, it's important to take a step back and think about what that word actually means in a 2019 context. Here Angela Mastrogiacomo breaks down how marketing can be effective for you, and why it's so crucial for you to put together an effective marketing plan.

I don't know about you, but when I hear the word "marketing" I'm instantly flooded with scenes from Mad Men, visions of charts and numbers, and a lot of floating question marks that leave me asking "wait, what exactly is marketing?!"

Or at least, that's how I used to be. These days Don Draper style deals still pop up in my mind when I put my marketing hat on, (because come on, that was a great show), but the mystery around marketing doesn't leave me in such a panicked fog. In fact, once you get to know how it works, it's kind of fascinating!

Today, we wanted to help you to better understand what marketing means, how it can work for you and why it's so crucial to your career, and what you can do to put your own effective marketing plan together and make sure your next album, live show, or IG post is getting the attention you want.

What is marketing and why is it different from PR?

Being a publicist, a lot of people tend to think what I do is actually marketing, or in some ways involves marketing. The truth is, it really doesn't. While PR (which involves getting you press coverage like interviews and reviews) is a great sidekick to marketing and vice versa-the two work incredibly well together-they are also incredibly different. That's because PR is about building on name and brand recognition and marketing is about numbers and driving sales.

Both feed into one another and together, they make for a powerful strategy, but they are incredibly different.

Why market my music?

Simply put, because whether you're the type of person who is doing this as a hobby and simply wants to get your music out there and maybe earn back some of the money you've invested or you're hoping to do this as a full-time career one day, you need marketing.

While we're on it, there's nothing shameful or wrong about making money off your art. I know there's this stigma in the industry that you're selling out if you actually you know, find success, but it's not true, and it's not a productive belief. Not if you're in this for the long haul.

As for why to market your music, it's simple:

1) You want people to hear it and
2) you want to make some kind of income from this project you've poured your heart and soul into.

Understanding your budget

One of the things you want to ask yourself is "what's my budget?" If the answer is "zero", think again. While there's a lot you can do on your own, it's incredibly time intensive, requires an initial investment in learning certain skills, and even if you can maintain that for a while, at some point if you really want to succeed, you're going to have to free up your time and double down on the strategies that are working, and that'll require a monetary investment.

For instance, you might be getting really good at social media and want to put $10 behind an ad for your next show. Or you might need to hire a graphic designer to make your album art. Remember, this is an investment in you, in your career, and in your future. Make the commitment to yourself and your career, and set aside a budget so you have it when the time comes to invest.

Questions to ask yourself

Now we're getting to the meat of the marketing plan. The first thing I want to say about this is that your marketing plan can be as comprehensive as you want it to be. Ideally you're going to want to have some substance in there, but it does not need to be a dense 50 page document that you trudge through. As a guideline, you'll want to include:

Who is my audience? Get really specific about this one. What age are they, what are their hobbies, what do they like, where do they hang out online and off? If you feel stuck, check out your analytics on FB, IG, and Twitter. You can also simply ask these things about yourself-odds are your fans are going to be very similar to you

What are your goals? Don't go crazy here, 2-3 major goals for the year is plenty. You don't want to overwhelm yourself or make goals that aren't realistic.

Brand summary: What's your brand? What are you all about? Why do you wake up every morning and do what you do?

Identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats: This is a common exercise in the marketing world.

Ask yourself what you're good at? IE: If you're great at social media, maybe you focus in there. Same thing for weaknesses. If you're awful at analytics or can't write a bio, then you know those are areas to delegate.

Next you look at your opportunities. What's out there for you? What are the specific blog or playlist placements you'd like to secure? Is there a specific venue you want to play?

Threats is anything that makes you feel a bit wobbly about your music career. For instance, maybe you've known for a while that one of your band members isn't pulling their weight and you need to address it. Maybe you've been selling the same boring Tshirt that no one is buying and you want to switch it up. Or maybe your website is always broken.

Try not to feel like these are areas to panic over-they're simply opportunities for improvement.

Putting together a timeline

Within your marketing plan you'll want to include your timeline of releases, shows, and other major events, as well as the marketing strategy behind each.

So, if you're planning to release a new EP in August you'd want to make a list of blogs, playlists, and other media you want to reach out to and how you'll do that. You'd also want to include any special events like contests you'll run with your fans (and all the details behind that), shows you'll put on and how you'll get the word out. (Ads, etc) Merch you'll make exclusively for the occasion and sell only at the show. You get the idea.

This part is a lot of fun because it not only gives you an outline of where you're headed so that you can better stay on track, but it allows you to flex those creativity muscles and brainstorm fun new ways to get the word out.

Find fresh inspiration

Don't be afraid to look to other successful artists in your genre and life stage and see what they're doing, and how you might be able to learn from their techniques. See what content they're putting on social media that's working. What kind of merch is selling out. Where are they successfully touring. Doing this kind of market research and finding inspiration and mentors within your world, is an important step throughout your career, but especially when putting together a marketing plan.

