When marketing yourself as a musician, many facets come into play whilst trying to make a name for yourself. Amongst writing, performing and recording, using social media marketing to attract your audience is just as important.

Creating a content strategy for your social media to market your music can help relieve the stressors of posting content. Planning a content strategy allows your posting to be cohesive and consistent across platforms to maintain a positive relevance online whilst connecting with your followers. Here you can find some tips and tricks on content strategy and optimise your presence on social media.

What is a social media content strategy?

A content strategy is typically planned at the beginning of your content cycle, focusing on certain aspects of your brand and how this can be portrayed online. Looking at different factors including the audience, the purpose of your content for that cycle - for example, a new single being released, promotion and ongoing updates for your audience can contribute to your strategy to optimise the use of your platforms. In order to cover social media marketing for your music, it is important to create a content strategy and calendar as it creates a blueprint for content production. A strategy can aid in relieving stress as to what to post, as you can plan ahead and create a backlog of content to post while also posting the real-time content as a filler in between.

What kind of content should you post?

Your strategy should be split between content-oriented components and people-oriented components, breaking up what content is to be created and who, where or when it will be posted. This creates a prioritisation of content and what is the most important upcoming within your career. Reflecting on whether your biggest gig is coming up with a killer support slot, an album being released or merch dropping, the content strategy can help decide what aspect takes priority for posting and how this will be marketed. Creating a content strategy will help track your progression as an artist and what marketing tools are more impactful for your branding. With the help of tools like Facebook Analytics, you can continue to tailor your strategy for the most effective marketing. These results can be transferable to experiences through your music streaming and live performances.

Why is a content strategy important for musicians?

You may be wondering why a content strategy is important for musicians to understand and practice online. To be frank, a content strategy helps you set and reach your music goals that you have in place whilst tracking your progress. This includes the short-term and the long-term goals you have for your music career. Looking at the bigger picture of your music and where you would like it to take you sets you up for the smaller goals. As the content strategy is tailored to the musician and their brand, it can help explore new avenues and opportunities that also contribute to long-term plans. Optimising your social media can prove to be beneficial for music. Exploring what kind of content you would like to produce, putting this into practice and researching key hashtags suitable for different platforms can create the exposure desired for your music. Looking into hashtags from your local music scene and globally trending music hashtags can help push you in the direction of new fans with the right content.

Content strategies help your business strategy

Not only do social media content strategies help you with where you want to go, but provide a template of what you require if your budget allows hiring external support from music public relations and marketing companies. Understanding the purpose of a music content strategy and creating one could be very useful in the future. The results from analytics can provide more context for your profile and feedback to the companies and be very involved in the branding of your social media music identity.

Who is the social media content for?

When creating a social media content strategy you need to find who your target audience is. As you are posting for a specific audience, this can be dependent on what kind of content you produce as it is marketing your music and brand. If using your content to directly advertise to your online audience, sometimes it is great to get straight to the point. Although providing an interactive experience for your audience that draws their attention to what you are selling, which results in a better online response. Great creative and use a mixture of people-orientated posts and marketing content to make your content strategy engaging for your audience. Showcasing the onstage persona on your platforms helps bring your brand to life with content that your audience loves. A fan of R&B may not like the same content that a Metal Band provides, and pinpointing what attracts the engagement on your social media will only enhance the online experience and the exposure to your music.

Creating a social media content strategy for your music

Once you identify your social media audience and the goals you would like to achieve as a musician, it’s time to sit down and plan the content. Decide what social media platforms you would like to use and how you are going to use them. Creating cohesion through your social media adapted to the specific platform is one way to engage with all fans, although creating platform-specific content can also drive your fans to follow all of your accounts. Plan your content calendar and decide how many times you will post a week (or day if you’re really dedicated) and where. What kind of posts will you do to encourage engagement? Short videos are very popular online currently, as Instagram currently has 49% more engagement with video content than static photos. Decide what types of posts convey your brand and music to your fans and how you can create the best engagement using hashtags.

Put the content strategy to work!

After finalising your social media strategy, it is time to start creating the musical content your followers are waiting for. Do not be afraid to try new ideas and platforms when starting to use your strategy or changing it as you understand what works better for your music branding. Using a content calendar in conjunction with your strategy can be helpful to plan the specific content for that month to push certain aspects of your music. Trialling this also helps optimise what works best for your social media and how you portray your music. The beauty of a content strategy is that it can change as your goals change and you are in charge of how you wish your music to be perceived online. As music, social media and trends change, the ebbs and flows can change as you please, and if something that originally works no longer hits that exposure you desire, the social media content strategy you created can help figure out what to do next.