If you’re a music artists, you know first-hand that this career involves more than just making music. You can spend all the time in the world creating music, but if you don’t do anything to get your music in front of people then you’re wasting your time. And if you don’t do anything to build an engaging fanbase you won’t be making any money off of your art.
Getting featured on blogs or playlists or even running ads, may be the first promotional tools you think of, but there’s many other things you can do to gain exposure and build a fanbase. Check out this list to learn 5 important things you should be doing to further your career as a music artist.
Tips For Music Artists Who Want Their Music To Reach More Fans
Optimize Your Profiles
Are all of your profiles across each platform fully optimized? Most likely not. Your social profiles represent your brand and show potential fans why you are worth paying attention to.
If you don’t have fully optimized profiles you may be seen as an insignificant music artist. You need to give people a reason to take a chance on your music instead of just listening to what’s popular.
Here are some things you can do to optimize your profiles on different platforms:
- Take advantage of Instagram and Tik Tok by switching your profile to a business profile.
- Add your location to all platforms. This helps you get featured in articles like “10 Atlanta Rappers You Should be Supporting in 2021.”
- Utilize a linktr.ee or similar on all profiles to feature multiple links in one place.
- Use Canva to add text and eye-catching graphics to your content.
- Get professional photos taken of you and update all of your profile pictures with the same picture. Also post pictures of yourself consistently to put a face to the music.
- For Spotify make sure you activate your Spotify for Artists. From there you can optimize your profile by uploading a header image, creating a biography (utilizing hyperlinks), linking your social profiles, uploading images to the image gallery, showcasing a song or album on ‘Artist Pick’, showcasing playlists, and the ability to choose a fundraiser.
Curate and Pin a Playlist to your Spotify Artist Profile
Spotify has a feature allowing artists to pin playlists to their profiles. Take advantage of this feature by curating a playlist of your influences and similar artists. Your fans are likely to follow this as they are looking for music similar to yours. Make sure to feature all of your music throughout this playlist. This will allow your songs to rack up streams at a faster pace. Whenever you have a new release, make sure to add it to this playlist. This gives your new song immediate exposure to some of your biggest fans. This also helps Spotify identify similar artists to feature on your profile.
Create and Optimize your Website
When you want to search for something, chances are you are using a search engine like Google or Bing. Same goes for when someone is trying to learn more information about you and your music. Take advantage of this by creating a website showcasing everything about your music career. There are many do-it-yourself website services like Wix and and SquareSpace, but if you’re a musician your best option is Bandzoogle.
On your website you should have multiple pages including an about page, a music page, a video page, a photo page, a page showcasing all of your press, a page showcasing your gigs, and a contact page. You can even have a blog page to keep your fans updated on what you are up to and any new releases. Make sure to include a place for people to sign up for your email list. Most importantly put links to your music and social medias on every page.
Be Active on LinkedIn
As a musician you may not think you belong on LinkedIn, but you absolutely do. Take advantage of this platform by adding music industry professionals and other musicians to your network. Specifically add A&R’s and people that work for companies that you’d like to be signed by or work with. Also add musicians that you believe you could potentially collaborate with. While you don’t have to spend time sending a ton of messages, don’t be shy asking for advice by those you admire. Certainly don’t be shy connecting with other musicians.
Use this platform to update your connections on new releases, events, milestones, and press. Make sure to post in a professional tone with perfect grammar. Being consistent is key because you want your connections to notice you frequently. You never know who is watching, and who may be willing to take a chance on you!
Engage with your Fans
You may already be doing this, but you probably aren’t doing it as personal as you should be. Don’t just engage with fans by liking and replying to their comments. Actually repost stories or posts they promote and tag you in. Comment on their personal posts and follow those that engage with you consistently. By supporting your fans, you will find that they will be more engaging and supportive towards you. In fact, a musician can live on 1,000 true fans but you must put work in to create an engaging community of fans that will support anything you do.
A great way to build a tight knit and interactive community is by live streaming on Twitch. This is one of the best ways to show fans your personality and interact with them in real time. You can also create a Discord server or a street team to keep all of your biggest fans in one centralized place, making it easier to engage with them. You can even utilize other platforms, just think about where your fans and target market spend most of their time online.
The amount of time and hard work that goes into creating music needs to be worth it. Utilize these suggestions to get your music in front of people and build an engaging fanbase.
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