Tag: strategy | Pay Kolmüs

As I described in previous articles, Social Media is one of the biggest ways to connect to your audience. It is also a way to capture the attention of promoters, publishers, booking agents, labels etc. These all consist of people that could be your audience, as fans of your music, but they also look at the marketing potential and of course the profit potential of the artist and their music. When you are a popular artist with big hits already, it doesn’t matter so much what and how you put things out on the internet, you have already established a fan base. But how do you grab the right attention, when you are just beginning? Aside from an entire social media strategy, here are a few important tips on how to use social media channels.

1. Be authentic. Don’t try to create a certain image, just for social media, to be more loveable or to gain more followers or likes. Just be yourself. Your music also reflects who you are. You don’t want that to clash with an “online persona”. Make sure you have your information in your bio and that links are active.

2. Make sure that the balance between your own posts and reposts/shares is correct. When you are still in the process of building a following, give those people posts that are about you and from you. Don’t have your entire feed consist out of other people’s posts, quotes (unless a quote out of your lyrics or something) or memes.

3. It’s ok to mix personal and business posts. It doesn’t only have to be about your new music, or shows. Let the potential fans see that you are a person that they can relate to. Who does every day things. Let them get to know the person behind the music as well. They may start listening to your music, because they like the person. But here also counts, make sure there is enough balance between personal and business. After all, you are trying to promote your art first.

4. There’s no need to use every social media channel there is. If you have one or a few that work great for you, stick by it. If you are comfortable using Twitter and build a following on there, there is no need to force yourself to do the same thing through a channel that you are not feeling comfortable with. Focus on what works for you and use that to build and promote with.

5. If you have someone managing your social media channels for you, make sure that’s known, or that they only handle things out of your name and person. This way you keep your authenticity, even if someone else is helping you maintain your channels.

These are 5 basic things that will help you create your online presence on social media in a consistent way. Too much contradiction as a beginning artist, will only ensure people will lose interest and quickly gravitate towards the next big thing or highlighted artist. If you don’t have an entire strategy, using your social media channels with the above given advice will get you a long way.

Being exposed to what everyone does, every day, non-stop, there’s a lot of pressure keeping up with that fast pace. Especially in the music/entertainment industry. Every day new songs come out, albums are released, video’s are put online. A lot of artists release free music, instead of waiting on a label, just to stay relevant. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it works in their favor.

How do you know what to do and when to do it?

First, before society became over-exposed, most artists actually created art. They stayed true to their art instead of being in a rush to put something out there. Quality is very important. Just because there will be a group of people/fans, who will buy music, doesn’t mean it’s something of the same level quality as put out before. As an artist, you have to really think about what it is that you want. What do you want to accomplish with your music? How do you want to put yourself out there? How do you want to be perceived as an artist? Not just by your potential fans, but also in the eyes of other artists, your peers and people you may possible want to work with in the future. Below are a few steps that will help in prioritizing.

First figure out what type of artist you are. Why do you make music/create art? Is it for yourself or for other people? Really be honest with yourself.
Make a general long term plan (5-10 years) for yourself. Then make a short term plan based on this plan (12-18 months).
Determine how you want to reach your goals (number of album releases etc.) for the coming year.
Find out which (media) channels work best for you, and how you can maximize those, to use them for the coming year, to help reach your goals.
Create a strategy based off of #4, so you have everything laid out for you, only having to create the content (music/art), without thinking about the rest.

The 5 steps above will help you figure out what is most important right now for you. It also helps in making those important things happen, without being all over the place with everything. The steps lead to a plan for you to work on, to stay focused, but this plan can always be adjusted if you come across things along the way, or if you go faster or slower than planned. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that you don’t let others distract you from your focus, from your plan. Patrick Lencioni (business management) said it best: “If everything is important, then nothing is important.”

If you need any help figuring out what you need to do first, how to prioritise or need help with putting together a strategy plan, let me know. You can reach me through the contact form or through info@paykolmus.com.

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Prioritizing: Making Choices that Work