Here's the thing about social media. It's an ESSENTIAL part to your role as an artist. Even your lack thereof of social media use (when done correctly) can establish your branding and your positioning as an artist.

I see a lot of artists and work with a lot of artists who feel constrained by the regimented and time-consuming routine by which they feel they have to use social media, to engage and interact to keep those likes and follows coming in. Here's the thing: you don't HAVE to do anything.

But if you, as the artist, the primary creator of content are unwilling to put in the work, then the buck stops with you. And by doing this you are sending out a clear message that you don't want to create engaged, authentic relationships with people who truly love your music.

Instead of feeling dragged along by the social media grind, change your perspective and take control of your presence on social media. To me there’s just something so empowering about understanding the platform you’re using, and that you’re using it on your terms, to your advantage.

Here are my best tips for getting yourself into the right mindset to tackle your social media presence.

• Figure out which platforms work for you, and which just don’t. If you find Facebook posts time consuming and not that engaging for your target audience, maybe post key updates but include other platforms you’re more present on as your key strategy.
• Learn everything you can about the platforms you’re honing in on. Check out artists with cool social media presences that you can learn from, or check out a few articles or YouTube videos about neat social media tricks to help you level up.
• There is no better way to learn, than to USE the platform. I find great joy is toying with Instagram story in particular, and figuring out hacks for how to easily create posts that suit my needs, by learning how to paste backgrounds onto Spotify shares, or to use the poll function to engage people in all sorts of different ways. Although there are only a couple of features, the possibilities for how you can use them in different combinations for your variety of purposes are endless.
• Fail fast and keep going. A short period of inconsistency is forgivable on social media where people often have the memory of a goldfish. Experiment as much as you can until something sticks, and don’t be afraid to fail. Do it fast, get it over with, and once you’ve found what works, it’s smooth sailing.
• Keep it consistent. Although people have goldfish brains, that’s also why to keep your brand intact, you have to be consistent. To drill the message into their brains time and again. So once you’ve found your angle or ‘thing’ on social media, keep at it.
• Regroup and re-evaluate. Keep an eye on those stats, on the engagement of the posts you’re doing different and try to compare it with engagement of previous posts. Is it working? Is it not? Yes maybe it is working but it’s taking too much time? Remember to keep coming back and evaluating your social media strategy, because things change and you can’t keep doing the same thing forever. And if your strategy isn’t efficient or effective, then it’s time to switch things up again.

And when we talk about whether something is working or isn’t, think past the numbers. As an artist, remember to always go back to your positioning, and evaluate whether what content you’re creating is on brand for you. Another metric that’s really important to me, is time spent. Is the amount of time spent on social media proportionate to the value that you’re getting out of it? Again, when we talk about value, think outside of likes, shares and retweets. Think about the deep conversations you’ve initiated, about the way people resonate with these new messages you’re putting out. Think about how you feel as a content creator in the process. Does this excite you? Feel like a sustainable long-term endeavour that you can manage?

Numbers are great to give you a quick overview of success thus far. But define success for yourself, and then work backwards to figure out how you would like to get there. Don’t let these numbers control you, educate yourself, feel it out, and find what works.

Key Takeaways:

1. Educating yourself and become adept in a social media environment
2. Continuously re-evaluate your social media strategy
3. Think past the numbers!

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