The little things count

One thing to remember throughout all of this is that the little things really do add up. It might not seem like you're doing much when you put $10 behind an ad or ask your fans to participate in a tshirt design contest, or you post a few extra times a week, but all these little things are what add up. Especially in the early days as you're growing your career, so much of this is about experimenting, seeing what works, and moving forward. Try not to get discouraged if things take time, or if one tactic doesn't work. This is all part of the process, and the more flexible and open to quickly testing and pivoting you can be, the better your chances at lasting success, as well as just having more fun while you get there.

Angela Mastrogiacomo is the founder and CEO of Muddy Paw PR, where her artists have seen placement on Alternative Press, Noisey, Substream, and more. She's also the owner of music blog Infectious Magazine.. She loves baked goods, a good book, and hanging with her dog Sawyer.

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How To Create A Great Music Marketing Plan

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While the term 'marketing' gets tossed around a lot in the music business community, it's important to take a step back and think about what that word actually means in a 2019 context. Here Angela Mastrogiacomo breaks down how marketing can be effective for you, and why it's so crucial...

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Blog covering music marketing and distribution

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Blog covering music marketing and distribution

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Ari's Take - The Biz Behind Full-Time Independent Music by musician Ari Herstand

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Ari's Take: The Biz Behind Full-Time Independent Music by musician Ari Herstand

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What do marketers want from social media in 2019?

Based on what we saw in 2018, the answer is surprisingly simple.
More ROI and less wasted time.
That's where today's suite of social media scheduling tools can save the day.

Hey, we get it. Marketers want as many shortcuts as they can get.

Having the right scheduling tools on deck can help you save time and push out more content to your audience. The more of your social strategy you put on autopilot, the more time you have to connect with your followers in real time.

Sounds like a win-win, right?

Picking the right social media scheduling tools for your business

Make no mistake: not all social media scheduling tools are created equal.

Marketers today are hungry for simple, straightforward solutions that they can roll out ASAP. Meanwhile, different businesses have different priorities in terms of their schedulers.

Maybe you're laser-focused on analytics. Perhaps you have a massive team that needs to collaborate more efficiently.

Don't worry, we've got you covered. Looking toward 2019 and beyond, we've broken down the features and benefits of the top social media scheduling tools available today.

Hey, you can't blame us for taking the top spot on our list, can you?

Seriously, though. Sprout Social represents a solution that meets the needs of small businesses and big brands alike.

An all-in-one platform that keeps marketers from juggling between software, Sprout's easy-to-use interface and powerful features set it apart from the pack when it comes to social media scheduling tools.

For starters, jumping back and forth between networks is a huge time-sink. Consider how the bulk of brands out there are publishing content to multiple social platforms. With Sprout, you can publish your latest Facebook post, Instagram photo or Pinterest Pin simultaneously.

The ability to both schedule and post across multiple networks keeps your social strategy from taking forever. In 2019, embracing social media automation is an expectation for businesses rather than an exception to the rule.

Beyond scheduling, Sprout is an awesome tool for collaboration among marketing teams. User-level permissions provide specific access to marketing managers, writers and everyone in between to contribute to your social media calendar.

And speaking of calendars, Sprout's calendar feature provides your team a bird's eye view of what's being published and promoted on any given day. This ensures that each and every piece of content you craft gets the attention it deserves.

Social media scheduling isn't just about publishing content, either. Consider how features such as Sprout's social media analytics and trend reports clue you in on how you can grow your following as well.

From analyzing hashtags to your top-performing posts, Sprout represents the ultimate optimization tool for brands looking to fine-tune their social presence in addition to scheduling content. Recently, Sprout rolled out social ad reporting for marketers hunting for a greater ROI from their paid campaigns, too.

The ability to schedule content in advance means perfectly timing your posts for maximum likes, comments and shares. Sprout's ViralPost feature helps hone in in optimal posting times, removing the guesswork of when you should post. This sort of feature is why most brands want to invest in social media scheduling tools in the first place.

Instagram is a strange beast when it comes to social media scheduling tools.

How so? Well, third-party solutions which publish directly to Instagram were once prohibited. Fast forward to present day where Instagram automation is possible via Sprout among other social media scheduling tools.

Later has the distinction of being an official partner of Instagram. In addition to real-time text notification posting that's been the traditional workout for Instagram scheduling, the platform allows for true automated publishing on single-photo posts.

Later is an ideal option for brands specifically working with visual content and focusing heavily on growing their Instagram presence.

Additional features such as real-time post previews, hashtag curation and basic analytics help brands save time publishing to Instagram while also uncovering opportunities to optimize their posts. The tool's drag-and-drop preview is likewise a nice touch for brands who are crazy about visual content.

Want to keep all of your scheduling in a single platform, though? Check out Sprout's Instagram scheduling solutions as well!

The common thread between pretty much any social scheduling tool is the same.

Saving time.

CoSchedule emphasizes efficiency for marketing teams and individuals alike. Integrating with company blogs via WordPress, the platform allows brands to publish and push content to social media simultaneously.

