Introduction
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. and many other social media platforms have become vital tools in the contemporary world’s toolbox. Not just one, but every social media platform has unique strengths. So, the question is which is the best social media platforms for musicians?
The audience is largely seen on social platforms and the internet nowadays. As more people adopt the digital changes and streaming into digital channels to engage with the world, various brands compete over their online branding and reputation. Therefore, it becomes imperative to not be present on any social media randomly but on the best social media for artists that provide you with the maximum output from your hard work.
Now musicians, especially those striving to make their presence felt, need their best foot forward in terms of online marketing. It is crucial to be strategic about which social media platforms you should work on to build a presence and brand engagement. Social media marketing for musicians is in itself a significant topic for every artist and DJs as well.
Getting popular on social media and having a personal brand is challenging. Still, when the right strategy and consistency is added with experienced social media marketing, it just becomes time separated. Even if you are low on budget and have minimal resources, here is a list of best social media sites for musicians that can help you break records as far as engagement is concerned.
YouTube
YouTube is undoubtedly the best platform for every music artist to be on.
Founded in 2005, It is the #1 Video sharing platform on the web. There is perhaps no one who does not know what this platform can do—having more than 2billion users a month, where everyday people globally watch billions of hours.
YouTube is also the second-largest search engine in the world using the same engine as Google, which allows you to do SEO for best reach. With online stars getting more recognition these days, YouTube has become the ‘it’ of the music world, with more than 500 hours of video content being uploaded every minute as of 2019.
Not only can one upload videos for free, but YouTube partners can also make money from ad-revenue sharing. It attracts marketers to post their ads in the related content, also helping you to represent your content’s glimpse with your target audience.
YouTube’s video creation app, YouTube Director, also helps with the low-budget creation of high-quality ads using easy-to-use tools.
One’s brand gets a lot of exposure in terms of content as YouTube increases the chances of more shares across social networking platforms as your videos will be easy to share and embed-friendly.
Additionally, it is no news that watching videos on the go has been made possible by YouTube. It is accessible on a broad range of devices and operating systems. With over 70% of YouTube’s watch time and views coming from mobile devices, users are watching more videos than ever before, providing a larger audience for an artist.
Plus, here are several secrets on driving organic traffic to your videos on YouTube and ranking higher in search results. Here are few tips to get successful in your social media strategy for musicians on YouTube:
- Irresistible Thumbnails are like the entry gate to your content.
- Captivating and engaging videos.
- Upload your video at least once a week.
- Interact with the community, collaborate, and use advertising to boost your reach.
- One of the most important things is to do proper research of the targeting keywords and use them in your video title, description, and tags. This will help the search engine to understand your video and present it to the relevant audience.
Here is a site that can help you find keywords for your type of music. We have made a separate blog for YouTube video optimization. Do check that out for the best shot of your music on YouTube.
As far as the cons are concerned, it is always good to know that your control over your YouTube content is limited. YouTube hosts related videos shown alongside your videos. Related videos have the potential to divert attention away from your brand. YouTube controls associated videos with your content. Although if your content also has high credits, it will also appear.
Let’s take a compiled list of the pros and cons of YouTube.
| Pros | Cons |
| 1. Increase your brand experience | 1. Reduced control of your brand |
| 2. Potential to go viral | 2. Lost traffic to other channels |
| 3. Drive social and easy shares | |
| 4. Better SEO rankings | |
| 5. Free uploading and creation | |
| 6. Customizability and categorization of your channel. | |
| 8. Earning money |
With 2.6 billion users a month, Facebook is the biggest social networking site on earth’s face today and, probably, even you are also on it. This platform has evolved a lot with time, offering an amazing platform for your music career.
Facebook provides a lot of features to help you grow as an artist. Here are a few of them:
Facebook Groups: Facebook gives you an option to get associated with groups in various niche. Groups are made on every industry. Almost every variety of groups focus on a particular topic you might be interested in. Through this, you can interact with many music communities, collaborate with them, and always be updated on what’s hot.
- Facebook Pages: To become an artist, musician, or any influencer you must have your page along with your profile page, here you can share your recordings, pics, updates, and even behind-the-scenes shots. This where your audience engages with you directly and know their opinions through polls and showcase reactions.
- Facebook Live: Although it is part of the Facebook page and profile, it is still worth considering a separate entity of itself. Because of the global pandemic and lockdown, it has impacted the music industry badly. Especially the live events. Live interactions through Facebook live and on other social media platforms is the new in and helps artists to connect with their fanbase by making paid events.
- Promotions: It is a great tool to market your content as a musician and make it more discoverable on the platform, leading your brand to high reach and followers if your content is worth it.
