Why Should You Use Social Media As An Artist Or Music Professional?

1. Executing your vision.

2. Building a brand.

3. Strategic partnerships.

4. Telling YOUR story.

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Who Are You & WHY? (Always Start With Why)

For artists who are building a brand, always start with why. Knowing who you are and why you are producing content will help you be more effective in every other area concerning your brand. This includes social media and content marketing. Social media by default, allows you to build a brand and connect with your target audience. That is why it is imperative that you generate, evaluate and implement a social media agenda. As artists, your career starts and ends with your brand. Your brand should be at the center of your vision, focus, direction and target market.

A strong brand is entirely under your control and can be amplified through social media. Brands are generally composed of your image, musical sound and most importantly, energy. Social media allows you to sculpt and mold your brand to your liking. This ultimately affords you the opportunity to align your music with like-minded individuals who have a deep understanding of what your content is about and the immense value that it brings to them on a personal level. Nipsey Hussle was great artist that built a brand off of providing inspiration for his fan base. Checkout the article, for a few examples of Nipsey built his brand from the ground up.

Ahava Leitbtag discusses in her book, The Digital Crown a number of strategies and tactics to create and publish content. Below we will deep dive into a few of her prized rules for brands to win at producing content on the Internet.

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Branding That Supports Content

As an artist or music professional it is important to know what kind of image you want to portray to your fans or social media followers. Social media can help you in creating an image if you know what you are aiming for as far as your brand. The benefit of having a strong vision for your brand allows for strategic partnerships, more opportunities and greater reach. Given it may be fellow artists, creatives, businesses, labels, etc. When combining content marketing with your vision and strategy. A strong brand can elevate you above the crowd. Effectively telling your story and connecting with your fan base on social media will separate you from the competition. This allows for a fruitful career and serves many purposes that you can enjoy as a content creator.

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Mastering Content Marketing

As a master of content marketing you need to guide the conversation surrounding your brand. Therefore, you need to understand what content is, how it performs, how fans choose to engage and consume it. For starters, content is information that is structured and aligned in a scheme. Embedded in that scheme is information — As a brand this is how you create value, through providing solutions to fans who need answers for their questions or problems. Secondly, as content creators we collect the material we want to share with our fans and turn it into a scheme that they will instantly recognize. Then we determine the platforms where we think our followers spend their time and make sure our content is there for them to discover. Thirdly, the focal point is about presenting information in a scheme that will engage your fan base. Yet to do this accurately, and get the outcome you desire, you need to think strategically about how your target audience interacts on each social media platform.

If you wish to guide the conversation that fans are having about your brand, you need to master the particular interactions between:

1. Branding

2. Content Strategy

3. Content Marketing

Evolving and maintaining champion content is reliant on being responsive to all three, which in turn will aid you in developing a deeper connection with your fan base.

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The Art Of Communication

Branding, content strategy and content marketing have to be in tune when it comes to building a fan base and developing deep connections around your brand. To fully comprehend, let’s discuss what strong connections look like.

Great communicators understand the six principles that help artists and music professionals leave a lasting effect:

1. Understand Who You Are

2. Realize The Audience You Are Speaking To

3. Observe And Pay Attention

4. Ask Challenging Questions

5. Have Useful Answers

6. Be Aware That There Are Various Types Of Communicators

Branding, content strategy and content marketing are all designed to aid you in constructing deep connections with your target fan base. The result of forming these deep connections could include selling more concert tickets, courting record labels, persuading future merchandise purchases, etc. Let’s discuss how these strategies can aid your supporting team in creating brand awareness and constructing artful communication with your fan base.

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A Brand is a Pledge

Wholeheartedly, your brand depends on a series of experiences that your fan base will engage with over a period of time. A strong brand builds a connection that drives action. As an artist, you can create value through your content. Even though there are millions of artists and creatives, no one can produce what you have to offer. The opportunities are vast and allow for a number of fruitful opportunities. It is literally, how big do you want to make it and how far do you want to take it. Overall, you are creating value through art that you provide to your fan base. Artists provide content; fans provide support. The ultimate goal is to get fans to take action (buy tickets, merchandise, music streaming, shares on Facebook, retweets & likes on Twitter). Social media allows you to create an image, develop your brand, connect with fans and cultivate a vision. Artists can achieve this goal by developing online communities, having a strong vision surrounding your brand and producing content that is accessible.