Additionally, CoSchedule provides a comprehensive "Top Content Report" which documents social shares and engagement. This is a fantastic feature for content creators looking to figure out which pieces are resonating most with readers.

Unlike other social media scheduling tools, CoSchedule primarily focuses on content versus solely social performance. Features such as the "ReQueue" Bucket allow teams to recycle and schedule their best messages automatically without having to lift a finger. This results in more fresh content in your brand's feed faster.

There's no denying that one of the biggest challenges of social media scheduling is content curation.

Digging for fresh pieces of content can be both time-consuming and tiring. Meanwhile, you don't want to solely post your own stuff over and over, right?

That's where Feedly comes in.

Feedly's platform automatically curates content to fill up your social media calendar. Instead of scrambling for news or relevant pieces to publish to your audience in-between your own posts, Feedly does the legwork for you.

Again, managing your social feeds shouldn't eat up all of your free time. Tools like Feedly take the pressure off of marketers to constantly save and bookmark content for future sharing.

Oh, and Feedly integrates instantly with Sprout Social. Nice, right?

If you can't tell by now, social media scheduling and content creation go hand in hand.

Every time you sit down to knock out a blog post, you probably already have your audience in the back of your mind.

You want to craft pieces that have potential to get shared around like crazy. You want to get as much mileage as you can via social sharing so that piece of content is seen by as many people as possible.

That means planning out your content, plain and simple.

Airtable brings the processes of content planning and social media scheduling together. The platform can be used among teams or individuals to not only plan out future pieces of content but how those posts will be promoted across various social sites.

Another nice bonus of Airtable is its asset manager. This feature affords users a sense of consistency across your campaigns and ads prior to hitting "publish."

In short, Airtable allows you stay one step ahead by assessing what your social media posts will look like before your content even goes live. Never hurts to be prepared, does it?

Looking for a seriously simple scheduling solution that's only focused on Twitter? Check out Tweetdeck.

Integrating with Twitter in an instant, Tweetdeck represents a straightforward scheduling tool that allows you to queue tweets across multiple accounts.

Set up your Tweet, pick a time and watch it go live. Nothing fancy, but effective nonetheless.

Despite its simplicity, Tweetdeck also boasts a comprehensive Twitter dashboard for users. You can see your live feed in addition to notifications, mentions and other activity all in one place.

Tweetdeck represents a totally free upgrade to your Twitter account. Even if you use another scheduling tool, you might consider toying around with the platform just for fun.

Planable boasts many features typical of today's' social media scheduling tools with an emphasis on teamwork and collaboration.

Most notable is Planable's commenting and approval system for scheduled posts. Team members are able to go back and forth with comments to fine-tune scheduled content before it goes live. Users can then approve the posts internally or wait for client approval if working as part of an agency team.

Roles and permissions allow different departments to collaborate so that everyone is on the same page. This leads to fewer bottlenecks and greater transparency as a post moves from Point A to Point B.

Although Sked Social is no longer Schedugram due to its recent rebrand, their Instagram features are definitely ones worth noting.

Sked Social's content queue allows users to prep photos, captions and hashtags for repeated use. Much like Later, the platform provides a real-time, drag-and-drop preview of your Instagram posts before they go live. This allows for quick and easy changes if you're not happy with your feed's aesthetics.

Built-in post templates and a variety of photo editing filters are nice creative touches to help your posts pop, too. The platform itself is highly intuitive for those working with visual content on Instagram.

Looking at the best times to post on social media, there's a clear expectation for brands to push out a ton of content.

In addition to scheduling posts as normal, Post Planner assists with the process of content curation. Again, you can't just blast your own content over and over if you want to grow your following.

Post Planner curates posts based on specific hashtags and keywords, assigning star-ratings to pieces based on how relevant they'd be to your audience.

The tool also picks the best times to post based on audience data. The planning section also highlights the different types of content you're posting (article, video, photo, etc) and how each piece if performing. Like other social media scheduling tools, Post Planner allows users to repeat and recycle top-performing posts, too.

And that wraps up our list!

How are you taking advantage of social media scheduling tools?

Brands of all shapes and sizes are using social media scheduling tools to grow their followings, save time and push out more content.

And given the fast-paced nature of the web at large, having these tools on deck is crucial for keeping your business' content from getting lost in the shuffle.

We want to hear from you, though! What features do you find to be most important for a social media scheduling tool? If you haven't gotten started with social scheduling, what's holding you back? Let us know in the comments below!

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9 top social media scheduling tools to save time in 2019

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What do marketers want from social media in 2019? Based on what we saw in 2018, the answer is surprisingly simple. More ROI and less wasted time. That's where today's suite of social media scheduling tools can save the day. Hey, we get it. Marketers want as many shortcuts as they can get.

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Ramp up your next social media campaign by adding beautifully designed graphics! Choose from our library of professionally designed layouts for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and more.

Create social media campaigns for free

If you're a new brand starting out or an existing one looking to improve your social media strategy - visual content will help establish your online identity.

