Facebook is still the largest social media platform with over 2 billion users. This means that most people in the 1st and 2nd world have Facebook accounts. Although the popularity of Facebook has dropped in recent years it is still by far one of the most effective ways to promote music. Facebook has helped countless artists break into the music industry, many of these artists have had clear marketing strategies that have helped them utilize the platform to its full potential. In this guide, we will highlight the key areas you should be focusing on to help you make it to be big time!
Creating a page
The first thing you will need to promote music on Facebook is a dedicated page. Some musicians try to use a personal page to share their music however If you want to make it to the big time you’ll need a dedicated business page. It’s pretty straightforward to do this but it is important to optimize your page and fill out as much information as possible. Ensure that you have professional looking imagery, an engaging bio (that describes you as an artist), and all your up-to-date contact information. You can also select a category for your page, this should be set to a musician.
Getting followers
Now that you have a page setup you need to get some followers otherwise there will be no one to see your content. The first thing you should do is invite all your Facebook friends to like your page, this can get you your first few hundred page likes. You can go one setup further than this by asking your family or close friends to invite their friends to like your page. Depending on how big your extended friend network is you can have 1000’s page likes with minimal effort. The next thing you should do is list your Facebook page on all other social media channels, streaming sites, and websites. If you don’t have anything like this set up yet, print off some flyers to hand out when your performing to give to anyone listening.
Build a contact list
Something which Facebook can be useful for is collecting email addresses which can help you build out a solid email list. Once you have collected a good number of emails you can start sending out promotional content directly to fans. You can set up an email collection link on your page like a subscribe button or you can ask users to provide their email when they like your page. We would recommend having some sort of incentive for them to give you their email. This could be something such as an exclusive track download or a signed item. You want to try and give away something which would have little or no cost to you. The value of an email from an engaged fan can be invaluable to it should be part of your wider marketing strategy.
Quality Content
Once you have some followers you need to keep them engaged with you and your brand. If your simply posting links to YouTube videos or your songs on Spotify users will scroll past it. The key is to stand out from the crowd and be a little bit different. Video has been proven to be a lot more effective than a still image or text. Try creating some social media content where you’re doing a challenge or even just talking. A good tactic to stop people scrolling past your content is to add a banner of text within your video or image which describes the content. This is because Facebook mutes video content by default and users will often skim past small text. If you start posting low-quality or spammy content your fans may stop engaging with it or even unfollow your page.
Regular Content
One of the hardest things to do when trying to promote yourself on Facebook is to post regular content. Many musicians starting out will have many things going on in their lives which isn’t related to their music career. The truth is if you want to make you need to be dedicated. You’ll need to post content to your Facebook page on daily basis, sometimes twice a day! The reason behind this is that you want to keep yourself in the minds of your fans. People these days have short attention spans and could easily forget about you. There is a flip side to this however, posting too much content can actually have a negative effect. If you spam low-quality content to your fans they may choose to hide your content from their timeline. We advise creating a content plan and even scheduling content to be posted throughout the week. If you have some free time on a weekend you could produce all your content and not have to worry about it throughout the week.
Posting Stories
Following the popularity of Snapchat’s stories feature Facebook jumped on the bandwagon by introducing it to Instagram and now Facebook. Stories are an underutilized feature on Facebook as many users opt to post them on Instagram. This means that there is much less competition when having your content seen. Stories are shown for 24 hours and are shown quite prominently at the top of the user’s timeline. Stories are a great way to bring attention to something you are trying to promote that day or week. The main purpose of stories however is to keep your fans thinking about you throughout the day. If a user is thinking about it on regular basis they are much more likely to interact with you across all your digital channels.
Competitions
Running competitions can be a great way to increase your following on Facebook. The most common type of Facebook competition is to offer a random prize to everyone who likes and shares a post. The winner would also need to follow the page. This means that anyone who wants to win the prize will have to share the competition with all their friends and like your page. This can really increase the visibility of your page and gain more followers fast. It’s always important to post the name of the winner so people don’t think the competitions are fake. Another competition idea is to ask users to comment on an idea or suggestion for something, meaning the prize is would not cost you anything. This could be something like naming a song on your album.
Add CTA
We would advise do add CTA (call to action) on your posts and page. This is a button and link which tries to get a user to do something. This can really useful if you’re trying to sell tickets to a concert or you’ve just released some new merchandise. If you use paid ads you can actually have a CTA button within the post which can be very effective. You can have CTA on your page’s header, this should be used to promote your most important asset.
Keep your Banner Up-To-Date
Something else which you should also keep updated on is your main Facebook banner. Facebook banners take up a large portion of screen space so it needs to utilize. We advise keeping this updated with your latest promotion. If you have just launched a new song or music video make sure your banner is promoting it. You’ll be making a huge mistake is keeping the same banner and never updating it.
Offer Exclusives
An effective social media marketing tactic is to offer exclusive deals. This means users will have to follow your page to get these deals. This can work well if you promote it on other social media channels to bring over your followers. For example, tell your Twitter fans about your exclusive Facebook deals and you should increase your followers. Offering something like early access to new songs or discounted merch can work well. Facebook users will be also more likely to check your page on a regular basis which will help engagement.
Live Stream
Live streaming has become extremely popular during the COVID-19 pandemic as artists can perform live. Social media platforms have jumped on this trend and made it easier than ever to stream to your fans. Live streaming is also a great way to stand out from other pages on Facebook as a live stream generates a notification to all fans along with being shown high up their newsfeeds. If you schedule live steam as an event users will save the date/time and it will guarantee you some more views. Facebook also allows you to save performances as video. This gives you another piece of good content which you can share.
Reply to Comments
One of the best ways to influence the Facebook newsfeed algorithm is to generate more comments on your posts. You can do this by replying to comments and creating conversations with your fans. This also adds a nice personal touch and shows that you are interacting with your fanbase.
Summary
Facebook is brilliant for social media marketing and should be a large part of your online marketing strategy. We would advise looking into paid ads if you haven’t got much of an initial following. It can be tough at the beginning but you should never give up!.
