Social media is the king of exposure in our modern world, since that is the place where people spend hours every day consuming content.
So how can you take advantage of this as a musician and music producer, to grow your artist brand, reach more people, and grow your audience and fan base.
First you need to learn a very important lesson, which is a hard pill to swallow for creative people like musicians and artists: it is NOT all about your music. It’s really not.
You have to open up to the idea of doing a lot of other type of content, that is not specifically playing your songs and compositions.
Sure, music videos and live performances will always be part of it, but in most cases those are not the the things that go viral and reach millions of people on social media.
Think about why people go on social media apps in the first place. For the most part it is to be entertained, smile, have a quick fun moment. It can be things they can relate to, laugh at, be inspired by…basically any type of content that creates a strong emotional response.
This is why memes work, why silly and nerdy can be great, why crazy and shocking things rule…when it comes to viral content on social media.
10 ways to Grow HUGE on Social Media as a Musician
- Memes & Comedy (Silly, Nerdy, Funny)
- Crazy & Shocking (Content that makes people go WTF!)
- Experiments & Exploration (Content that sparks curiosity)
- Trends & News (Following popular trends at the moment)
- Reactions & Emotions (Reacting to anything with strong emotions)
- Different & Innovative (Doing anything in a new an innovative way)
- Music Covers (Covers always beats original music)
- Live Streaming (Especially Live Performance, taking requests etc)
- Controversy & Rants (Anything you can do to spark fierce debates)
- Questions & Quizzes (People love to guess..and be right, or be funny)
Bonus Tips on Social Media for Musicians
The type of content that tends to get viral on social media is mainly short form content. It does not have to be the super short vertical videos made for phones, but it helps to keep the videos short, with no intros, and a rapid flow overall. Dead time = people leave.
It’s also much easier for you as a content creator to make these types of short form videos, instead of producing entire music videos.
Which means you can make a lot more content. And the more you create, the more you improve in things that matter on social media: pacing, flow, editing, filters, effects, graphics etc.
Also be aware of how you present yourself on camera, meaning what you wear, the background, how you act, facial expressions, energy, emotional vibe etc. It makes a huge different for how your audience will respond to your content.