How can the correlation between social media+music streaming benefit you as an artist or music professional?

1. Connecting your fan base.
2. Distributing your music.
3. Connecting with artists/industry regulars.
4. Building your brand & telling YOUR story.

Social media, when effectively combined with music streaming, can allow artists to connect with fans on multiple levels and across a number of social media platforms. The ultimate goal when developing your content strategy is to continuously create value through cross-channel optimization.

For example, Facebook funnels to YouTube and Twitter funnels to SoundCloud through the implementation of a solid content marketing strategy. Building these links across platforms strengthens your online presence and overall social media community. This tactic can be executed in a number of different ways and we will explore a number of similar strategies throughout this article. Every platform has different capabilities and advantages.

The main function of every music streaming platform is distribution. Distribution creates data and data creates opportunities from targeting (advertising), touring and determining your projectory as an artist. Keep in mind, different platforms should garner different approaches. Apple Music will have a different set of functionalities from say, SoundCloud.

Overall, these are ecosystems that serve the Internet and its vast amount of users who religiously consume music through video or audio. Building these online communities provides artists and music professionals with an array of opportunities to connect with fellow artists, industry professionals and fans. It is important to merge the two (B2C & B2B) when producing and developing content.

For artists and music professionals, there will always be two objectives at play when distributing content on social media. (1.) Building a fan base and (2.) connecting with like-minded individuals who can further your overall goals.

It is a beautiful feeling to be recognized for what you have created solely through applying your time and effort.

Relationships are everything.

These connections can lead to great work opportunities and forging them will help you tell your story through a number of mediums.

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 artists and music professionals to win at producing content on the Internet.

CONTENT STRATEGY — DEVELOP A PROCESS

Content Strategy combined with Content Marketing supports Branding

A major key to being a great communicator is knowing who you are — you can further determine who you are through branding — the next step is to figure out, how do you broadcast who you are to your fan base in a strategic way?

This is where content strategy and content marketing contribute to the overall framework of your digital strategy efforts.

How do you exactly define Content Strategy?

Content strategy characterizes the preparation cycle for your digital plan of action. When I say content strategy, I specifically mean a preparation cycle for creating and managing digital content such as photos, audio and visuals on a continual basis.

Schemes Create Freedom & Increase Productivity

Content strategy is a scheme that an organization uses to plan, create, publish, analyze and govern content. Schemes create freedom; they provide a level of unity when devising agreements and how to best implement these predetermined agreements.

Two-focus areas:

• Effective, accessible content
• Repeatable schemes

What is effective, accessible content?

Content strategy has two functions:

1. It aligns your content with your objectives as an artist or music professional.
2. It benefits your fan base in achieving their goals, answering questions or solving their problems.

Do not present your fan base with an entirely different experience than the one they came to you to receive — this hinders the chief aim of your content driving streams, views and ticket sales.

If the “information” you want to focus on in your social media does not coordinate with your pre-determined objectives or aid your fans and followers in achieving their goals, then do not cultivate it into content.

The underlying rule is this, if it doesn’t support you in making money, attaining your desired goals or help the organization achieve any pre-established accomplishments, nine times out of ten, the “information” being presented will not aid your fans and is most likely a misuse of time.

What is a Repeatable Lifecycle?

A repeatable lifecycle is a routine that your organization is accustomed to executing. It is like a recipe that everyone has repeated a thousand times over. The repeatable lifecycle infers that each type of content that is produced within your organization can be reproduced by using the same methods each time.

This process creates a designated scheme, with everyone operating as one unit, each member of the organization has a clear understanding about who is doing what during the production process. The content strategy consist of 6 steps:

1. Plan
2. Create
3. Publish
4. Distribute
5. Analyze
6. Govern

Following this recipe, an efficient content strategy eliminates all the speculation out of execution. Just imagine — if your supporting team didn’t have to anticipate all the steps required to create and publish a piece of content, they would be at liberty to create in the name of freedom.

Governance = execution+consistency and should always be at the heart of everything you do as an artist or music professional.

Talk About What Your Target Fan Base Wants To Hear

Another vital component of executing a content strategy is that it places the spotlight back on the fans and this can make the process notably rewarding.

By positioning your content within your objectives as a brand. You are helping your fan base with their goals, answering questions, solving problems and aiding them in reaching a new level. You are effectively placing the limelight back on your supporters. If you want to encourage your fan base to achieve certain tasks or goals, then you need to carefully examine how they live and what they need in their everyday life.

Focus On The Fans

As artists and music professionals, the number #1 rule is to focus on the fans who consume your content. These relationships can assist you in meeting your objectives (building a community, cultivating a fan base or acquiring a record deal, etc).

Being content creators, it is essential that we keep in mind the kind of knowledge our fans need to achieve their goals. Or else, we might compromise their loyalty by distributing off target content. As an artist, you don’t want to risk losing prime positioning or being the focus of attention.

In conclusion, we now realize that content is knowledge arranged in a scheme that is easily accessible to your fan base. Content strategy is a preparation cycle for creating and managing digital content such as photos, audio, visuals, etc. The repeatable lifecycle infers that each type of content that is produced within your organization can be reproduced by using the same methods each time. The overlaying scheme of content strategy has Governance built-in (execution+consistency) and should be always be at the heart of everything you do in order to produce fruitful content.