Band Promotion 101: How to Use Social Media as a Musician
By Irene Test
Any musician in 2010 shouldn’t be asking himself, “Should I be using social media?” and instead ask, “How should I be using social media?” Part of promoting yourself involves an online presence. In the early days of social media, a musician could create a page, seek out fans in the area, and try to convince “friends” to come to their shows via bulletin. Then, the playlist feature allowed potential fans to actually hear the music.
But social media patterns change. While Myspace is on the way out, Facebook and Twitter are the latest tools for getting yourself seen on the internet. Most bands have a combination of all three, but which is most effective?
New York-area DJ and producer Mike Kiraly uses all three tools and, at the moment, prefers Facebook. He mentions, “You used to log onto Myspace two or three years ago and you could see plays and bulletin posts.” Unfortunately, Kiraly found that his page became glutted with posts from club promoters and experienced less interaction from fans. Speaking from the perspective of a musician, he says, “I think it should be harder. I think it’s so easy to promote yourself that it becomes harder for consumers to decide what’s worth listening to.”
Musicians need to go where the fans are and, at the moment, they’re all on Facebook and Twitter. Although Facebook doesn’t have a dedicated feature in the same vein as Myspace Music, features associated with creating a page are useful to promoting a band. Aside from adding your website to the Info page, tabs on Facebook allow musicians to add songs for the user to play or buy, add videos, and post bulletins. Fans, in turn, can “fan” – instead of “friend” – an act in their profile.
As far as Twitter is concerned, the micro-blogging platform is supplementary to Facebook. Fans can follow their favorite acts to experience another, more personal perspective. But, Twitter can become a vat of spam. Speaking from the perspective of a Twitter user, Kiraly mentions, “I skip over anything that has to do with promotion.” After all, nearly all of that information is available through a Facebook bulletin.
Using social media isn’t a clear-cut scenario of do-this-not-that. Instead, if you’re a musician, maintaining all three pages maximizes your exposure on the search engines, as well as the number of plays or downloads of songs. Additionally, consider adding SEO to your content, and choose your “friends” on all tools wisely, as less spam from promoters often equals more interaction.