Musicians: How to Connect to Your Audience Through Online Branding

With the growing popularity of online streaming services, fewer people are purchasing digital media. It is becoming more and more important to learn how to market your music and brand online and find other avenues for generating income. One of the best ways to go about this is in the form of subscriptions from a loyal following.

What content do you have to provide, you ask? That’s a good question. The truth is that your fans will want to pay to know more about you. They want to be inspired by you. They want to see what you do when you are not making music, and what it looks like when you are. Below are some ideas on what to offer to your audience:

Exclusive Content

This can be anything from songs, acoustic versions, maybe you are practicing a new rift and you record a clip to share. Don’t limit yourself to only music though. Do you have other arts and hobbies? What about drawings created and connected to your own music? Be creative, your audience will appreciate it.

Live Video Feeds

Sometimes your audience can’t make it to a show, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to experience it. Live streaming your shows will connect them from afar and is a great incentive for your fans to pay for a subscription.

Personal Blog

This can be in a variety of formats, find something that is true to you. If you prefer writing about your perceptions and inspiration, go for it. If you like to take video clips of projects you’re working on or videotape your adventures outside of work, do it. Let your fans get to know you.

The Recording Studio

Give your fans a peek into your process and offer clips of what it’s like at the recording studio. This could be what you make it from bloopers to conversations. Let them into your world.

Early Releases

Let your subscribers have access to content before the rest of the world. This will make your subscriptions coveted.

The next step is to build your reputation and loyal fan base through social media. The goal is to make yourself more than a distant brand name. Make yourself someone they can connect with, be inspired by, and trust. You can do this by showing them who you are, and you can create a strong subscription service. Below are some tips for gaining subscribers via social media:

Influencer Marketing

Build a network with other well-known names associated with your genre of music. Some ideas for finding these people are genre related groups on Facebook and Twitter or Instagram feeds.

Interact

Don’t be passive. Respond to questions, comments, and other people’s posts. They are much more likely to share your brand with their followers if they’ve interacted with you online.

Response Time

Response time is crucial. I’m not saying you have to do it immediately, but try to respond to your followers within a twenty-four hour period. Even if it’s, “Can I get back to you later, I am a little busy.” Just make sure you follow through and respond as soon as you can. In response to most comments on your profiles a simple ‘like’ will suffice and show your followers that you are in fact paying attention to them.

Share Your Story

Your fans want to see the real you. They want to see where you come from and understand a little more about you. Tell your story and be honest, show them who you are.

Share Other People’s Content

Remember how I mentioned influencer marketing above? Well, this is a way you can make those network connections stronger. Share relevant influencers content on your profiles. It helps them and chances are it will help you too. This can be especially beneficial if you choose to share something that will inspire your audience.

#Hashtags

When used appropriately, hashtags can be an excellent device for drawing attention. Do some research and tag the most popular, relevant phrases because people are searching for content with those keywords. This doesn’t have to be obnoxious. In fact, it can be a source of showing your personality or illustrating humor.

Alright, you have a following now. You have subscribers!

Now you need to keep them. There is a lot of tips online on how to do this. Some of it is good, and a lot of it is bad. Below I’ve tackled a few more strategies to bring you towards success.

Connect with your audience through conversation. If you are not selling any of your merchandise, it’s probably because your audience hasn’t connected with you on a personal level. Change that. Communicate with them, and they will stay loyal to you.

70|20|10 is a method of dividing up your content. 70% of your content should be about your music and build your brand. You should share your photos, videos, songs, artwork, and all that is relevant. 20% of your content should be artists that inspire you, even if they are in another medium. This will engage and inspire your readers as well. The last 10% should be self-promotion. You don’t want to over promote. If you push too much, people will be turned off and won’t want to pay attention to your content anymore. Be strategic.

Don’t waste social media realty. You heard me, don’t squander that space, and use each social media platform efficiently by posting different forms of content on each. Assign each social media platform a theme of what you’ll post. Maybe Facebook updates your readers about what’s going on and where to find your shows, content, and merchandise as well as inspirational photos. Maybe your Instagram is dedicated to inspirational photos regarding your life.

The goal is to have the same fans subscribing to all platforms, not just dedicated to one. Brainstorm creative ways to approach them, and you’ll be on your way to doubling your followers.

Study Up! Do some research and figure out what is trending. Start following other brands that are relevant and studying what works for them and what doesn’t. What kind of content gets the most hits? What completely fails?

Be Consistent. You don’t have to update your content every single day, but you do want to post regularly. Don’t disappear for three weeks, or worse, months. You’ll end up with ended subscriptions and being cleaned out when people go to minimize their accounts.

A good rule of thumb is once a week, at very least. If you put out a blog post on Wednesday, make sure and keep it up every Wednesday. A lot of social media sites have tools to schedule your posts ahead of time. This can be convenient for getting head for those rainy days or times you know you’ll be busy.

If you follow this advice, you’ll be on your way to generating an income in no time. Just remember the goal is to connect to your audience and to other people by sharing more about yourself and your brand. If you can do that, you’ll have a loyal audience and network to help you grow.

Today’s guest post for the startup page was written by:
Charlotte McCleary is a message-centric brand strategist who works with the marketing teams of start-ups and young companies to streamline their market positioning and message. When not crafting blueprints for marketers she is a keynote speaker and personal branding coach. Twitter