D.I.Y.

Too Much: Why Promoting All Your Social Media Links Is Excessive

(1)While marketing across social media platforms is an essential part of an artist's marketing toolkit, overdoing it and pumping your identical message through every known channel can often be too much, and ultimately have more of a negative impact than anything. Here we look at a better way of doing things.

_________________________________

Guest post from Trill Trax

Every few years a new social media app hits the market with promises of being the next big thing. Consumers join in and again, another social network is added to their repertoire. Marketing on one platform is difficult enough. However, there is a way to build that audience while not overselling yourself. 

Limitation

Let’s say on average a user has Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and a personal website. As an artist your goal is to market yourself and thus build the connection with strangers on each platform. I want you to ask yourself when is the last time you added all the networks of an artist that you saw through a post. 

Was it immediately or did it happen over time?

Think about it. You see a sponsored advertisement with a new song and that person wants you to add them on Twitter, Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, email newsletter and more. Let’s be honest here, most people don’t. At least not right away.

Instead of throwing a lot of information at people, narrow it down. Maybe your Twitter fan base is different than your Instagram. That is okay. Remember that as you continue to build, eventually those bridges will connect with each other.

Consider how you interact with music, before you took the role of an artist. Did you have a Tidal account? Spotify? Facebook Messenger? Tumblr?

Focal point

1As mentioned above, make your post concise with a direct call to action. Want people to listen to your new record? Ask them to click here to hear it. Want people enjoy your concert performance photos? Ask them to like a post on Instagram.

Simple and direct call to actions work well with organic followings. Many social apps now are integrated within each other. Meaning, you can login with one using the account information of another. 

Think about what your drive is. Maybe one month you focus heavily on increasing Instagram likes or reposts. Another month is focused on Twitter engagement and another on newsletter growth.

Each network has its own set of rules and reasons to why people join. If you can keep this in mind, then you’re good to go.

Sum up

Keep it simple. Eventually everything will connect. If you force it though, you’ll find yourself with more negative results than positive.

Creating a sponsored advertisement? Create one to two call of actions. Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. Are you going to tweet them, like their Instagram photo, comment on their Facebook feed and subscribe to their newsletter all at once? Probably not.

Also it is important to mention that your website should host all of your social network information. So next time try adding just your website. If people are curious enough, they will check. Good luck.

Share on:

4 Comments

  1. I wouldn’t expect one of my fans to add me on all the networks unless they were super, super keen, but an artist needs to make sure they cover all the bases, because it’s important to meet fans on the platform which is most relevant to them.
    To be honest, all of this is moot, since an artist should be concentrating far more effort on building an email list, so that when social media sites disappear, or when people decide they don’t want to interact with musicians through the ever-diminishing reach of social networks and their cluttered feeds they can rely on email.
    Far more users have at least one inbox compared to everyone on all the social media platforms available. It’s still the best way to get to fans, and to avoid being ignored or scrolled past.
    With the right approach, I’d always opt for email over social any day. In fact, the way I see it, in time I’ll be able to completely drop all social media activity in order to spend time on music, with email and my site being the only outlet needing kept up to date.

  2. Alex, eMail seems really dead to me! Out of 100 mails sent when I promote anything, I get 1 response as an average, and often this is just a polite hello by someone I haven’t talked to in a while. This is not by the reason of not sending smart personal mails out or because of sending them too often.
    Recently I gave a concert at someone who has 1,500 addresses in his list. All these people applied for the list and he regularly “cleans” it. He sometimes has 50 people in these concerts. But only 3 of these people showed up at this concert. The rest of the crowd was invited by me.
    Mails are even more ignored than posts in social media…

  3. Original author here. I appreciate the creative communication. My point is when sharing, why do you need to include 10 different links? Sure, you cover your bases, but does that turn to likes, subscriptions, follows, etc?
    For example, you released a song and at the end say “here is out new single everyone! Make sure you head to iTunes to buy it, stream it on Spotify, snap us on Snapchat, like us on Facebook, tweet us here, tag us on Instagram and check out our website too, which you can subscribe to our newsletter.”
    That is a lot of content for people to digest. As a consumer, would you do all of that in one sitting? Or would it happen over time?
    All I’m suggesting at is to direct your actions toward a specific goal. If you share a photo on Instagram, ask people to like you on Facebook too. If you tweet, ask people to add you on Instagram. Eventually everything will turn full circle. Each network has its own set of fans.
    It also depends on your demographic. If email newsletters still work for you, then go for it! Same as business cards. I’m not suggesting remove these mediums.

Comments are closed.