Between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, almost three billion people are active social media users. So how can you leverage them to your business? The answer is simple - by creating interesting and engaging social media graphics.

Canva's social media layouts can be used on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram. Get free acesss to over 100 layouts, allowing you to create stunning graphics in just minutes!

Social Media Posts (Quotes and Inspiration)

Facebook Covers

Facebook Posts

Facebook Apps

Twitter Banners

Twitter Posts

Instagram Posts

Pinterest Graphics

Google+ Cover

Youtube Channel Art

Create social media graphics in under 5 minutes!

1. Open Canva in your web browser or on our iPhone, iPad or Android apps.

2. Choose from professional layouts for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram and more.

3. Upload your own photos or choose from over 1 million stock images.

4. Fix your images, add stunning filters and edit text.

5. Save and share.

Customize your social media designs in a few clicks

1. Change the images. Upload your own images or choose from our stock library of over 1 million photographs, graphics and illustrations.

2. Change the fonts. Choose from of over 130 fresh fonts.

3. Change the background. Choose a background from our library or use an image.

4. Change the colors. Change the color of your text boxes and text to add extra flair.

Design social media campaigns without a budget

Canva makes is easy and affordable to create quality social media graphics. Our library of social media layouts are free to use as many times as you like, making it easy to update your social profiles regularly.

To create professional designs using premium stock photography, you'll never pay more than $1 per image. There are no other costs or fees associated with designing in Canva.

Use professionally designed layouts or create your own

Canva's library is home to hundreds of professional designed social media layouts created by our team of awesome designers. From cover images for Facebook to a graphic for Twitter or Pinterest, Canva has all of your social media design needs covered. You can also use your own designs as layouts by duplicating them and creating a new graphic.

Share your designs straight to social

Just click the "Share" button in Canva to post your new design straight to your Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter profile.

Watermarks are used to brand or to protect paid images that are owned by the photographer. After creating your design in Canva, simply click the Download button and choose to export your design as an JPEG, PNG or PDF.
As this point you will be prompted to pay for any images within your design. Once you do, your image or PDF will download straight to your computer without the watermarks.

You can edit and save your social media design as many times as you like. Every time you create a new design it will appear in the "My Designs" section of your Canva homepage. You can also access all your designs on your mobile device through our iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

To allow other people to edit your social media graphic, select "Share/email as an editable design". This will give your team members access to edit your design in their personal Canva account.

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Design Awesome Graphics For Social Media With Canva

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Ramp up your next social media campaign by adding beautifully designed graphics! Choose from our library of professionally designed layouts for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and more. If you're a new brand starting out or an existing one looking to improve your social media strategy - visual content will help establish your online identity.

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Apart from a plethora of social media and music marketing solutions, musicians these days can also exploit various music merchandise solutions (i.e."band merch") to help grow their brand. Band merch can be a great way to earn supplemental and residual income to help finance upcoming recordings, shows and promotions. Band merch has the potential to deliver significant sources of income, which is a huge reason why your band may want to consider setting up a Merch Store. The synergistic combo of garnering both sales revenue AND viral merch marketing is an appealing tactic in today's catalytic yet convoluted music marketplace.

Now, you might feel intimidated to start selling t-shirts, hoodies, posters, and other swag. Who wouldn't, especially when money is scarce and cash is king. Selling merch is not anything like selling music, and you might be confused about where to start, especially when trying to design your band logo or finance manufacturing. Don't worry. There are a lot of solutions out there! With an online Merch Store solution, you can literally setup your online store within an hour. Just remember, when loyal fans are wearing your band's swag, it'll 'posterize' your brand and create viral momentum. What costs you $5 to make will not only earn you $10 when sold, it will also generate a walking-talking marketing machine throughout the world!

Let's take a look at the 10 online merch store providers that independent musicians can use.

Dizzyjam is a dedicated online merch store provider for musicians. It is completely free to sign up with Dizzyjam. Dizzyjam provides a unique store url like bandname.dizzyjam.com, manages printing and shipping of the orders, generates embed codes with lots of customization, sets up a Facebook store to enable direct selling to your fans and sends you the profit every two months through Paypal.

MyMinto is another popular online merch store provider among independent musicians. MyMinto has a free plan to start with. However, it also has three paid subscription plans that provide added features and benefits. With the free account, a band can have up to 100 products and 10 pages for its store with MyMinto, which is more than sufficient for any band. On the downside, the free plan doesn't include a mobile store or digital product selling and does not allow the band to use custom URL for the store.

It is probably not as visually pleasing as its more famous competitors, but FourFour is loaded with features. FourFour is completely free to use. You can sell your branded t-shirts, posters, mugs, and even music tracks through a FourFour store.

Shopify is a great merch store solution for independent bands and musicians. You can start with a 14-day free trial but have to choose a paid plan to continue using the service. It is very quick and easy to setup a store with Shopify and with the themes they provide, you can have a beautiful branded store in minutes. You can sell your music, other downloadable products and merch items through Shopify. You need to use a Shopify app like Printful or Merchify to sell apparel items.

