Social media is one of the important parts of any musician’s marketing strategy – it provides a method of connecting with fans, advertising merchandise, and talking about important issues.
While there are many artists who are brilliant at social media, I’ve selected five who have actionable lessons you can apply to your own accounts.
From Harmony Tividad to Taylor Swift, these are the musicians that can help teach you some important lessons.
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Harmony Tividad: Use social as a stream of consciousness
As one part of Girlpool (indie rock’s finest duo), Harmony Tividad is perfectly positioned to wax lyrical on social media about the scene she’s part of. However, while you’ll find such tidbits on her social media accounts, that’s not the lesson you should take – follow Harmony’s example and treat your channels as a stream of consciousness.
Take this tweet as an example of how Harmony lets her thoughts spill out:
There’s no agenda here, it’s simply what she’s doing at that exact moment. The benefit of adopting such a strategy is that it makes you more relatable to your fans – they trust that you’re not trying to persuade them of anything, building a stronger connection between them and your music. The offshoot of this is that is they may be more inclined to recommend you to their friends – not only do you make great music, but you’re also genuine.
Beyoncé: Control your image carefully
One important thing to keep in mind on social media that the world’s eyes are upon you, and, as Rooney Mara’s character explains in The Social Network, “the internet’s not written in pencil, it’s written in ink.” As a true megastar, Beyoncé is more aware of this than most and it’s why she controls her image carefully on social media.
This is not to say that Beyoncé is bland, corporate, and distant – far from it, as she still uploads the occasional candid post. But what it means is that every post published on her channels has been given careful consideration. This isn’t to say you can’t post a stream of consciousness, just that you should choose what streams you upload!
Alice Glass: Be funny whenever you
Alice Glass is a Canadian songwriter and former frontwoman of the agro-electro duo, Crystal Castles. Alice is known for her provocative stage performances (having seen Crystal Castles I can confirm this to be true!) and her social media activity is no different.
However, ‘online Alice’ has a much funnier presence than often witnessed on stage – it’s this lesson you should take from her, to use humour whenever possible.
As with every comedian, one thing you should consider when composing a hilarious tweet or post is how your audience will receive it – while Alice’s fans will adore quips like the following tweet, not everyone will:
A real benefit of using humour is that it endears you to people (it’s one of the best psychological tricks to get others to like you), and it will help you to achieve the primary social media marketing strategy objective – audience engagement. What this means is that you can then take greater liberties with your posts – specifically, pitching your merch to them (as Alice does).
Kim Gordon: Celebrate your fans
While music fans are a notoriously loyal bunch, they’re also known for their strong opinions. Why does this matter? Because if you don’t give your fans some social media love they may get feisty and leave – or worse, use their social accounts to turn on you.
Kim Gordan is alt and indie rock royalty, having contributed bass, guitar, vocals, songwriting, and direction to Sonic Youth – one of the most influential groups of both genres. However, despite her high status, Kim knows she needs to show her fans love, and regularly acts on it.
There are a few ways that Kim shows her fans love, from a basic thank you to a detailed reply to their tweets and posts. But perhaps the most impressive example was when she turned her fans’ tweets into artwork.
The brilliant thing about this is that it didn’t only build a connection with her fans, but it also made them contributors – and what more could any fan ask for than to be able to collaborate with their hero!
While you may not wish to use this exact example, there are many things you can do that get the same effect – such as asking them to send lyrical ideas for your songs, contribute artwork for your LP, EP, or single covers.
Taylor Swift: Include great images
Taylor Swift is famous for her mastery of social media – in one of the most brilliant music marketing campaigns of recent times, she deleted her accounts ahead of the launch of 2017 album Reputation. But while extreme tactics are one of her weapons, she’s also an expert at the more sedate approaches – one of which is including great images on her accounts.
You’ll spend a long time scrolling through Taylor’s social channels before you find a bad image she’s upload. With that in mind, here’s a recent example:
While you might not have the same photography budget as Taylor, there’s one trick you can borrow from her – you absolutely must (OK, wherever possible) upload original images. They’ll add uniqueness to your accounts and allow you to upload your identity, not someone else’s.
There are plenty of musicians who are killing it on social media, but these five artists all employ tactics that are simple and effective. So, try them out on your own accounts and see if you can drive up that all-important fan engagement!