Although Facebook is still among the best social media for musicians, you should know about the cons. Facebook doesn’t have a strong search engine like YouTube so there is not much you can get from SEO perspective and also Algorithm changes can reduce reach overnight. This has become more critical with time due to increased competition.
| Pros | Cons |
| 1. A wider target customer reach | 1. Doesn’t have a strong search engine |
| 2. Creates a dialogue between your brand and your audience | 2. Algorithm changes can reduce reach overnight |
| 3. Create greater buzz for events and provide a place and platform where you can invite your audience to various happenings | 3. Cost of maintenance has skyrocketed as the platform continues to grow more popular, paid promotions are a way to cater to a larger audience |
| 4. A place to poll your audience and help you to gain closer insights on their liking. |
Instagram became popular as a photo-sharing social media app, currently having 1 billion monthly active users. It is among the best social media platforms for musicians to expand reach, especially when your target audience is youth.
Instagram originally started with a photo-sharing app, but with time there were many expansions in its features like stories, short videos, Live and Instagram TV (IGTV).
The best way to use Instagram is to upload attractive pictures. It is the best platform to showcase your personality and work through pics. Stories feature become popularised from Snapchat but later adopted by Instagram. It is a perfect way to share real-time with your audiences largely.
Short video allows you to share a short 60-sec video, which you can use to give a sneak peek into your upcoming recording, event, and other things like behind the scenes. A more expanded version of this is the IGTV, where most people have access to post video with over 10mins duration. However, famous people have access to upload over 60mins.
Few tips to post like a pro on Instagram:
- Post every day or several times in a day.
- Post stories at least thrice a week and short videos once a week and tag relevant handles associated in the making (if applicable).
- Make connections and engage with a similar community through comments and reactions.
A shortcoming of Instagram is worth noticing that you can’t put links in the posts, which is a huge deal-breaker for many.
To cater, you need to make a constant link of probably your website or event page where you want more footfall and embed it in the bio.
| Pros | Cons |
| 1. More Youth as a target customer | 1. Don’t have a strong search engine |
| 2. Creates a dialogue between your brand and your audience | 2. you can’t put links in the posts |
| 3. Create greater buzz for events and connect with the audience informally |
Twitter is a very different and powerful platform as compared to the others social media platforms for musicians that we have discussed so far. It is a credible platform for a personal branding that helps individuals connect with individuals/communities. Twitter gives a character limit to convey your message or happenings shortly and more crisply and gives an option to communicate with others as thread. However, some musicians may not even consider as an option to publish their song on but they can always give the links. You should also be aware of its potential; it is still amongst the most used social media platforms having over a 340million users.
Twitter is all about staying updated on who you follow through tweets and sharing yours. One of the best uses of Twitter for an artist is to use it as a source to feed your mainstream platforms, though you can also use it to post professional pictures to increase brand awareness as well. Here you can easily cross-post through Facebook and Instagram, Share the links of your recordings in the Tweets.
Few tips to get success on Twitter:
- Tweet several times per day.
- Be updated on hashtags trending related to your subject and use them in your tweets.
- Retweet, Like, and comment with others positively influentially to gain reach.
- Advertise.
- Say it in crisp yet powerful manner. Let the conversation exceed in the thread.
SoundCloud
SoundCloud is comparatively new to the users, especially in India, though it was founded in 2007 and has monthly users over 175 million. SoundCloud is slowly getting popularized globally, still, it is one of the best platforms for music artists. It is specifically designed for music enthusiasts and helping the music artists who are building their careers.
SoundCloud allows you to freely upload your music and share it with any platform with the easy embedding of the player on any website or blog. This is highly beneficial to gain high reach on SoundCloud and share compatibility across the community.
It is highly beneficial for a beginner to use SoundCloud to make a portfolio of his music. Though there aren’t many options to engage with your audience here, but at the same time, many music bloggers won’t even review your music if it is not on SoundCloud. It is easy to set up your account, organize the stuff and share your music with the fans.
You can also earn money using SoundCloud; this is quite beneficial for all beginners. You can learn how to monetize your SoundCloud profile.
Few tips to get success on SoundCloud:
- Upload your music consistently
- Interact with the community, especially in your niche, and commenting on other tracks.
- Share your SoundCloud link on your other social platforms.
- Pitch your music to outlets or other music bloggers to get the coverage.
Wrap up
The influence of social media is huge in each and everyone’s life and it doesn’t look like it is going to change anytime sooner. So, if any music artist (solo or band) wants to focus on growing their work in masses can be done through social media platforms.
You might be thinking, where is TikTok, Drooble Band camp, Pinterest, ReverbNation, and others on the list??
Though these platforms help you to become famous in bits, digging 100 small holes will not give you water, but digging a 100times deep hole can.
It is essential to be focused even on social media platforms. It is not about being present everywhere, but being present where you can find the right set of audience and fanbase.
Hope you learned something valuable in your career.
Please share it with your friends and leave us a comment here for suggestions.