With Bandzoogle, you will not have a store only- Bandzoogle provides all-in-one web presence platform for bands and musicians. With Bandzoogle, you can build a stunning website with store, blog, and even an email marketing tool. There is a 30-day free trial and it has three subscription plans, starting from $8.29/month.

If you are looking forward to selling a wide range of merch items through your band store, Galloree can be the perfect solution. Though it is not a dedicated-for-musicians service, it offers a really extensive range of different merch products that includes t-shirts, girls and babies apparels, tote bags, skateboards, device skins and cases, drinkware, art print, sportswear, hats and even socks. It is completely free to open a store with Galloree.

MerchDirect helps your band to sell anything directly to your fan base. You can sell your music or merch items or tickets. In fact, with MerchDirect, you can deliver any type of fan fulfillment. Operating since 1999, MerchDirect can be an affordable and convenient store solution for your band.

Want to open a well-designed store with a range of merch items? DistrictLine can be the solution you are looking for. You need to apply by filling out a form to open a store with DistrictLine. However, once your application is approved, they will take a lot of pain related to product processing, manufacturing, inventory management and promotion.

If your band has a huge fan following, GoMerch can be your store management and merch distribution partner considering GoMerch's strength with managing product/album launching campaigns. GoMerch is a sophisticated and all-around solution that includes vip pre-sales offers, pre-order campaigns, social media management, email marketing and branded apparel & product manufacturing.

Despite still being in beta phase, ArtistGap is a promising online merch store solution for bands. It is very easy to setup a store with ArtistGap and everything else i.e. printing, packaging and shipping is managed by ArtistGap.

Depending on your requirements, you can choose among these top 10 Merch Store providers or search for more. If you are already using a Merch Store provider, please let us know by leaving a comment about which service you are using for this purpose and what you feel about that service.

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10 Online Merch Store Solutions for Independent Musicians and Bands - Sugo Music Group

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Apart from a plethora of social media and music marketing solutions, musicians these days can also exploit various music merchandise solutions (i.e."band merch") to help grow their brand. Band merch can be a great way to earn supplemental and residual ...

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Best Times to Post on Social Media in 2023

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Sprout reveals the best times to post on social media for peak engagement. Armed with this data is a game changer to your social strategy.

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As musicians and artists, we all want the maximum exposure for our work, and we know social media is the #1 (free) way of getting our creations in front of people. Unfortunately, us musos are also on a budget and need to be very shrewd about how we manage our finances.

There are plenty of essential costs involved with being a musician, such as recording, touring, and making sure you have your music available on all the right platforms. The following social media tips will help you to grow your online presence without having to shell out any of the band's kitty.
Want to get a blue tick on your Twitter profile? Here's how to get verified on Twitter.
Social Media for Musicians

Learn How To Engage & Grow Your Social Media Following For Free
1. Invite 'likers' of your Facebook posts to like your artist page
This isn't a widely known function on Facebook (though it is a very valuable one!). It enables you not only to grow your followers, but also make sure that the people that you do invite have already shown an interest in you; meaning it is much less of a 'cold-calling' approach.

Acting as your artist page, simply go to a previous (well-performing) post, click on the 'likes' and you will be shown a list of all those who people who interacted with the post. If some on the list do not already like your page you can then simply click on 'invite'. If you weren't aware of this function before it might be worth spending a bit of time going through all your old posts!
2. Use Twitter lists
Not only are Twitter lists a sensible way of keeping your chaotic life as a musician, manager and PR person a little bit more in order, but they also help you quickly locate the people you want to reach AND help you start and nurture relationships.

If you haven't explored lists already, the initial process takes a few hours. But it is totally worth it. Go through all the people you follow on Twitter and start adding them to custom lists. They could be producers, labels, music blogs, PR companies etc. It really is empowering to be able to tailor your Twitter feeds depending on what you are looking for at that time.

But the best thing? When you add someone to a list they receive a notification. This is your chance to give them a bit of love and make them aware of you! So when curating your lists you can name them things like 'Producers I'd love to work with', 'Great taste blogger', 'Sick bands' etc. This will definitely encourage who you add to take a look at your page, which is why the next couple of tips are so important...
3. Don't waste valuable space on your social media profiles
This applies to all the artist pages you have (and for even better exposure why not your personal ones?). We're talking about header images. This is one of the first things people see when they discover your profile, so make it count. Not only should it look nice (and I'm sure it does..) but this is free advertising space!