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What Makes a Brand?

A brand is a combination of all the distinctive engagements, encounters and experiences that your fan base will have with your brand as an artist or music professional. This includes content marketing, paid advertising and retail experiences all wrapped in one. That is why a brand is a pledge; your fan base has a set belief of how their experiences will play out with your brand. This is in accordance with earlier experiences, such as the music they have listened to, what other followers have shared, including the energy they feel when your music is playing and they’re walking into a club or venue.

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Who Determines Your Brand?

As an artist or music professional, it is your responsibility to determine your brand. It is your supporting team’s obligation to help you execute your vision when developing a brand identity.

Ultimately, your brand should be determined by your target fan base:

• Who They Are
• How They Think
• Where They Spend Their Time
• How They Consume Content

If you know precisely where you want to go, then you know exactly what to look for along the way. You also eliminate any doubt out of the situation and are more likely to keep going when you are faced with obstacles or failures. It’s the difference between knowing when to roll over a speed bump versus running into a brick wall. Quality brand management is produced when an artist or music professional aims to handle both positive and negative communication well. When a brand’s vision is executed properly, we have seen what can be accomplished. It ultimately comes down to your personal goals and it is imperative that you have a good idea of where you want to go before you start your journey. Social media in the new media age is comparable to claiming online real estate. As an artist or music professional, you have all the resources to create real value within your online properties. An online community is a social media faction that has been created because of the loyalty that an artist or band can create, e.g. fan bases. This is the first time in history that something is completely free and can generate a large amount of value for artists and music professionals. So take full of advantage.

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Evolving Your Brand

Fans bases establish their own ideas about brands based on hundreds of Internet communications (comments, retweets, shares, reviews, commentary, etc.) and conceivably very few in-person or concrete interactions. This can create unnecessary tension for artists or music professionals if they are accountable for any amount of the brand identity. Why? Because they have no realistic authority over how, when and why fans will engage with their brand. For example, there’s no way to control what type of fan art that is produced or what content fans choose to share.

Now let’s deep dive into ‘3 Social Media & Branding Secrets Every Artist and Music Professional Should Know’

1. Describe Your Brand Using Character

Developing a strong brand character is a key strategy in the development of any artist or music professional. You have to ask the question, ‘How do you produce a strong brand that your fan base will associate with your sound, music, art, services, etc?’ Creating a strong brand character is what makes your content unique. Characterizing your brand is something that should be determined by management or the most-trusted leadership in your camp. Over time, brands do grow and evolve. So, listen and observe your target audience and be in position to adjust accordingly.

2. Train Your ‘Supporting Team’ Around Your Brand

This is an important step in the process because you want to maintain a strong brand image. Although as an artist or music professional your brand will extend past your supporting team, reaching all the way to strategic partnerships and business deals. Your supporting team can fail to execute on their end when it comes to your brand’s pledge. So it’s your responsibility to create a focus around your brand’s identity, content strategy and content marketing efforts. Overall, you have to ensure that your brand identity is not flawed or coming up short within your organization. Most management teams have complications sustaining the brand’s pledge across all platforms. Test this theory by asking members of your supporting team to describe your brand in three words. See if there’s a disconnect between what your vision is and the level accuracy in your supporting team’s responses.

3. Brand Unity Across All Platforms

Brand unity across all platforms is an art form that you must execute consistently and repeatedly. For example, picture your experiences with a brand on social media. It’s distinctive, in some aspects from in-person encounters but the essential elements remain the same. Popular and well-respected brands execute this well. They sustain their brand as a pledge. It’s comparable to going to your favorite restaurant in your neighborhood. You know exactly what you want and how you want it. This comparison makes the Internet the perfect outlet, which means fans and followers want consistency. If they discover your brand and experience it one way in concrete-form, they want the same experience on your website, streaming, music videos, social media and your overall online community. That is why defining your brand and managing your content is the beginning for any content marketing strategy. As a content creator, once you pinpoint and identify that pledge. The next step is to determine how to broadcast that pledge across all platforms. It’s truly an art.

To fully seperate yourself from the competition:

You Need To Execute These 3 Secrets:

1. Develop Brand Character

2. Train Your ‘Supporting Team’ Around Your Brand.

3. Create Brand Unity Across All Your Social Media & Streaming Channels.