When it comes to building your music career, Social Media is a zero-sum game. Your fans should only like one band: your band. There’s simply not enough social media to go around. As an artist, you must either conquer social media outright or leave nothing behind but scorched earth. Here’s how.
Some important things to remember if you want to win at social media
1. It’s all about you — Duh. They’re your “followers,” after all. Treat them as such. Your fans’ only social media medicine should be a daily injection of 100% maximum YOU. And make it clear you’d prefer your monologue to run without interruption.
2. Be a brand, not a band — Don’t let your fans forget the reasons why they followed you in the first place: your corporate sponsorships, your clean website fonts, your newest line of t-shirts. Don’t draw attention to your art or your humanity,… that’s just weakness. Embody the brand and the brand will embody you, making you all-powerful. For extra impact, be sure to use terms like “direct-to-fan” and “value-added” whenever you post on social media.
3. Don’t ever talk about politics, religion, or your personal life — Sure, these things might be important to you. They might even be central to your identity and to your music. But you risk offending people when you get real. So don’t get real. Don’t you dare. Stay polite at all costs, or even better: stay fake. Let’s pretend, though, that you DO get into a disagreement. Well the only correct course of action at that point is to crush them. Make an example of them. Show no mercy.
4. Be everywhere — Deities can do it, so why shouldn’t you? Omnipresence is not only possible on social media, it’s required if you want to establish total domination. If you feel like you’re getting stretched too thin on social media and losing time for music, suck it up already, will you? It’s your band’s future we’re talking about here. If you can just handle Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, G+, Flickr, Pinterest, and Vine, I’m sure one of your minions would be happy to help out with the rest of the platforms.
5. Sell, Sell, Sell — The more music you sell, the more money you make. The more money you make, the more music you can create. The more music you create, the more fans you’ll have; and you need to collect them all to win. That’s science, of course. So you might assume it’s also common sense. Unfortunately, no. It’s crucial that you remind your followers to hold up their part of the social media bargain and BUY something, something else, then something else. They need to buy everything. All the time. If constant product announcements aren’t enough, guilt is usually a good motivator. Lay it on ‘em. If that doesn’t work, beg.
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I hope this advice on how to win at social media was helpful. Some of the tips were inspired by a panel discussion I caught the end of at BEA this year. So check out the advice in that link as well. You’ll be doing everything wrong in no time.
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