Facebook Advertising is a great way for artists and musicians to promote their music, build a fan base or advertise for an upcoming event. Facebook presents value for artists that are looking to excel the advertising arena.
An artist can promote their Facebook Page, content posted on their page and/or a specific website. This could be Apple Music, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc.
Facebook advertising has created an ecosystem where artists can target users based on profile information, location and demographics. There are two functionalities that artists can take advantage of through Facebook Ad Campaigns.
You can set up your advertising budget and bid for clicks or you can bid for every thousand impressions that your content receives. The difference is simple: impressions help build awareness and drive engagement and clicks help artists get a desired response.
I would advise that artists experiment with both types of ads but “Cost-Per-Click” campaigns will drive potential fans to your website, YouTube, Apple Music or whatever platform you choose.
This is a power play because you will present fans with the opportunity to discover more content and your catalog. Artists can also use Facebook Pixelyou track the users behavior once their on your website.
This is where ROI plays a major role in content monetization and the cost of advertising. Check out the article below for a in-depth discussion on ROI and where artists stand to benefit.
6 Ways To Measure ROI & Increase Productivity | Do More With Less
Now lets deep dive into 10 facts that make Facebook undeniable when it comes to paid advertising.
Facts About Facebook
- The Undisputed Champion of Social Media — Facebook is the leading social platform. Reaching 60.6% of Internet users. (Facebook, 2018)
- Facebook has 2.45 billion monthly active users, 1.62 billion active users visited the social network on a daily basis. (Facebook, 2019)
- Facebook has more than 80 million small businesses around the World using Facebook pages. (Facebook, 2018)
- Seven out of ten, 69% of adults in the U.S. claim that they use Facebook. (Pew Research Center, 2019)
- 65% of Facebook users are under the age of 35. (Statistica, 2019)
- 96% of active Facebook users accessed the platform via mobile devices. (DataReportal, 2019) That means that only 4% of Facebook active users logged in on desktop devices to use the social media platform.
- Users spent an average of 58.5 minutes on Facebook each day. (Recode, 2018)
- 86% of U.S. marketers use Facebook for advertising. (Emarketer, 2018)
- 78% of American consumers have discovered retail products to buy via Facebook (Kleiner Perkins, 2018)
- Facebook is the most popular channel for businesses to share video content at 81%.
Facebook advertising begins with your Facebook page.
For artists, your Facebook Page will be your second home right behind your website. Your page allows you to have a centralized hub on the platform and execute your advertising campaigns.
Artists can also participate in Facebook Groups which can be utilized for networking and aligning with like-minded individuals.
After acquiring Giphy, the social media giant is showing no signs of slowing down. Other social media platforms like Twitter have a place for artists to advertise and promote their content.
The truth is, Facebook has cornered the market with Instagram, Facebook Pages, Messenger, Groups, Events and with the addition of Giphy. The list goes on. If you’re interested in one-to-one marketing, check out this article I wrote on Facebook Messenger Marketing.
4 Ways To Include Facebook Messenger In Your Marketing Strategy
As a Digital Consultant, my advice for artists would be not to ignore the value that is being created through Facebook advertising. Not matter what your goals are as a content creator — if you’re just starting out or a seasoned veteran.
Value can be created with experimentation alone. Mark Zuckerberg has done a great job at creating an ecosystem around behavioral science. Artists can build a brand dependent and independent of the social media platform.
Devin McKnight, a guitarist who has performed with Grass is Green, Speedy Ortiz, and produces his own music as MANEKA says,
“I don’t really want to be on Facebook at all, but I feel like I have to because of my band. I don’t know how much it helps, but I do know the event invites kind of have that market cornered. No other platform really offers that.”
Some people may view Facebook as a place for family, friends and keeping up with co-workers. For artists who are looking to advertise on the platform. The Facebook event features gives you access to every city, town or college in the World.
This is why advertising on the social platform has created this love ~ hate relationship. Morgan Schaffner, the marketing manager for AdHoc says,
“People’s decision to attend a show is often based on social reasons, and Facebook does truly make it very easy to see which of your friends are ‘attending’ a show… I think it’d be very challenging to as easily find such a large target audience.”
