How to Upgrade Your Online Presence in just One Day

Stale social media might be costing you fans, but a quick DIY refresh can turn that around in just one day. Learn how to upgrade your online presence, optimize your profile, boost engagement, and convert casual visitors into loyal listeners, without a big budget.

by CD BABY via DIY Musician

How To Upgrade Your Online Presence in Just One Day

Looking for some quick ways to spruce up your social media? These marketing tips for independent musicians will boost your engagement, grow your network, and improve your online presence immediately without the need for a large budget or expert help. The goal is to help you get the most out of your social media efforts and save your creative energy for your art. Let’s dive in!

Convert visitors to fans with a link hub

Many prospective fans will encounter you first through your social media page. That’s why it’s crucial to make a strong impression and offer ways for visitors to become fans. Adding a HearNow page or other link repository to your bio makes it easy for both first-time visitors and longtime fans to stream your music, buy your merch, book you for shows, and grow relationships just by clicking into your social media profile. 

We suggest adding links to the following:

• Your Website: Convert social media lurkers or followers to real fans.
• Upcoming shows: Provide direct ticket links to reference in show promotion posts.
• Merchandise: We know it’s probably on your website, but it’s worth making a direct link. 
• Streaming services: Make it easy for fans to check out your tunes!
• Band email (if not already present as a button on your social media page): Get connected with promoters, bands, and fans.
• Press: Show off what journalists are saying about your music.
• Pre-Save Links: Build hype around upcoming releases and reference the link in promotion posts.
• Newsletter sign-up: Offer an easy way to stay in touch with fans and grow your audience

Jumpstart your aesthetic online

Pictures that capture you in your element can elevate your social media page and help build your aesthetic and online identity. A lively and thoughtfully curated profile is legitimizing and impressive to a first-time visitor and continuously engaging for fans. But building a profile and translating an aesthetic to the online world can be difficult. The key is finding the spaces, settings, photographers, and creative directions that feel authentic to you. Especially if visuals aren’t your thing, here are a few tips to help you make progress today.

• Invite a photographer to your next show: Get some candid shots of you performing! Text your friend with a camera or email an active photographer in your scene.
• Issue an SOS for a photoshoot: Put the word out over social media, your email list, or local online communities seeking out creative directors and photographers to help you craft an aesthetic.
• Assemble a mood board: Photographers love to work with references. Stalk some bands you love and take screenshots of their profiles or just toss together some photos on Pinterest and see what inspires you. 
• Keep it fun and inspired: Buy a disposable camera and bring it with you on a night out, take selfies of you and your cat. Great shots can be spontaneous, natural, and fun. 
• Document: For better or worse, our phones allow us to document nearly every living moment. Going on tour? Take a photo of the crowd at the end of every night, record a video of that desperate 2AM gas station hot dog, or the figurine your bandmates made out of junk they found under the van seats and doors. Fans love a scrappy series of “here’s what I’m up to and saw” pictures. 

Archive outdated show posters to keep things fresh

Show posters are an excellent way to drum up ticket sales and display your aesthetic, but once the date passes, they become old news. Social media pages with tons of outdated posters can come across as under-maintained and distract from content that ages better. Archive (don’t delete!) these posts to prioritize more evergreen content that visitors to your page will find interesting. 

This tip is pretty simple, but if you don’t feel like regularly refreshing your timeline, post show graphics second or later in a series of other photos, ideally of people. Not only does the algorithm prefer real pictures – this will conceal outdated show posts on your Instagram grid.

Collect Instagram stories to save the good times

If you routinely post a certain story format, collect these stories and save them in the archives at the top of your Instagram page. That makes them available for visitors to click into after they expire. Building up a healthy catalog of saved stories creates a digital scrapbook that fans will love, but they can also serve as additional buttons to plug new content. Here are a few Instagram story collection ideas:

• Live shows: Fan footage from live shows can be great to catalog for fans to reminisce or new visitors to get a sense of your concerts.
• Monthly artist playlists: This can be just one story or several depending on the number of playlists you routinely update
• Merch drops: Save your merch announcements. Stories with pictures of your items and links to buy them can be more engaging than a passive LinkTree button.
• Memorable moments: Any footage or photos of milestones from your music career are worth saving and making available for fans to enjoy!

Follow 10 music journalists to increase visibility

In addition to staying up to date on music news, following music journalists and engaging with their articles and posts (liking, commenting, direct messaging, reposting, etc.) helps put you on their map. That visibility can lead to building relationships with critics, which can come in handy when you’re pitching your upcoming release for coverage. Here are a few tips for finding journalists to follow.

• Album reviews: Find the writers who reviewed your favorite albums, past or recent and follow them.
• Hashtags and industry moments: Look out for viral moments or trends that resonate with you and find the journalists who cover them. 
• Mutual follows: Look out for journalists who follow friends of yours. Your friends might even have a journalists’ email address they might be willing to share!

Pro tip: Just starting out or just not sure where to start with music journalism? Swap out journalists for local bands you love. Giving them a follow, reposting their latest release, or just liking a few of their posts can be the start to a new relationship in your scene. 

Start your makeover and upgrade your online presence today

Set aside time today to implement these tips and improve the appearance, visibility, and effectiveness of your social media profiles immediately. The mix of dynamic marketing links, aesthetic improvements, and quick-fix networking strategies will help grow your profiles in all directions. 

How have these tips changed your social media presence? Any big wins or unexpected challenges? We’d love to hear from you. DM our content team. We’re DIY musicians like you, drawing on our collective experiences and industry research to provide you with tested methods that produce results.