If you have a tour coming up you should have a well-designed header image with your dates on, or if you have a new release; you should be pushing it here. And don't forget to have your artist's website / landing page or a 'Call To Action' on there too. Changing your header image regularly is also a good way of getting some engagement from your followers. As everybody has a social media profile of their own, they know that changing your header and then it showing up in their feed is not necessarily "your fault" (ie. you are not intentionally advertising), so they are more likely to throw you a like (try it!).
4. Make use of your pinned posts
This tip is in keeping with the above, and it is amazing how few people actually pin a baller post to their page. If you're anything like most people on social media, then you probably post a lot of stuff; some good, some bad, some that has high engagement, some that has none. That is only natural.
5. Write blog posts
But when an A&R person, or prospective future fan visits your page (maybe they got notified because you added them to a list?..) what do you really want them to see? Choose the post that best represents you as an artist and pin that to the top of your page. I would suggest this should be an embedded music video with a link to your landing page, and not that picture of you wasted you just posted at 4am that got no likes because everyone else was in bed.

This isn't as difficult as it sounds, or as it used to be. You don't need to be a master of WordPress. Use an online program such as medium.com to quickly and easily knock up a blog post. It doesn't have to be long; it could be just a collection of photos and a bit of text documenting your time in the studio, or about the gig you played last night. Not only does it look good on your profiles but it gives you more opportunities to extend your network and reach by including others in your articles.
6. Google Alerts
Did you play on a killer line-up at the weekend? Write about the show, include some pictures, give the other bands, the sound guy, the photographer, the venue and fans a shout out by linking out to their pages too. Send the post to whoever features in it and you might just find they share the blog post too, which, if you've been clever, will also heavily feature plenty of content about yourself such as an embedded video, tour dates, or a link to your landing page. Not only is medium.com a great platform in itself for networking and sourcing interesting stories, you also of course have some great content for your own social channels too!

Google alerts are so easy, so valuable and so underused! Set up a dedicated Gmail account (don't use the one you may already have, as you will be getting a lot of daily alerts!). This can be used for two very important functions for you as an artist:

* You can set alerts for your band or artist name and the names of your singles, EPs or albums, which means whenever you're mentioned anywhere on the web you will be notified. For instance, this could be a blog from the other side of the world you've never heard of picking up your latest release (always good to know!). Getting these alerts not only provides you with something cool to post (and tag the writers in), but makes you feel pretty good too!
7. Use inbound advertising
* You can set alerts for interesting 3rd party content you think would entertain YOUR audience, so your feed isn't just all "me, me, me". This could be news about bands that you and your fans love, articles about your political persuasion, 'funny' posts (dank memes are still the most engaging content out there, I'm afraid...) or just general interest stories. If your audience trusts you as an authority of cool content distribution they are much more likely to engage with your own self-serving posts.

Sounds technical? Not at all. Basically, inbound advertising just means driving people that visit you at a certain touchpoint (in this case your social media posts) back to your landing page. As mentioned above there are opportunities to do this (by posting your own blog content and providing plenty of opportunities to send the reader to your website) but I also wanted to touch on a great free online tool called snip.ly.
8. Landing Page
Using this you can take 3rd party links (remember how you set up Google Alerts to get them?) and embed your own 'floating ad' that links the reader back to your landing page of choice. You can add a custom tagline and a Call To Action button. So if you were, for example, posting an article about Green Day, you could create a banner that says "Like Pop-Punk music? Check out this new band" that links to your site. Another bonus is that you are provided with all the statistics about how your posts perform, so you can see exactly what content is getting you the most engagement and fans.

This is a phrase I have already used a lot in this article and you may be thinking "what does he mean, landing page?". Basically, this is the page you want your audience to land on. This would, ideally, be a page on your website where your audience can hear (and purchase!) your music. Make sure all your social posts have a link to this one page.
9. Check out the #TrendingHashtags of the day
On this page you can also have links to connect to your social profiles! (like on Facebook, follower on Twitter etc.) You can also embed your streaming profiles and live Twitter and Facebook feeds on your landing page.

You don't have to do this religiously, and should probably avoid specifically tailoring your content to suit the trending topics. But before you post, take a look at the trending hashtags. If your content is somehow related to one of the hot trends of the day (or can easily be adapted to include the hashtag) give it a whirl!
10. Don't cannibalise your Facebook posts
This can put you in front of a whole new audience. If you can create something original and clever that stands out from the crowd you will see a lot more re-tweets, which creates a snowball effect and makes you more visible to a LOT of people who never previously knew you existed.

This means; don't make your posts compete with each other, or allow them to affect each other negatively. If you've made a great post that has your audience really engaged, make sure you follow up with something well thought out to capitalise on your recent victory.

The way Facebook's algorithms work means that if people are actively engaging with you, your posts become more visible in your fans' newsfeeds (yes, you get 'rewarded' for your content's performance!). On the flipside, if you are posting regularly and not getting any likes or shares, you will be a lot less visible full stop.

With this in mind try to be aware that the content of your Facebook posts really does matter, and if you can, try to make them as valuable to your fans as possible and don't just throw out whatever. I like to think of it like getting a strike in bowling, and then throwing a gutter ball on your next go - it's almost like the strike counted for nothing and now you've got to get another strike.
Have you had success on social media using any of these tips? Or do you have any more advice to share about making the most of Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. Let us know in the comments! Lee Jones is a social media specialist, freelance blogger on music and tech-related subjects, a music producer and the Creative Director of his own start-up: TAD: An iOS cover-art app for DIY musicians.
An extra tip to increase engagement on your posts - TAG TAG TAG! Tag all the people who are involved in your pics or videos and any companies or establishments (venues etc.). This will increase the reach of your posts by appearing on the newsfeeds of the friends of those you have tagged.

