Online, your image is almost as important as your music. Your digital presence is one of the essential levers of your success. For a successful digital music promotion, you need a digital communication plan. It sounds like a snooze fest at first glance, but it really will help you move forward consistently. You don’t move forward in life without a plan, without goals, and when you’re trying to make your music known, it’s the same.
The best piece of communication advice is: plan. Then, test your plan to draw conclusions. Getting started in music and getting your name out there means managing a digital project, for which you will have to create content using various communication tools. The time has come for you to specialize in digital communication. Do it for the sake of your music! Here are the 10 commandments for an effective digital music promotion, take note!
As an artist, promoting your music involves posting content on social media. Everyone knows regularity is key. If you only use social media when you have albums to present, you may not get the best returns. That’s why you need a communication plan.
Any expert in community management will confirm that to retain eyeballs (and ears, in our case), you must show a certain regularity. Otherwise, people will go elsewhere and the algorithms of various networks will not favor your content. So, establish a digital strategy, not only for a specific event, but throughout your music career. Set up a clear editorial line, and you’ll gain notoriety and eventually attract fans and pros of the music industry.
2. Constantly test new music promotion strategies
Keep in mind that almost everyone listens to music, and that musical genres are becoming more and more mixed. So think broadly in your communication, be inventive, open doors and break down barriers.
If you are agile and aware of the news, why not catch some of the millions of users connected to social networks by setting up communication plan in line with the news? This is called newsjacking.
Covers also have an indisputable power to attract new followers.
Social media is not always kind to artists. Do you want to increase your notoriety? To promote your music, it is sometimes worth it to invest a little in ads. Yes, it costs money, but it’s well invested – your money could bring you new fans and listeners.
3. Don’t waste time by not getting to know your tools
To succeed in helping new people discover and listen to your music, it’s better to avoid spreading yourself too thin, being moderately good at a multitude of communication media. Take the time to master one communication channel before moving on to another. This basically means: do not launch a newsletter at the same time as an Instagram account, at the same time as a TikTok account, if you have never used any of them before. Tell yourself: “My music has to break through among millions of tracks. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” To develop your reputation as an artist, there is nothing like a good in-house marketing strategy. Be your own project manager 💪 A musician has a brand image to uphold, so find the channel that suits you best. Then you will naturally see the difference on streaming platforms.
4. Always be yourself
Musicians who pretend to be someone else are often filtered out by the audience. Internet music fans are ruthless, and audiences will never fail to point out a lack of honesty.
Listen to yourself and try to develop your awareness based on who you are, not what you think is best for getting there quickly. Your online reputation is important. You wouldn’t tarnish it by creating musical content that isn’t you, so you shouldn’t be fake with your digital content either.
5. Get to know your audience
Try things that suit your style, offer a communication style that’s easy to maintain, and create your own editorial line.
First, note the different audience habits in the musical genres you make. If you make electro, folk, pop, rap, or hip-hop, your content production will not be the same depending on the style. You need to understand the audience before you start. The #1 tip in marketing and communication is that you need to know your target audience in order to be able to offer relevant content.
Developing a strategy is good. However, being too strongly inspired by things that already work for others in order to gain visibility may get you accused of copying. The audience won’t be fooled.
A good, self-respecting social media manager will always tell you that you need to create value to capture your audience. You need to be active and bring something new to the table. This is true at the level of the visual identity just as much as everything else: your concepts, your message, and your music, of course.
We talk a lot about social networks, but the same goes for streaming. The more original and relevant you are, the more you will stand out among the millions of titles available.
Finally, think about your descriptions, titles, and any written content, because streaming platforms and YouTube have powerful search engines that can allow people to come across your music through keywords (we call it Search Enging Optimization, or SEO). This is the magic of digital media.
7. Learn how to manage your budget to drive performance
When a composer wants to manage their own communication strategy, it’s often because they don’t have much of a budget.
Sound like you? Don’t have the budget for a service provider or a communications agency? Rest assured, the best music promotion strategies are not necessarily the ones that cost the most.
Maybe you should look into contacting labels. They have the budget and experience to launch more extensive music promotion campaigns, and may agree to lend you a hand by signing your project.
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Are you looking for a label? ⬇️
8. Create engagement
In each of your posts, you need to inspire people to take action by prompting a like or comment. Your digital communication and other actions you take around your music must be calculated to allow you to achieve your objectives: radio, being featured on a streaming service, events, etc.
The most creative artists will find the exercise enjoyable, but even if you don’t, take a step back and act as if you were a digital marketing agency. Record companies love artists who know how to manage their interactions with the public.
9. Contact radio stations, playlists and music professionals
A good digital marketing strategy needs a global and effective communication strategy, and part of that is delegation. If you manage to get others to help with your content, this will allow you to go further. Contact radio stations, playlists, media, and digital influencers. Today, tools like Groover make getting in touch with professionals in the music industry super easy, so no more excuses!
Be careful of consistency from an editorial point of view—don’t just collaborate for views! Especially if you pay for it, the return on investment may not be great. As you’ll see, the most relevant partners will have a direct impact on your performance on streaming platforms.
10. Personalize your interactions
Interactions with your audience should be personalized. Good targeting goes a long way to making sure your message is heard. You need to implement interactive, creative, and personalized communication to build audience loyalty. This can be super simple. For example, you can make it a habit to respond to people live, in comments, or in DMs.
You can do this on any social network. The idea is to create a persona via a digital environment. Engagement is clearly linked to the environment you foster. Eventually, having a committed community will allow you to set up an e-commerce site to sell merch to finance your artistic project.
You don’t need to do motion design, hire a designer, or even do high-flying graphic design. Be yourself and respond to your future fans with sincerity.
– Translated by Kole Wright –
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Do you need a response on your music? Get in touch with music pros on Groover today!
