With the recent release of Twitter's #Music app and Facebook's latest redesign that boasts a music feed, social media entities are aggressively charging full speed ahead in their quest to become the preeminent discovery platform for new music. This presents artists big and small with a treasure-trove of opportunities to go viral, collect new fans and followers, and keep them engaged. It also makes social media literacy an absolute imperative.
At this point, if you don't yet have Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and YouTube pages, you might as well not exist. Make it a priority to set up these kinds of pages and develop content for them before worrying about creating or updating your official website.
Now, if you do have a presence on those social media sites but have yet to reap the rewards, don't let a modest number of followers discourage you. There's plenty of room to grow virally. Daniel McCarthy of The Music Bed says, "Having a strong brand presence is crucial to your success as an artist, or as a professional, in general. We take that fact seriously, and that's what keeps our audience interested and listening for more." Here are three ways to build your brand's presence on social media.
Master the Art of Hashtagging
When posting status updates on Twitter, the almighty hashtag-a pound symbol preceding a subject or phrase (a la #thebeatles)-is one of the sharpest tools in your arsenal. At any given moment, millions of Twitter users will search the site and follow trends, memes, and stories via their corresponding hashtags. It doesn't matter how much or how little a trending topic has to do with your music. Finding a way to comment on it by using its corresponding hashtag within a clever tweet is a great way to enter the conversation, expose your profile to more potential listeners, and gain new Twitter followers. With any luck, somewhere along the line new followers will get some exposure to your music and become fans as well.
Using hashtags is also an effective way to network with other artists who will then (hopefully) notice the shout-out and tag you in their replies. This exposes you to their followers. Keep in mind that artists-especially those with massive followings-aren't just informing followers of their own status; they're also acting as tastemakers. Don't forget to return the favor.
Hashtags are immensely useful in keeping your tweets short and to the point. After all, there's only so much you can say in 140 characters, and using hashtags in a clever way can save you a lot of space. If you tweet a funny joke, for example, make the hashtag the punch line.
Use Facebook as a Platform for Fan-to-Fan and Fan-to-Artist Interactions
With each redesign, Facebook aims to streamline massive amounts of content and create a more personalized browsing experience for its users. This is exactly what you should be doing with your fans and followers online. And Facebook's new Replies feature makes this easier to do than ever (for profiles followed by 10,000+ people) by pushing the most popular comments to the top of a thread.
Comment threads are the bread and butter of Web traffic. They keep users coming back to your page to see how threads have developed, and they keep commenters coming back to see what responses their posts are generating. The more dynamic your updates and the more you engage individual commenters in the ensuing thread, the more connections you can make with your fans and let them know their voices matter.
Make Facebook Your Fans' "Go-To" Site to Get Your Latest Content
Facebook's latest unveiling is a personalized news and entertainment feed that aggregates and prioritizes content based on a user's activity on the site. This makes Facebook a first-click go-to for the latest news and music a user likes. You want to be in that mix, but now you've got to fight to stay at the top of the feed. These days, many top artists make major announcements; premiere their latest videos; post concert set lists, pictures, and musings on Facebook first. They're also likely to use the site as a social media catch-all for aggregating posts from other sites such as Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
The richer, more enticing, and more frequent your updates, the more likely they are to boost your profile's rank and get you listed among your Facebook followers' daily reads. In addition, you should pay close attention to which updates generate the liveliest responses and then post similar items on a regular basis. Get creative with your content! Make clever videos! Share personalized and fun correspondence from the studio, the road, and the rehearsal room. And post exclusive tracks and high-quality live clips whenever possible.