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10 Essential Social Media Tips For Musicians and Bands

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As musicians and artists, we all want the maximum exposure for our work, and we know social media is the #1 (free) way of getting our creations in front of people. Unfortunately, us musos are also on a budget and need to be very shrewd about how we manage our finances.

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Let's be honest: marketing as a musician is tough.

On any given day there are a million must-do's and hardly enough hours to get them done, right?

Promoting your latest songs. Networking for new gigs. Fighting for the attention of fresh fans.

Exhausting? You bet.

But ever-so-rewarding when it all comes together.

Since musicians are often so busy, you need to make the most of your time spent marketing.

And if you're laser-focused on building up your SoundCloud or Bandcamp presence, you might want to consider expanding your horizons to social platforms.

For the sake of building up a base or rabid followers and getting discovered by new ones, understanding the in's and out's of social media for musicians is a matter of "when," not "if."

Why social media marketing for musicians matters so much

Make no mistake: social media isn't some sort of silver bullet for musicians with stars in their eyes.

However, a smart social presence is undoubtedly the best way to grow your audience and fill space at your gigs.

How so?

For starters, consider that your audience is likely glued to social media regardless of your genre. In fact, Instagram recently passed a billion active users while Facebook boasts two billion daily active users themselves. These numbers blow the likes of SoundCloud and Bandcamp out of the water.

Oh, and did you know that YouTube is technically the most popular music streaming service right now, beating out Spotify and Apple Music? Making sure you're set with how to promote your music on YouTube can help ensure you've got visibility on the best channels.

Besides, an optimized social presence can signal your status as a professional. In an industry where competition is so cutthroat, having pristine profiles out there lets people know that you're anything but an amateur.

That said, social media for musicians can be a bit tricky.

With so many platforms to choose from and a need to stand out from the crowd, where should you focus your energy? What should you post?

Heck, where should you even start?

Relax.

In the guide below, we've outlined the best practices of social media for musicians including how to set up your profiles and come up with a content calendar that totally kills it.

Now, let's dive in!

Start by optimizing your profiles

When someone looks you up, they're more than likely going to find your social profiles via Google or through Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

That's why having a clean, optimized profile on each platform is a top priority.

Before worrying too much about content or creative touches, you need to ensure that your profiles tick the following three boxes:

Make your profile or bio link count by always pointing to your latest promotion (think: new song, album, tour or merch)

Your profile pictures and covers are correctly sized for social

Ensure that any and all profile information is accurate and up-to-date including tour dates or events

The beauty of social media for musicians is that you have tons of creative freedom beyond these three points.

Let's take a moment to look at what an optimized musician profile looks like in the wild.

Using a stylized band photo, Weezer's Twitter bio highlights their latest album, singles, fan store and tour dates. That's a lot of information to pack into such a small space, but you can make it happen by being economical with your copy and choosy with your links.

Meanwhile, blink-182's Instagram highlights their tour dates and Las Vegas residency, in addition to social-specific hashtags they want their fans to tag themselves with.

Don't neglect valuable real estate such as your cover photos, too. Here's a great example of Fall Out Boy's cover photo promo, which scores bonus points by being visually striking as well.

If you want that sort of professional vibe for your profile without hiring a designer, don't fret. There are tons of image creation tools out there like Canva that can help you create your own banner, tour announcement and everything in-between.

And although imagery certainly matters, it's perhaps most prudent to make sure that you never let your profiles gather cobwebs. For example, you should always have Facebook events on deck for your shows if the venue you're playing at isn't doing the legwork of promotion themselves.

Now that your profile is squared away, there's the still the issue of content.

That is, how do you keep your social feed filled with fresh stuff for your followers?

Good question!

Keep your followers in the loop

You shouldn't worry about doing too much self-promotion given that's what social media marketing for musicians is all about.

As such, there's no need to be shy about whatever is new in your world.

New song? Upcoming album? Hitting the road?

Let people know!

Considering how to promote your music on Instagram can be challenging thanks to things like fickle algorithms and how fast social media moves in the first place, but frequent hype posts are totally fair game.

Additionally, it's a smart move to put together frequent fliers and announcements which are perfect for pinned tweets or posts. That way, anyone visiting your profile can know exactly what you have going on.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhxJtr-lh86/?taken-by=haimtheband

Oh, and bear in mind that social selling is totally fair game for musicians. Through creative promotions and sales, you can hawk your merch via social with no shame.

Show off yourself in action

When you follow a band or artist on social media, it's because you want to see them in action, right?

Well, your followers feel the same way.

If you're regularly touring or playing shows and not sure how to promote your music on Facebook efficiently, shouting out attendees and posting pictures of your performances is a good start.

Also remember that your fans can be a fantastic source of content themselves.