The Facebook events feature, in my eyes, presents the most value. Ivy Gray-Klein of corey flood, a band based out of Philadelphia says,
“I might make a post on my personal account about needing a show in a certain city and make it public,” she says. “Then friends of mine will tag their friends who may have resources or connections in those cities. It may sound kind of trivial, but having that more personal connection really helps, like recognizing you have a lot of mutual Facebook friends with that person… Especially within DIY, leveraging that community can be helpful. I don’t have a professional booking agent who has established relationships with venues.”
Facebook may have a 50–50 split on its branding with some users but the value it creates remains to be undeniable and unmatched.
How to Excel at Facebook Advertising
When it comes to paid advertising on Facebook, it is important to focus your brand message on your end goal.
Do you want more people to come to your performances?
Are you trying to gain more fans or drive more streams?
Before you invest in Facebook advertising, figure out what is your ultimate goal as a content creator.
Be sure to checkout Facebook Insights before you dive into paid advertising. When you do make the decision to start your advertising campaign make sure that you are targeting the right audience.
You can best utilize Facebook Insights by figuring out who you need to reach, as well as targeting those fans and followers who like similar artists.
The great thing about Facebook advertising is that you can start running ads right away and collecting data that will better serve you in achieving your goals as an artist or music professional.
Facebooks Ads Manager will present you with a number of options to segment your data:
- Users who have performed a certain action, like clicking on your website and making a purchase.
- Location (City, State, Country, etc.)
- Gender and Age
- Day and Time
It is important to remember as well, that your organic engagement may be completely different from those users who engage with your ads.
Why is this important?
If a segment of users in a certain market are purchasing merch and tickets on a consistent basis, you would want to launch a retargeting campaign in that market focused on that specific segment of users — this action allows your cost per acquisition to go down because they are more likely to purchase merch or attend a show in the future.
Overall, you spend less and your advertising dollar stretches farther.
Advertising overall should be approached as an experiment, some ads will perform better than others and it is important to understand that you can test what works best for your audience. You can run different merchandise ads against each other or try running a video ad against a single image ad.
Facebook Product Ads are a good tool to utilize if you have merch currently on your website or you can try out dynamic ads that switch up copy and imagery based on the standards you set. This provides a level of relevancy for the fan or follower who is most likely to engage with your advertisement.
When you begin advertising, you want to reach as many people as possible. This will help you determine what works for your audience.
Once you develop an understanding of your target audience, you can start to refine the process. The bigger the sample size, the better. Facebook Insights will provide the necessary data to learn what is the best path to follow from there.
Once you’re able to select your target audience that is neither too limited nor too vast. Facebook advertising is mostly common sense. For example, when promoting an event or show in a city or town, do you need to reach a 500,000 people to drive ticket purchases for the next show? Or would targeting 5000 people in that city or town (within a certain age range) help to convert more ticket purchases?
As an artists or music professional, if you are targeting a certain area or region. You can only promote event announcements that are relevant to that area or region.
It wouldn’t make sense to promote an event that is in another region that is different from the area or region where you will be performing. Segmented content allows you to be more relevant, receive better results and save more money when it comes to advertising.
High-quality images are recommended when it comes to Facebook advertising. Low-budget or blurry images will work against you as an artist or music professional. This can affect your brand and public image, so it is worth the time to curate and gather some high-quality images.
Ad variables are key as well, you are going to want to create different advertisements for Instagram and Facebook. The same applies to copy, you don’t want to come off as uniform to fans and followers.
You are going to want to set a time frame for your Facebook advertisements. You will have the ability to tweak them or stop them but give it the appropriate space and time. Too early results in premature data, so it’s important to stay patient and see what works.
To justify a conclusion with a sample size, Facebook takes the impressions or reach to calculate statistical significance or confidence level.
If you’re interested in these statistics, feel free to use this helpful calculator, to input the data, and see if you get 95% confidence level or higher.
The calculator also helps in seeing if there are any clear successes for content types (music — video or audio, sound, features, etc.) and offers (merchandise, fan art, releases, etc.) that you have been testing through Facebook advertising.
If you’re interested in learning more or joining the conversation feel free to sign up for our monthly newsletter, join our Facebook group. You can also follow me on Twitter!
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