Encouraging user-generated content in the form of tagged fan photos is a brilliant way to interact with fans and show them a bit of love, too. Reposting these photos is a subtle yet significant way to create a stronger connection with your audience and let them know you're listening to them.

Posting new content doesn't have to be a massive production, either. If you have some time to kill, why not record a quick off-the-cuff social video to keep your feed fresh?

Post some behind-the-scenes content

On a related note, a huge piece of social media marketing for musicians is authenticity.

Rather than just post promo after promo, it also pays to connect to your followers on a more personal level.

A low-hanging way to do just that is to post content that takes your followers behind the scenes.

Whether you're traveling across the country or just sitting in the studio, don't neglect the power of a candid snapshot. Such posts are windows into your world and are much more entertaining than 99% of what's probably already in your followers' feeds. They can even serve as some much-needed escapism for your fans.

And if nothing else, behind-the-scenes photos also give you an opportunity to show off your personality.

Again, you need to post with regular consistency to stay relevant to your fans and followers. Given that it only takes a few seconds to snag a snapshot to post to your Facebook or Instagram story, consider behind-the-scenes shot as a sort of "backup plan" if you don't have anything else to publish.

Now that you know how easy it is to stock up on content ideas so you never run out of things to post, you'll also want to consider your social media posting schedule for getting all of that content in front of fans. You can use the Sprout Social Calendar to plan posts in advance. You can even let Sprout's ViralPost choose the best posting times for you, so you get the most out of all of those photos and posts you've curated. Both features let you reduce the amount of time you need to spend each day just figuring out what to post and when to post it, so you can spend more time on everything else on your to-do list.

Tag brands, venues and other musicians

It's well-documented that tagging serves as a way to instantly increase the visibility of your posts on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

As such, it never hurts to tag others in your posts where appropriate. Some examples of smart tagging include:

Boosting brands (think: instruments or clothing) that you can show off in your performance photos

Shouting-out a venue where you're performing

Highlighting fellow musicians you're touring with or someone whose song you're covering

Who knows: you could score a big-time follower or repost from an industry player through tactical tagging. Although tags might not seem like a big deal, anything you can do to get more eyes on your profiles is a point in your favor.

Interact with your fans

This might seem like a no-brainer, but don't overlook the importance of going back-and-forth with fans.

Maybe they love your new song. Perhaps they have a question about your latest merch.

Either way, responding and retweeting shows that you're listening to them. While it might not be a big deal to you, shout-outs can make fans feel positively starstruck and encourage them to be even more loyal followers in the long-run.

Carve out some time throughout the day to respond to fans, paying close attention to your notifications and mentions in the process. Obviously, it makes sense to prioritize questions that deal with shows or merchandise: try to get to those within a few hours if possible.

Make YouTube a top priority

Last but not least, let's talk about YouTube.

While you might not think of YouTube as a traditional social network, the platform's insanely active community tells an entirely different story.

As noted, YouTube is the number one place where people stream music versus Spotify, Pandora and a whole slew of other services combined.

And no, it's not even close.

Since people are more familiar with YouTube versus music-specific sites like SoundCloud or Bandcamp, having your music present on the platform flat out makes sense. While YouTube streaming isn't exactly a cash cow, simply being there is totally worth it.

When it comes to social media for musicians, there are some specific YouTube optimization tips to consider.

To start, make sure that your video descriptions are fully filled out including tags and links. Since YouTube gives you plenty of real estate in video descriptions, feel free to highlight as many promotions or social profiles as you see fit.

Another way to look less "amateur hour" on YouTube is by optimizing your videos' thumbnails. Some simple overlay text is a subtle yet significant way to make your videos stand out from the crowd via search.

Finally, a brilliant move for gaining traction on YouTube as a musician is to publish cover songs.

This is more of an artistic tip versus a purely social one but it deserves your attention regardless.

The common thread between many of the biggest musical names on YouTube?

That's right. Covers. Lots of 'em.

Especially if you're an up-and-comer, covers a long-term way to expose yourself to an audience that's unfamiliar with your work. Case in point, this cover of the Cranberries' "Zombie" amassed nearly 130 million views within the span of six months.

Woah.

Think as covers as a sort of gateway to your original music. While you are by no means compelled to post them, they're a safe bet for growing your audience if you're starting from zero.

And with that, we wrap up our guide!

Any more questions on social media for musicians?

We get it: musicians are busy.

As a result, you need to squeeze the most you possibly can out of your schedule.

By optimizing your profiles from the word "go" and always having fresh content in mind, managing your accounts becomes second nature.

We still want to hear from you, though. What do you think is the biggest challenge of social media for musicians? Which platforms are your top priorities? Let us know in the comments below!

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The complete guide to social media for musicians

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Let's be honest: marketing as a musician is tough. On any given day there are a million must-do's and hardly enough hours to get them done, right? Promoting your latest songs. Networking for new gigs. Fighting for the attention of fresh fans. Exhausting? You bet. But ever-so-rewarding when it all comes together.